"potential new and different architectural approach" to solve the Comcast - L3 dispute

Sat Dec 18 06:07:15 UTC 2010

On 12/18/2010 12:38 AM, Steve Schultze wrote:
> http://blog.comcast.com/2010/12/comcasts-responds-to-level-3s-fcc-filing.html
> 

I very much doubt whether my comment on the blog will survive their
moderation process, so here it is:

===
I am a Comcast residential HSI customer, and have many clients who are
business HSI Comcast customers.  At the same time, I do maintain servers
in my own racks at a datacenter.

What is not mentioned in this letter, is that Comcast is already being
paid - by me, and by every other customer, for access to the content.

Note that Comcast has never said that the Level3/Netflix issue is about
users exceeding their allotted bandwidth (currently at about 250GB/month
for residential); presumably, were a Comcast user to use 249GB of
bandwidth downloading cute pictures of cats, Comcast would have no
objection.

It appears to be the specific issue that Netflix is a possible
competitor to Comcast's TV business, that somehow causes Comcast to
decide that there is a problem.

Understand this:  every Netflix video to be streamed, is specifically
requested by a Comcast user, operating under the Comcast-advertised
"High Speed Internet" service and presumably within the bandwidth caps
that Comcast's own contract allows.

That Comcast presumes to have the right to limit, modify, or decide for
me which pieces of the Internet I can have access to, removes Comcast's
common carrier protections, calls into question the truth of your
advertisements for the HSI service, and raises the issue of whether
Comcast is dealing in bad faith with each and every Comcast HSI subscriber.

====

--Patrick