The FCC is planning new net neutrality rules. And they could enshrine pay-for-play. - The Washington Post

Mon Apr 28 14:24:17 UTC 2014

* ops.lists at gmail.com (Suresh Ramasubramanian) [Mon 28 Apr 2014, 15:27 CEST]:
>Comcast sells wholesale transit - 
>http://www.comcast.com/dedicatedinternet/?SCRedirect=true
>
>And it has a settlement free peering policy - with a stated 
>requirement that traffic exchanged be symmetrical.

How is that possibly realistic?  They have 22 million customers (soon 
to become 29) with wildly asymmetrical connections and a very typical 
consumption pattern.

Should Netflix change its apps that they upload an equal amount of 
bandwidth back to Netflix's servers to balance this out?  That way 
lies madness.

SBC had a much saner policy, from their 2006 SFI peering guidelines 
document: "No requirement for a balanced traffic exchange ratio due 
primarily to the asymmetric nature of current broadband metallic 
transmission systems such as ADSL and cable modems." (Then AT&T 
happened.)

>Now, that big elephant in the room taken into account, where do the 
>middlemen come in here?

Middlemen as in transit providers?  The world is larger than Comcast's 
coverage area so there is a very good market for your middlemen.

	-- Niels.

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