MESSAGE
| DATE | 2014-05-06 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Fwd: Net neutrality emergency
|
http://www.vox.com/2014/5/5/5683642/five-big-internet-providers-are-slowing-down-internet-access-until
Five big US internet providers are slowing down Internet access until
they get more cash
Updated by Timothy B. Lee on May 5, 2014, 1:10 p.m. ET
Tweet Share Print
ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
Don't miss stories. Follow Vox!
Follow
If you're the customer of a major American internet provider, you might
have been noticing it's not very reliable lately. If so, there's a
pretty good chance that a graph like this is the reason:
Route_info_1-1024x202
These graphs comes from Level 3, one of the world's largest providers of
"transit," or long-distance internet connectivity. The graph on the left
shows the level of congestion between Level 3 and a large American ISP
in the Dallas area. In the middle of the night, the connection is less
than half-full and everything works fine. But during peak hours, the
connection is saturated. That produces the graph on the right, which
shows the packet loss rate. When the loss rate is high, thousands of
Dallas-area consumers are having difficulty using bandwidth-heavy
applications like Netflix, Skype, or YouTube (though to be clear, Level
3 doesn't say what specific kind of traffic was being carried over this
link).
This isn't how these graphs are supposed to look. Level 3 swaps traffic
with 51 other large networks, known as peers. For 45 of those networks,
the utilization graph looks more like this:
Route_info_2-1024x158
The graph on the left shows that there is enough capacity to handle
demand even during peak hours. As a result, you get the graph at the
right, which shows no problems with dropped packets.
So what's going on? Level 3 says the six bandwidth providers with
congested links are all "large Broadband consumer networks with a
dominant or exclusive market share in their local market." One of them
is in Europe, and the other five are in the United States.
Level 3 says its links to these customers suffer from "congestion that
is permanent, has been in place for well over a year and where our peer
refuses to augment capacity. They are deliberately harming the service
they deliver to their paying customers. They are not allowing us to
fulfill the requests their customers make for content."
The basic problem is those six broadband providers want Level 3 to pay
them to deliver traffic. Level 3 believes that's unreasonable. After
all, the ISPs' own customers have already paid these ISPs to deliver the
traffic to them. And the long-standing norm on the internet is that
endpoint ISPs pay intermediaries, not the other way around. Level 3
notes that "in countries or markets where consumers have multiple
broadband choices (like the UK) there are no congested peers." In short,
broadband providers that face serious competition don't engage in this
kind of brinksmanship.
Unfortunately, most parts of the US suffer from a severe lack of
broadband competition. And the leading ISPs in some of these markets
appear to view network congestion not as a technical problem to be
solved so much as an opportunity to gain leverage in negotiations with
other networks.
Card 13 of 17 Launch cards
Netflix has been forced to cut private deals with ISPs. Is that
undermining net neutrality?
In February, Netflix agreed to pay Comcast to ensure that its videos
would play smoothly for Comcast customers. The company signed a similar
deal with Verizon in April. Netflix signed these deals because its
customers had been experiencing declining speeds for several months
beforehand. Netflix realized it would be at a competitive disadvantage
if it didn't pay for speedier service. After its payment to Comcast,
Netflix's customers experienced a 67 percent improvement in their
average connection speed.
Netflix has accused Comcast of deliberately provoking the crisis by
refusing to upgrade its network to accommodate Netflix traffic, leaving
Netflix with little choice but to pay a "toll." That might sound like a
classic network neutrality violation. But surprisingly, leading network
neutrality proposals wouldn't affect this kind of agreement at all.
That's because Comcast wasn't technically offering Netflix a "fast lane"
on an existing connection. Instead, Netflix paid Comcast to accept a
whole new connection. The terms of these agreements, known as "peering,"
have always been negotiated in an unregulated market, and network
neutrality regulations don't apply to them.
In theory, Netflix's deal with Comcast doesn't violate network
neutrality because everyone on this new pipe (e.g. only Netflix) is
treated the same, just as everyone on the old, overloaded pipe gets
equal treatment. But it's hard to see any practical difference between
the kind of "fast lane" agreement network neutrality supporters have
campaigned against and Netflix paying Comcast for a faster connection.
So why hasn't interconnection been a bigger part of the network
neutrality debate? Until recently, it was unheard of for a residential
broadband provider like Comcast to demand payment to deliver traffic to
its own customers. Traditionally, residential broadband companies would
accept traffic from the largest global "backbone" networks such as Level
3 for free. So anyone could reach Comcast customers by routing their
traffic through a third network. That limited Comcast's leverage.
But recently, the negotiating position of backbone providers has
weakened while the position of the largest residential ISPs —
especially Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T — has gotten stronger. As a
consequence, the network neutrality debate will be increasingly linked
to the debate over interconnection. Refusing to upgrade a slow link to a
company is functionally equivalent to configuring an Internet router to
put the company's packets in a virtual slow lane. Regulations that try
to protect net neutrality without regulating the terms of
interconnection are going to be increasingly ineffective.
Everything you need to know about network neutrality 17 Cards / Edited
By Timothy B. Lee Updated Apr 29 2014, 4:10p
`:wq
|
|
