Verizon Public Policy on Netflix

Thu Jul 17 07:51:03 UTC 2014

On 17 July 2014 00:57, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:

> If Netflix had a closed or limited peering policy, then I'd say "shame on
> Netlfix". If Netflix only peered
> in an exchange point or two near corporate HQ and didn't have an extensive
> nationwide network, I'd
> say shame on Netflix. Reality is that Netflix is in most of the major
> peering centers already and continues
> to work aggressively to expand into more and more second-tier and
> third-tier peering centers. I'd say
> that is Netflix paying their share. Further, for providers that aren't in
> peering centers Netflix is in, they
> have offered a variety of alternative solutions and they pay a selection
> of transit providers to move the
> bits to providers they can't economically connect to directly.
>

Except they don't. Excuse me for talking about the world outside America.
Netflix believes Denmark is an important enough market to pay for danish
subtitles for their entire catalog and to have Denmark as a launch market
for their service in Europe. But they can't be bothered to have a physical
presence in Denmark. We have to go to a different country and a long way at
that, to get to Stockholm in Sweden, where Netflix peers at the Netnod IX.

Some danish ISPs do peer at Netnod, but it is only the ones that are big
enough to qualify for a cache anyway. It is not economical to buy a link to
Stockholm. Transit is cheaper, so that is what we are all doing.

Then Netflix announces that you have to either have a cache or to peer
directly with Netflix to get Super HD. This is a case of reverse net
neutrality: The content provider is filtering content to ISPs that wont pay
the transit bill for the content provider. "for the content provider" not
"to the content provider". We pay our transit, it should not be our problem
how Netflix pays theirs.

Luckily this is so far only theory. We still get the Super HD. Either
Netflix never implemented the policy or one of our transit providers made a
deal with Netflix. I am not sure which one.

But nevertheless even threatening to play reverse net neutrality games is
NOT being the good guy.

If transit is too expensive for Netflix, they should put in a shared cache
at the danish IX (DIX) in Copenhagen. We would all be happy to peer with
Netflix at that location. If Netflix chooses to host the cache at Interxion
they also get access to the Netnod IX that covers Denmark and southern
Sweden, a metropolitan area of more than 10 million people.

Regards,

Baldur