Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

Fri Dec 3 00:19:51 UTC 2010

On Thu, 2 Dec 2010, Matthew Petach wrote:

> So, one wonders why Level3 didn't just say "look, I'm the vendor,
> you're the customer; the customer pays the vendor for service,
> period.

There's no wonder here at all.  It's not at all hard to imagine the 
conversation:

Level3:  I'm the vendor, you're the customer; the customer pays the vendor 
for service, period.

Comcast:  Okay vendor, we aren't going to pay you any more.  Go ahead and 
shut down our circuits.  We'll go ahead and pay you the early termination 
penalties or whatever, but keep in mind that the Level3 network has no way 
to reach Comcast through any other path thanks to our clever routing 
tricks, so your customers, including Netflix, won't be able to reach our 
customers.

Level3:  But, but, but, you are the customer!

Comcast:  Go ahead, shut us down, we dare you.  Perhaps you'll want to 
find someone to buy transit from that CAN reach us?

I have to say, it's not that hard to imagine because it's exactly what I 
would have done in their position.  If I were them, I would then proceed 
to do the exact same thing to every other "vendor" that they have until 
they are a transit free network.  Then I might even start demanding 
payments from my peers.  Why not?  Comcast has all the power.

It's exactly what the government has incentivized them to do by allowing 
them to have all of those cable monopolies around the country.  That's 
right, government is the real problem here, Comcast is simply acting in 
their own best interest.  Now where did I put that CMCS stock...

-- 
Brandon Ross                                              AIM:  BrandonNRoss
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