Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Wed Dec 15 00:49:41 UTC 2010

I'm surprised that no one seems to think that "bandwidth" is really just a series of interconnects. If indeed their links are saturated, they are probably either near an upgrade point (if their forecasting was correct) or trying to negotiate one (if their forecasting is bad or there is a sudden new leech on bandwidth, like streaming video). It's not free, it's never quick and easy. The best thing that can happen is that they are either adding additional links to TATA (which requires TATA, any carrier facilities, and any LECs) to reach an agreement to complete the interconnect, or they are looking at sending traffic to another link.

Usually, the balance is between the most direct link to a source, or the most efficient use of resources on the network. There is a balance to be found. No matter what the agenda, no service provider actively tries to make their customers angry - Their job is to be transparent. The problems arise naturally, if I move your bandwidth to provider B where I have free bandwidth, your "ping" increases by 20 ms, the path is not as direct, and complaints roll in.

There is no single provider that ever has or ever will be completely ahead of the curve all of the time. It's a constant infrastructure build.

As for the Comcast take on content, it's not a new one, not unique to Comcast, but completely foreign to the American consumer. I think both require re-education and a new plan.
________________________________________
From: Douglas Otis [dotis at mail-abuse.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 4:23 PM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

On 12/14/10 2:38 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 03:39:07PM -0600, Aaron Wendel wrote:
>> >  To what end?  And who's calling the shots there these days?  Comcast
>> >  has been nothing but shady for the last couple years.  Spoofing
>> >  resets, The L3 issue, etc.  What's the speculation on the end game?
> I believe Comcast has made clear their position that they feel content
> providers should be paying them for access to their customers.
The Internet would offer lesser value by allowing access providers to
hold their customers hostage.  Clearly, such providers are not acting in
their customer's interests when inhibiting access to desired and
legitimate content.  What is net neutrality expected to mean?

Providers should charge a fair price for bandwidth offered, not over
sell the bandwidth, and not constrain bandwidth below advertised rates.
Congestion pricing rewards bad practices that leads to the congestion.

-Doug