"Internet interconnection has nothing to do with net neutrality; it’s all about Netflix wanting to unfairly shift its costs from its customers to all Internet customers, regardless of whether they subscribe to Netflix or not."
Really it's Comcast's customers who are using Netflix and those customers are paying them for an X Mbps connection. I don't see what difference it makes if the data comes from Netflix or some other source. It sounds like what Comcast really wants are data caps for their users but those don't do well with consumers. Instead they're targeting the largest content suppliers.
>It sounds like what Comcast really wants are data caps for their users but those don't do well with consumers. Instead they're targeting the largest content suppliers.
This is exactly the issue. The ISPs got themselves into a corner. They created a market of unlimited plans and can't back out from that, so can't charge more to their own heavy users who are the cause of the need for network upgrades. Since a lot of that heavy use is of paid services, they figure they can go after that money pool instead.
> With this logic, why should anyone have to pay for hosting bandwidth?
Because you still have to get the traffic from the datacenter to the peering point. That's what you're buying when you pay for hosting bandwidth -- transit. You're paying somebody to get the traffic to all the networks in the whole world.
The last mile provider isn't providing transit. You peer with them at their facility. The connection from their customers to their facility was paid for by their customers. The connection from their facility to yours is provided by you (or by the actual transit provider you paid). So what would you be paying them for?
It's nothing but a monopoly rent you have to pay because there is no other way to reach their customers.
So, if Netflix just increases data that viewers are sending it, it's okay?
So if Netflix adds
setInterval('EqualizeBandwidth',1000/24)
function EqualizeBandwidth(){
$.post('netflix.com/dosbox', {data:randomLongStringEqualtoVideoFrame+1});
}
Then comcast will pay them. (And most subscribers will be fine if they only watch < 31 movies a month given an 8gb movie.)
But bonus if netflix causes every one of their customers to hit the 250gb cap and therefore hate comcast. Any politician that has family trying to watch netflix would complain of overages then and shut comcast out.
If you're willing to hand off traffic to Comcast at any and all points of their choosing (aka cold-potato routing), then I'd say you should get free peering because you're doing Comcast such a favor.
Really it's Comcast's customers who are using Netflix and those customers are paying them for an X Mbps connection. I don't see what difference it makes if the data comes from Netflix or some other source. It sounds like what Comcast really wants are data caps for their users but those don't do well with consumers. Instead they're targeting the largest content suppliers.