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Net neutrality advocates are planning two days of protest in Washington DC this month as they fight off plans to defang regulations meant to protect an open internet.
A coalition of activists, consumer groups and writers are calling on supporters to attend the next meeting of the Federal Communications Commission on 26 September in DC. The next day, the protest will move to Capitol Hill, where people will meet legislators to express their concerns about an FCC proposal to rewrite the rules governing the internet.
The FCC has received 22 million comments on "Restoring Internet Freedom", the regulator's proposal to dismantle net neutrality rules put in place in 2015. Opponents argue the rule changes, proposed by the FCC's Republican chairman Ajit Pai, will pave the way for a tiered internet where internet service providers (ISPs) will be free to pick and choose winners online by giving higher speeds to those they favor, or those willing or able to pay more.
The regulator has yet to process the comments, and is reviewing its proposals before a vote expected later this year.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 21 2017, @03:03PM (7 children)
I've already gone through this several times. Netflix paid for their own bandwidth. Comcast is responsible for having enough bandwidth to support their customers.
The congestion was all on Comcast's side, because they did not have sufficient capacity to support its contractual obligations to their customers.
I addressed this in more detail here [soylentnews.org] and here [soylentnews.org].
Once more, Netflix pays for its bandwidth and Comcast pays for its bandwidth. One of the two didn't have enough bandwidth capacity to support their customers. That was Comcast.
I'd say the horse is beaten to a bloody pulp by now.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @03:15PM (6 children)
No, Netflix didn't pay. Netflix tried to drive a dump truck up to a buffet table that explicitly disallowed taking food outside. Netflix tried to use unpaid peering agreements that explicitly demand a balance of incoming and outgoing traffic to dump their huge load of unbalanced traffic on.
Netflix did not pay for the data they sent.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 21 2017, @03:44PM (5 children)
Bullshit. You are either ignorant, misinformed or a shill for the ISPs.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @04:22PM (4 children)
Nope. As repeatedly explained, as as you claim to grasp, no-fee peering agreements require that inbound and outbound traffic be roughly balanced. Netflix was demonstrably making use of no-fee peering agreements to send its traffic around the Internet.
If you disagree, then you are claiming that Netflix generates roughly the same incoming traffic to its own networks as it sends in streaming video out to others' networks. That idea is, in your own word, bullshit.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 21 2017, @06:19PM (3 children)
Netflix was not a party to those peering agreements, either ones between Level 3 and Comcast or Cogent and Comcast.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @06:35PM (2 children)
True, but irrelevant, as Netflix paid Level 3 and Cogent for access to their no-fee peering agreements with Comcast, which Netflix' traffic load then violated. Comcast isn't the bad guy IN THIS CASE no matter which way you slice it. In my book, Level 3, Cogent, AND Netflix are all scumbags IN THIS CASE.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 21 2017, @07:23PM (1 child)
You're welcome to your opinion. I respectfully disagree.
Cogent and Level 3 *unbalanced* the peering agreement with Comcast. That it was traffic from Netflix is the part (from a legal standpoint) that's irrelevant. What's more, unbalanced perring isn't generally considered a *violation* of a peering agreement. It likely can annoy people and require a re-negotiation of the peering agreement, but traffic fluctuates significantly from month to month and discussions/changes are a normal part of managing the relationship between network peers.
I have no great love for any of these players, although I will say that having used Level 3, Cogent *and* Comcast as ISPs at the same time in various locations around the US both before, during, and after this debacle, Cogent had, hands down, the best service, up-time and customer support of the three. Comcast was so bad that we tried to replace them, but aside from (IIRC) XO (our primary ISP at that location), Comcast was the only local provider at that time who could provide the bandwidth we required at a reasonable cost.
My experience with these ISPs isn't really relevant to the Netflix debacle, but it does inform my understanding of the regard in which they hold their customers.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @07:57PM
You're trying to pick at the smallest of nits in an attempt to avoid admitting that Comcast was the only rational actor among it, Netflix, Cogent, and Level 3.
Netflix viewers won't suddenly start sending Netflix streaming video next month. That traffic imbalance is huge and one way only.
That Comcast is also a giant ball of sucked scum is irrelevant to this specific situation. You hang a murderer for the murder, not because he smelled like poop and was a huge jerk.