In short: if you're in the US, you're paying your ISP for a certain amount of bandwidth, but your ISP is <i>not</i> giving it to you, because its connections to middlemen like Level 3 are maxed out. Level 3 proposes to split the cost of expanding those connections (as is common), but your ISP refuses unless it gets additional payment from Level 3, Netflix, or someone else. Meanwhile, you don't get the bandwidth you've purchased from your ISP.<p>That doesn't seem right to me.
I enjoy seeing those MRTG/RRDtool graphs everywhere. I find it so surreal that $X Billions in infrastructure, that is forwarding $Y Billion of internet traffic. All monitored by a single tool created by one guy from Switzerland.<p>Since this is HN: yes I realize that there has been substantial work subsequently, and that cacti/munin/nagios etc.. are more commonly used.
Here's the part that doesn't make sense to me, and hopefully someone can explain it:<p>Netflix pays Level 3 and Cogent to connect them to Comcast's network. Comcast claims that only the Level 3 connection is saturated, and that Netflix is sending all their bandwidth over Level 3 because it's cheaper for them.<p>Doesn't Level 3 buy a contract from Comcast that says "we get to send this much data per month"? If Netflix (or Level 3) tries to push more data through that, which causes congestion, it seems like a contractual fact that Comcast is either holding up their end of the bargain or not.<p>If that's true, and assuming that Comcast is transferring the contractually agreed upon part, isn't this actually Netflix and Level 3's fault? Isn't it reasonable to assume that Netflix would need to either use another entry point into Comcast's network, or build one?<p>If Netflix/Level 3 congest one entry point, so movies stream slowly for Comcast users, it doesn't seem like Comcast is being unneutral, in the sense of packet inspection and routing based on content/source.<p>The problem seems upstream from the last mile networks, and it's very unclear to me whose fault it is, and if this even has anything to do with net neutrality at all (it doesn't seem to).<p>Please correct me where I'm wrong, I'm sure I am!
If this is a game of chicken, Level 3 and Cogent should play it to the end game. They are powerful enough to get Comcast and the other ISPs to concede. Just null route any interconnect that consistently drops packets and fails to get negotiated for an upgrade. The catch? It must be done by both L3 and Cogent.<p>Comcast is playing the monopoly card against what is an oligopoly of backbone providers. Comcast isn't strategically as well positioned as their actions would indicate.<p>It is one thing for Comcast to have degraded Netflix service. It is a different thing to present their customers with access to only half of the Internet .
Level 3's filing with the FCC about this: <a href="http://www.level3.com/~/media/Assets/legal/l3_openinternet_march2014.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.level3.com/~/media/Assets/legal/l3_openinternet_m...</a>
If Comcast doesn't like the amount of bandwidth their customers use watching Netflix, they always have the option to notify their customers and null-route or otherwise stop Netflix from working at all. However while it "works" but sucks they appear to be doing their jobs while their customers blame Netflix for sucking while largely being unaware that it's actually Comcast that sucks.
If you are experiencing a slow connection and packet loss, what is the best tool for identifying the issue? There must be a good way to find out where the problem is.