President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Kamala Harris

(R) Donald Trump

80%↑

20%

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

(R) V. Archuleta

98%

2%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

(R) Marshall Dawson

95%

5%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Hurd

(D) Adam Frisch

52%↑

48%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(D) Trisha Calvarese

90%

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Crank

(D) River Gassen

80%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

(R) John Fabbricatore

90%

10%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) B. Pettersen

(R) Sergei Matveyuk

90%

10%

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

50%

50%

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
November 30, 2010 03:42 AM UTC

Broomfield's Level 3--Net Neutrality Guinea Pig?

  • 20 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

As the New York Times’ media blog reports this afternoon, Broomfield-based network provider Level 3 Communications’ conflict with cable TV giant Comcast could be the start of a new showdown over “net neutrality”–the issue of whether all data transmitted across the internet is created equal, or whether providers can prioritize some traffic over other traffic. In this case, Comcast appears to be forcing the issue even further: can they entirely shut down, not just throttle, traffic on their network for competitive reasons?

Level 3 Communications, an Internet networking company that recently signed a deal to deliver movies to Netflix customers, said Monday that Comcast has effectively set up a tollbooth around its broadband Internet network.

Comcast demanded a “recurring fee” from Level 3 “to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast’s customers who request such content,” Thomas Stortz, the chief legal officer for Level 3, said in a statement Monday afternoon, seemingly alluding to the Netflix service. The action “threatens the open Internet,” Mr. Stortz added…

Mr. Stortz said in the statement: “Level 3 believes Comcast’s current position violates the spirit and letter of the FCC’s proposed Internet Policy principles and other regulations and statutes, as well as Comcast’s previous public statements about favoring an open Internet. While the network neutrality debate in Washington has focused on what actions a broadband access provider might take to filter, prioritize or manage content requested by its subscribers, Comcast’s decision goes well beyond this. With this action, Comcast is preventing competing content from ever being delivered to Comcast’s subscribers at all, unless Comcast’s unilaterally-determined toll is paid – even though Comcast’s subscribers requested the content. With this action, Comcast demonstrates the risk of a ‘closed’ Internet, where a retail broadband Internet access provider decides whether and how their subscribers interact with content.”

Level 3 said it would be approaching government regulators and “asking them to take quick action to ensure that a fair, open and innovative Internet does not become a closed network controlled by a few institutions with dominant market power that have the means, motive and opportunity to economically discriminate between favored and disfavored content.”

It should be very easy, as we’ve said before, to understand why this kind of thing makes anybody who runs just about any website (or anybody who even uses the internet) rather nervous. Obviously there are specific competitive issues in play here, but there’s also a bigger question: should equal access to internet data be a right of consumers, or should money–or favor, or whatever–be allowed to dictate that?

We’ll shut up and let you discuss, lest we give anyone any ideas.

(And all you Colorado elected officials out there…we’ll be paying very close attention to how you respond to this issue.)

Tweet
Share

Comments

20 thoughts on “Broomfield’s Level 3–Net Neutrality Guinea Pig?”

  1. On the plus side, they’re so quick to over-reach that they’ll probably insure a decent form of net neutrality.

    But what Comcast is trying to do – that will lead to a total balkanization of the Internet. Because you will have everybody & their brother limiting, charging, prohibiting traffic based on where it is from and what it says.

    1. thought they could claim it was commercial use, not residential.

      If a business smells a buck to be made, you can bet your * they will be all over it. Right David?

  2. I do see allowing prioritization/QoS based on charges as long as that charge hits everyone equally and is charged to the consumer buying the connection.

    This would be a good thing where your live Skype call gets priority over an email message. One doesn’t work well with a ½ second delay, the other is equally good with even a 15 second delay.

    Charging the end user means Comcast gains no advantage for their own live broadcasts because the user is paying the same to them or to Netflix. (Charging the provider means Comcast would pay Comcast.)

    1. The backbone should be content-neutral as it always has been – rates negotiated solely based on router connectivity and net bandwidth between the providers.

      End users, both content providers and consumers, should be able to purchase bandwidth and ISP QoS guarantees, with the limitation that ISPs can’t charge more just because content provider ‘A’ happens to be a competitor (or because content provider ‘B’ has already made a preferential arrangement with the ISP forcing the ISP to charge more to ‘A’).

      Network neutrality – it’s the way the Internet has run since its inception.  Let’s make it the law.

    2. Just as the jump from 14kps to 3mps to 10 or 12mps totally changed the nature of the net, so will 100mps, already present in some places. Private ownership of the wires means their first step is to squeeze more bucks from existing infrastructure. In the case of Comcast, it also means protecting their existing business model to deliver video to televisions.

      Would we rely on Comcast to build the streets and highways? The era of privately-owned, heavily regulated telecommunications, aka AT&T, is loooong over! Net delivery via coax was never a designed infrastructure; it came about by accident, and until recently was mislabeled a branch of “entertainment” (like cable television) by the FCC. And, it’s critical to our future economy for all sorts of reasons that go well beyond films from Netflix. The US is already falling behind other countries, especially Korea, in this aspect of our infrastructure. We certainly cannot afford to put this issue into the hands of a bunch of cable guys in Philly!

      This isn’t a technical issue.  

        1. Netflix’s aggressive switch from mailed DVDs to video on demand should concern everyone who uses the net. If streaming video is as successful Netflix hopes it will be, hundreds of thousands of movies could eat up huge amounts of bandwidth-all for a select commercial enterprise. The potential for diminished performance of the internet as a whole is enormous. For those of us who don’t care to use Netflix, or all the other competing video-on-demand operations, is it right that such commercialization of the internet be fought in the name of net neutrality?

          The success of the internet to date has relied on a large measure of reciprocity among ISPs and trunk line owners. The issue isn’t net neutrality and all the quaint precepts that has guided the internet for 30 years-its two giant business models fighting it out. I’m not defending Comcast, but Netflix and Level 3 shouldn’t get to play victim either.

          1. Five years ago video-on-demand would have been impossible due to bandwidth constraints. But today there’s plenty of bandwidth and there will be even more tomorrow.

            And what Comcast is trying to do is not change who pays and how much – they’re trying to restrict who their customers can get videos from. Big difference.

          2. If you’ve never seen this phrase, look back in the history of the Internet.  We’ve been through backbone bandwidth worries before, and nothing fatal has ever happened.

            Comcast isn’t, to my knowledge, a backbone provider.  They’re a very large ISP.  Comcast says it can deliver the content to its users – but only for a fee.  That means it has the bandwidth, it just wants to charge Level 3 (and hence Netflix) for the privilege of delivering the content.

            The Internet deserves to be treated like a common carrier phone service; you wouldn’t expect Qwest to charge Verizon a fee just because some huge call center happened to sit on Verizon’s network – in fact, it’s illegal.  Qwest gets to charge its own customers for their service – that’s it.  The same should be true for Internet service providers.

  3. I’ve been fighting this for however long? For personal, cibvic reasons.

    You guys have a business reason for fighting this with every fiber of your being. Nervous nellies!

    Oh, hell. Just nominate Powell Jr. for Pres. Go ahead and cave. Nervous? Jeez. You sound like most progressives. Nervous woosies.  

  4. Before everyone jumps on Comcast, you’d better make sure that things are not as they say.  If this really is an adjustment to a peering agreement (the agreements providers make all the time to hand off internet traffic to each other) because of a massive increase in traffic (Level 3 has a contract to carry Netflix), then it has nothing to do with net neutrality and Level 3 is playing a dangerous game that may jeopardize net neutrality.

    Peering is a business issue, not a question of content discrimination.  If Comcast is making them pay more because of the type of content, then folks should back Level 3.  If Level 3 is using a critical Internet issue to get out of paying its “fair share,” they should be ashamed.

    1. This isn’t about peering, unless they’re trying to reduce the amount they’re paying Level 3 to be a backbone provider.  Comcast isn’t a backbone carrier, they’re an ISP.  In my years as a sysadmin, I have yet to see a single packet traverse a Comcast network that wasn’t bound for a Comcast customer.

      In general, ISPs pay for their connection to the backbone – they don’t get discounts from the backbone for incoming traffic, regardless of whether the traffic originated at data centers run by the backbone provider or not.

      1. While peering between backbone providers is one form of interconnection, peering includes connections made between major networks at interconnection points wherein the networks are directly linked.

        If you’d like to learn more about peering

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P…

        http://www.netnod.se/ix/what-i…

        More about network “tiers” and peering here

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…

        (Above includes a description of the distinction between peering generally and paying for IP transit on a tier-1 network)

        You can find Comcast’s policy on SFI (Settlement-free interconnection) here http://www.comcast.com/peering/

        1. I’ve experienced several stages in the transition of the backbone network, and I’ve had to shop for ISPs at a level high enough to need to know their peering arrangements.  (That includes Level 3 before it acquired or built many of its assets.)

          You might want to know this little tidbit: Level 3 is Comcast’s largest network  provider, and has been since 2004, when Comcast signed a massive 20-year dark fiber lease agreement with Level 3 and a few other sources.  At the time, Level 3 had more dark fiber than anyone else in the country.

          This is in no way a mutual ISP interconnect.

          2. Please read this article from CNET and note that Comcast and Level 3 have a peering arrangement (a thing you say can’t exist) already.  Although Comcast may not be being honest, they claim that they’re no longer peers (Level 3 will be pushing far more than it’s taking) and is now also acting as a CDN for Netflix– not just a backbone provider (having won the contract from Akamai who had a commercial agreement with Comcast)

            http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023…

            Oh, btw, I’m an IT pro of 25 years who had to deal with such arrangements for HP while I worked there.

            Although it’s becoming clear to me that you don’t want to learn, here’s another article that will help you understand what peering is.

            http://www.enterprisenetworkin…

            1. I’m glad you’re an IT pro of 25 years.  That’s about when I started programming mail routing between still-uncooperative parts of the not-yet-unified Internet, so we’ve got about the same experience level.

              You can keep pointing me to nice little Internet articles on the basics of peering, but your insistence that this isn’t what it seems baldly to be, coupled with your link to Comcast’s peering policy, makes me wonder who you work for now…

              1. I’ve stated twice, clearly, that Comcast may be being dishonest and that Level 3 may be right.  You, on the other hand, have made no such accomodation.

                Also, while you may have been hand-switching packets before the development of routers,  you stated categorically that Comcast does not having a peering agreement with Level 3 because Comcast is not a backbone provider and that is demonstrably false.  The idea you suggested that peering is exclusively a province of backbone providers is also demonstrably false.

                I get that you distrust Comcast– I do to.  But that doesn’t mean that Level 3 isn’t in the wrong this time.  You just don’t know as much as you think you do.

                1. You’ve pointed to a CNet article where Comcast claims it’s a peering disagreement, and standard Comcast peering contract terms (which are barely peering terms – they’re more like “I’ll let you on to my end-user network if you give me access to your backbone, and net traffic shall be zero”).

                  Comcast wants their “peering” to be of the “I’m a big ISP in the same network interchange closet as you are, let’s exchange routing information and a wire so my clients have faster Internet backbone access” manner, not peering in the “we both route through traffic on our networks, let’s exchange routing information and a wire so we can both save money routing traffic more efficiently” manner, or even the broader “you’re an ISP, I’m an ISP, let’s save expenses going across the backbone by having a direct connection” kind of peering.

                  To answer your other point about my bias, I have no great love of either company.  Level 3 has caused me some major network pain in the past, and at least in history its inane employee review policy led to the firing of at least one friend who was well-liked, productive, and a hard worker.  I’ve never had any direct dealings with Comcast, though I’ve supported users who’ve had issues; my beef with them is that they are constantly on the wrong side of good consumer access to the Internet.

                  I do have a very firm opinion on Net Neutrality – and, for that matter, on cable vs. broadcast regulation.  It should be clear that both phone and cable (and satellite, and broadcast) services have local monopolies, provide basic service to end users, and that said service is of increasingly vital importance to households.  The whole lot should be subject to common carrier rules, and possibly to FCC content regulation (I generally prefer content de-regulation, actually – the broadcast content rules are archaic when anyone can go out and get content not bound by those rules on satellite, cable, or the Internet.)

        2. Comcast has been to this dance before.  Last time it was Bittorrent and other P2P apps, which were consuming their endpoint bandwidth.  (Unfortunately for cable providers, it’s still true that cable systems aren’t switched networks, so everyone in a local neighborhood shares bandwidth.  When high bandwidth applications like P2P transfers or streaming video get thrown at several users on the same local cable network, it makes the cable provider’s bandwidth numbers look worse than they advertise.  The solution is to assign more “channels” on the cable to data, leaving fewer for the cable company to send their own PPV video-on-demand streams.)

          This fight is, pretty much guaranteed, over one of two things: (1) Comcast trying to use their government assigned cable monopolies to beat out Netflix, or (2) a repeat of what they see as an impending degradation of their local networks that will leave their users griping at them and looking for alternatives.

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

68 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!