Victims of Net Neutrality

Skanda_sl said:

I'd say it's a bit borderline, that line I bolded and underlined indicates that they are discriminating against Netflix traffic specifically which is very much against Net Neutrality. It's just the physical equivalent of packet shaping by refusing to open more ports. It's also creating a fast lane for Netflix that other video services may not have access too or be able to compete with. Somewhat amusingly it's not even a fast lane Netflix really seemingly wanted or needed, the ISP strong armed them into it.

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I think you misread it then because ...

But, here's the other interesting thing also shown in the Verizon diagram. This congestion only takes place between Verizon andnetwork providers chosen by Netflix. The providers that Netflix does not use do not experience the same problem. Why is that?

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To me that means Verizon said 'fuck you' to specific companies that were paid by Netflix as primary ISPs. That meanseveryone'straffic from those ISPs is bottle-necked. I mean this is shitty B2B, but it's no different than any other industry or how ISPs have run themselves since the beginning.

Here's my guess of how the Netflix situation unfolded: Netflix paid some X number of ISPs to be 'special' and have dedicated lines or cache services or WHATEVER to improve service. These ISPs have agreements with geographically adjacent ISPs. Well at some point the ISPs in between point A and point Z wanted their piece of the pie because now they're seeing a huge increase in traffic from those optimizations. Why is this? Well, without any tinkering, routers are going to send the packets on the shortest route. The best analogy I can give is pretend you have a 40 mph congested two lane state highway going 20 miles from point A to point Z. Then, a company builds a 75mph toll road 19.5 miles from point A to point Y and shitty backroad sitting between Y and Z all of a sudden now has insane traffic because someone optimized travel elsewhere. Now the town of people who own Y to Z want their piece of the pie too because all their infrastructure is getting used by all the people paying to use the new toll roads.

So everyone on those ISPs were thrown under the bus because they were sharing a ride with Netflix. I'm not seeing why that makes it any less a "traffic shaping" issue if some poor SoBs got caught in the crossfire. If you were on a different ISP then business as usual. That's still traffic discrimination in my mind, just of a physical variety.

Skanda_sl said:

So everyone on those ISPs were thrown under the bus because they were sharing a ride with Netflix. I'm not seeing why that makes it any less a "traffic shaping" issue if some poor SoBs got caught in the crossfire. If you were on a different ISP then business as usual. That's still traffic discrimination in my mind, just of a physical variety.

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Traffic shaping is having a pipe and saying 'send packets from this source IP or containing this content this way'. That's not what's going on here. The plea for feels part is arguing that they have the hardware, they just refuse to put network cables between it without a ransom. But, that's what an ISP is. That's why you can't get 800 Mbps on your 5 Mbps connection just because it isn't in use right now.

Palum_sl said:

Yea, but that business agreement hasnothing whatsoeverto do with net neutrality. It was a service based issue with Comcast wanting more money to install more equipment. Net neutrality is at the interface level, not the infrastructure level.

Trust me, I do get the political or legal side, I just think this entire battle is basically a red herring tossed out by the cable companies and everyone is taking the bait. Even if net neutrality wins, it's easily circumvented and always will be.

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It does, because they were shaping traffic from specific ISPs. The ones Netflix had contracts with. That is treating some packets differently than others, even if it is packets from an entire ISP instead of a service.

Oh, and this all started when Net Neutrality as a law was first damaged two years ago, when the cable lobby managed to make it questionable if the FCC should even have regulatory powers and thus eliminated a lot of the rules the FCC had put in place. Before that? No issues like this at all. Curious, how a tiny break in the legal framework surrounding the entire idea of net neutrality caused such a massive issue for Netflix that Comcast could blackmail them for money. Again, how is it exactly that with zero traffic shaping, zero traffic manipulation, the issue was completely fixed in a couple of hours after Netflix cut a check? Because they were doing something to fuck with it, Netflix paid them, and they stopped. Shocking, I know.

You should really read up on the entire net neutrality movement. It isn't as narrow as you're making it out to be and that is hindering your understanding.

The Master_sl said:

It does, because they were shaping traffic from specific ISPs. The ones Netflix had contracts with. That is treating some packets differently than others, even if it is packets from an entire ISP instead of a service.

Oh, and this all started when Net Neutrality as a law was first damaged two years ago, when the cable lobby managed to make it questionable if the FCC should even have regulatory powers and thus eliminated a lot of the rules the FCC had put in place. Before that? No issues like this at all. Curious, how a tiny break in the legal framework surrounding the entire idea of net neutrality caused such a massive issue for Netflix that Comcast could blackmail them for money. Again, how is it exactly that with zero traffic shaping, zero traffic manipulation, the issue was completely fixed in a couple of hours after Netflix cut a check? Because they were doing something to fuck with it, Netflix paid them, and they stopped. Shocking, I know.

You should really read up on the entire net neutrality movement. It isn't as narrow as you're making it out to be and that is hindering your understanding.

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That isn't net neutrality. I'm sorry, but that's just not the definition. Net neutrality is very simple - it's treating every packet the same. What you are looking for is infrastructure equality.

Even the power companies have different tiers of service. If you want 480 3 phase, you will pay through the nose to get that. If you want to put in a guest house and want another 100 amp last mile, guess who's footing the bill. Guess what, they even discriminate because that hospital is getting power back weeks before your backwater house with a random line down that goes across a stream.

Palum_sl said:

That isn't net neutrality. I'm sorry, but that's just not the definition. Net neutrality is very simple - it's treating every packet the same. What you are looking for is infrastructure equality.

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No, it isn't. Like I said, your understanding is narrow. Tim Wu's 2003 paper, where the term was coined, did not define it the way you are defining it. He invented the term, he gets to define it. In fact it goes over examples from the early 2000s of thuggish practices just like this that actually happened and explains how net neutrality would prevent them!

The Master_sl said:

No, it isn't. Like I said, your understanding is narrow. Tim Wu's 2003 paper, where the term was coined, did not define it the way you are defining it. He invented the term, he gets to define it. In fact it goes over examples from the early 2000s of thuggish practices just like this that actually happened and explains how net neutrality would prevent them!

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OK, if you don't mind I'll quote the Wikipedia summary of this definition:

Net neutrality

At its simplest, network neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.[20] According to Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, the best way to explain network neutrality is as a principle to be used when designing a network: that a public information network will end up being most useful if all content, sites, and platforms are treated equally.[21] A more detailed proposed definition of technical and service network neutrality suggests that service network neutrality is the adherence to the paradigm thatoperation of a service at a certain layer is not influenced by any data other than the data interpreted at that layer, and in accordance with the protocol specification for that layer.[22]

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So in order for your definition to hold, you have to suggest that the physical layer should be treated like every other layer and installing additional bandwidth to high population areas should be illegal as well? This has never and will never be the case unless it becomes a government mandate and a stupid one at that.

Cardozo Law School professor Susan P. Crawford believes that in a neutral Internet, packets on the network must be forwarded on a first-come, first-served basis, with no consideration given to quality-of-service concerns.[29]

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The Verizon 'physical layer' solution of not plugging in a cable adheres to this legal definition. In fact this hardline stance is actually spoken against by Tim Wu himself.

Further down the page...

Tim Wu, though a proponent of network neutrality, claims that the current Internet is not neutral as its implementation of best effort generally favors file transfer and other non-time-sensitive traffic over real-time communications.[31]

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Why the self-contradiction brosef??? Well, because it's necessary for a properly functioning internet. There are benefits and detriments to every decision involving packet switching.

Jon Peha from Carnegie Mellon University in his paper "The Benefits and Risks of Mandating Network Neutrality, and the Quest for a Balanced Policy" presents a challenge for policy makers to create policies that protect users from harmful traffic discrimination while allowing beneficial discrimination. Peha discusses the technologies that enable traffic discrimination, examples of different types of discrimination, and potential impacts of regulation.[142]

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The fact is that Tim Wu knows and admits that full neutrality is in fact a bad thing, including at the physical layer like you suggest. Ofcoursean ISP should be installing more hardware to support a large metro area than in a town of 23. Also, time sensitive packets (streaming media) should havepriorityover standard durable TCP packets. But this all goes back to a complex need for regulation, not arbitrarily enforcing the idea thatevery single packetshould be handled identically. The answer isnotnet neutrality at all but better regulation and enforcement of nominal service and infrastructure equality while retaining the ability to pay standardized fees to use more based on individual needs. Tim Wu's idea of 'fair' networks is not the same thing as 'true neutral' networks that these grassroots organizations are getting behind. And even still, they would have to enforce it on an infrastructure level which willnevermake it out of the gate.

How is it a contradiction to say the current implementation doesn't lend itself to net neutrality and that you support net neutrality? I don't think you understand what he is saying at all.

But look at the definition you posted (which I feel the need to point out doesn't mention anything about packets). Treated equally. Was the data from Netflix, via Cogent, to Comcast being treated equally? No, no it wasn't. There isn't any debate about this fact. Cogent's CEO testified before Congress that is was true. It is a matter of public record. So that isn't net neutrality. That is one examples. There are a lot of them. But this particular example is interesting because of just how much money it made Comcast via what can only be described as extortion. And without net neutrality, that is where we are headed. Simple enough for you?

Yes, actually implementing a legal framework that takes all these things into account is going to be difficult. Thankfully it looks like the FCC will be granted that authority and has any number of intelligent people working on it and is consulting with people intimately familiar with the problems.

The Master_sl said:

How is it a contradiction to say the current implementation doesn't lend itself to net neutrality and that you support net neutrality? I don't think you understand what he is saying at all.

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Because you can't have content preferential for overall application neutrality without making it non-neutral. IE, if you give preference to RTP for VOIP traffic because it doesn't adversely affect standard TCP traffic, you are still going against net neutrality because you are using application level information (RTP) to determine packet handling at the transport layer (UDP). This is directly contrary to the supposed Tim Wu definition:

A more detailed proposed definition of technical and service network neutrality suggests that service network neutrality is the adherence to the paradigm that operation of a service at a certain layer is not influenced by any data other than the data interpreted at that layer, and in accordance with the protocol specification for that layer.[22]

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Can't have it both ways.

The Master_sl said:

Was the data from Netflix, via Cogent, to Comcast being treated equally? No, no it wasn't. There isn't any debate about this fact. Cogent's CEO testified before Congress that is was true. It is a matter of public record. So that isn't net neutrality. That is one examples. There are a lot of them. But this particular example is interesting because of just how much money it made Comcast via what can only be described as extortion. And without net neutrality, that is where we are headed. Simple enough for you?

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Yes itwastreated equally. At no point did Verizon handle packets from Cogent differently than other ISPs. The difference is you want to legally force that ISP (Verizon) to plug in those 10Gbps cables from the L3 router to theirs. That is a completely separate issue.

Palum_sl said:

Yes itwastreated equally. At no point did Verizon handle packets from Cogent differently than other ISPs. The difference is you want to legally force that ISP (Verizon) to plug in those 10Gbps cables from the L3 router to theirs. That is a completely separate issue.

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Are you being willfully obstinate? The CEO of Cogent literally testifiedunder oath before Congressthat it wasn't being treated equally. This is the Comcast/Netflix issue, not the Verizon/Netflix one.

Again, I really don't think you actually understand what Tim Wu is saying.

The Master_sl said:

Are you being willfully obstinate? The CEO of Cogent literally testifiedunder oath before Congressthat it wasn't being treated equally. This is the Comcast/Netflix issue, not the Verizon/Netflix one.

Again, I really don't think you actually understand what Tim Wu is saying.

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Schaeffer said that after Cogent began delivering Netflix's traffic in mid-2012, its relationship with Comcast worsened and Comcast began to stop increasing the capacity of its hardware to accommodate the increase in traffic.

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Sorry, nothing to do with net neutrality.

Palum_sl said:

Uh, yea. You pay for X Mbps pipe from point A to point B. All of a sudden you have X+Y because of increase in customers. Streaming media does not handle a network bottleneck at all. Again, the issue with the whole accusation is that it ignores the fact that this is how the internet currently is set up. When I have to put in an MPLS for ease of interconnecting offices across the country, the provider has to go to all the ISPs in the way and basically set up an agreement to shuttle the traffic and provide the bandwidth/hardware for the label switching. If I go over my 20Mbps connection, my VOIP devices start shitting themselves because RTP simply can't handle packet loss. Streaming customers have to set up similar agreements because their services can't handle network interruption either, even if they aren't using label switching for a faux VPN. So, maybe they purchase huge pipes between major geographical areas to move content. Now as far as Chaos saying they were trying to pay all the backbone ISPs to install caching services, I haven't really seen anything on that either. Either way, Netflix has to pay for a certain size pipe between their clusters and the local endpoint.

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I think you are conflating peering agreements with net neutrality. One has nothing to do with the other. Net neutrality deals with ISPs reaching out to individual edge content providers and basically extorting them. At least, that is the issue net neutrality would seek to prevent. L3 and Comcast would still have a peering agreement between their networks with whatever SLA they determine, just as they do now. That isn't what ISPs want, they want to take it a step further.

Netflix has had the Open Connect program for like 5 years now.Netflix - Watch TV Shows Online, Watch Movies Online

chaos_sl said:

I think you are conflating peering agreements with net neutrality. One has nothing to do with the other. Net neutrality deals with ISPs reaching out to individual edge content providers and basically extorting them. At least, that is the issue net neutrality would seek to prevent. L3 and Comcast would still have a peering agreement between their networks with whatever SLA they determine, just as they do now. That isn't what ISPs want, they want to take it a step further.

Netflix has had the Open Connect program for like 5 years now.Netflix - Watch TV Shows Online, Watch Movies Online

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Please provide to me a technical explanation of how net neutrality would force ISPs to plug wires in to everyone fairly, because I'm missing the court order to connect hardware bit in the whole net neutrality red herring argument.

Palum_sl said:

Please provide to me a technical explanation of how net neutrality would force ISPs to plug wires in to everyone fairly, because I'm missing the court order to connect hardware bit in the whole net neutrality red herring argument.

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See, now you're just being a cock because you don't understand what the issue even is. Settle down, read a fucking article or two, and then let's have an enlightened discussion!

Maybe to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it is a misunderstanding on my part, I am not really sure what you are even getting on. You want me to cut and paste the configuration file that Comcast would have to implement in order to throttle Neflix or other edge provider traffic?

Palum_sl said:

Sorry, nothing to do with net neutrality.

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Sigh, yes, yes it does. But you can continue to think otherwise if you feel like it.

chaos_sl said:

See, now you're just being a cock because you don't understand what the issue even is. Settle down, read a fucking article or two, and then let's have an enlightened discussion!

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I'm not, this is not what net neutrality is. Network neutrality is this:

A more detailed proposed definition of technical and service network neutrality suggests that service network neutrality is the adherence to the paradigm that operation of a service at a certain layer is not influenced by any data other than the data interpreted at that layer, and in accordance with the protocol specification for that layer.[22]

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This does not mean ISP 1 is forced to provide X to ISP 2 because feels or fairness. Please note it includes protocol specifications in its definitions, you know, those things that detail exactly how packets are constructed and handled. This is very much a technical issue that is being politicized like 'NO NUKES!!!' and has the potential to be warped to a harmful piece of legislation just as much as what the ISPs are looking for.

Here's the original 2010 FCC doc:https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...-201A1_Rcd.pdf

Relevant quote:

Transparency.
Fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose the network
managemen
t practices, performance characteristics, and terms and conditions of their
broadband services;
ii.
No blocking.
Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications,
services, or non
-
harmful devices; mobile broadband providers may not block l
awful
websites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony
services; and
iii.
No unreasonable discrimination.
Fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably
discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic.

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1 and 2 are obviously not an issue with the Netflix situation. Let's look at number 3. Did they actually discriminate in transmission? No, they did not. They discriminated in paying for hardware connectivity. That is your fluffy non-technical 'net neutrality'.

To clarify, I am 100% for net neutrality at the content/conceptual level, but not at the practical/technical level because they are mutually exclusive goals. Beneficial discrimination of traffic is necessary to create better and faster services. Conceptually every content provider should have equal access to pay for the bandwidth to reach however many customers they can support. By this I mean that Comcast should not charge $5, except if you compete with their TV/Telephony service THEN you need to pay $200. The articles/proponents I've seen of net neutrality seem to think it is some magical silver bullet to fix a hugely broken system of private ISPs. If they become overzealous and manage to pass laws to enforce this at the technical level, all sorts of services will suffer. This is doubtful at this point, but scientific or technical knowledge seldom drives reactionary legislation or regulation.

But the infrastructure side to 'fairness' is a slippery slope and one outside the purview of net neutrality. For the Verizon example, the issue was 'but, but they just had the cables not connected!' This is very true, but if they are charging every ISP the same amount for mismatched bandwidth (IE, peering became unbalanced) then what does net neutrality have to do with it? That's a fundamental business issue created by the monopolization of these ISPs in geographic regions, not net neutrality. I haven't seen anything suggesting Comcast et all were charging more to the ISPs servicing Netflix, only that they had far expanded the scope of their peering agreement so they wanted more money for the lopsided traffic. Sure it may have been exorbitant or unfair, but they were still being neutral - those services were generating more traffic than the others.

You are treating it like a technical issue because that is where your understanding lies. It isn't. Comcast is already charging us, the customers. Everyone is OK with that. They are also charging L3, Netflix's provider, as part of their peering agreement. Awesome, everyone is making money. What they want the freedom to do is also charge Netflix, in addition to the agreement they have with the customer and with L3, and make Netflix pay a fee or risk their content being throttled. I understand that at some point that has to meet a technical implementation, but it doesn't matter. You are talking about QoS and stuff, that is not what this is, it has nothing to do with it, this is a purely policy thing that ISPs want to leverage their customer access to force edge content providers to pay more money.

And a company like Netflix will pay, and has, because they are fucking omgzillionaires so they not only can afford it, they can't afford not to. Companies like TWiT or Revision3, these are the guys who will get shit on. It will reduce competition in the marketplace to where you only have a few major providers. It would kill companies like Vimeo before they even got a foot in the market.

chaos_sl said:

You are treating it like a technical issue because that is where your understanding lies. It isn't. Comcast is already charging us, the customers. Everyone is OK with that. They are also charging L3, Netflix's provider, as part of their peering agreement. Awesome, everyone is making money. What they want the freedom to do is also charge Netflix, in addition to the agreement they have with the customer and with L3, and make Netflix pay a fee or risk their content being throttled. I understand that at some point that has to meet a technical implementation, but it doesn't matter. You are talking about QoS and stuff, that is not what this is, it has nothing to do with it, this is a purely policy thing that ISPs want to leverage their customer access to force edge content providers to pay more money.

And a company like Netflix will pay, and has, because they are fucking omgzillionaires so they not only can afford it, they can't afford not to. Companies like TWiT or Revision3, these are the guys who will get shit on. It will reduce competition in the marketplace to where you only have a few major providers. It would kill companies like Vimeo before they even got a foot in the market.

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That's not the case as far as I can find. The ISPs are standing by their right to charge for bandwidth. While theywouldlove the opportunity to charge for specific content transmission, I still don't see that as the case even since the 2010 FCC regs were shut down in court. That doesn't mean they aren't extorting companies, though.

Verizon's summation is fairly accurate of the technical position and their business interests. Of course you need a grain of salt due to the fact that they stand to make money form it:

Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth | Verizon Public Policy

However, the focal point is that all of these ISPs want Netflix to make arrangements with every ISP between them and the customer commensurate with the data they use and the infrastructure costs so that itdoesn'toverload the network. Let's not forget Netflix stands to gain financially for this as well, though. What Netflix wants is to pay their ISPs a flat rate without any care for infrastructure concerns to the end-user. They want to be subsidized by the end-user. If you have a very granite heavy geographical location with extreme installation costs or perhaps Alaska, low population and higher rates, that should be subsidized by the rest of the ISPs to provide Netflix usable bandwidth for one low cost without the need to 'negotiate' to increase bandwidth to be acceptable for Netflix services.

Netflix is not innocent in all of this, they want to make their bucks too and damn the consequences.