If you're a net neutrality advocate you should seriously consider whether this sort of peering arrangement should be tolerated. This kind of peering is a de-facto QoS arrangement that gives Netflix a performance and cost advantage over other video providers that aren't big enough or rich enough to justify and pay for direct peering with ISPs. It also gives bigger ISPs (that do more than 2Gb/s of traffic to Netflix and agree to peer, apparently) the same advantage over their smaller competitors. Isn't that exactly what we're trying to avoid with net neutrality?
This is not a new practice and I'm surprised it doesn't come up more frequently in the net neutrality debate. It's been going on for years -- broadcast.com did it, YouTube and Google do it, and I'm sure others do as well. We've never really had net neutrality -- peering agreements have been happening forever in shady back room deals at NANOG. At least the more recent shenanigans are happening out in the open.
Alternatively, if you're a network neutrality advocate, you should consider whether this is really the kind of thing you're advocating against. It's one thing to complain about ISPs intentionally throttling or dropping traffic, or shaking down services to get paid twice for the same traffic. It's something else entirely to complain about services going out of their way to establish CDNs near their customers and reduce overall network load.
Comcast is throttling / dropping traffic because they want Netflix to pay for bandwidth. You're right that they'd be getting paid twice for the same traffic, but ISPs already do this -- if Comcast and Netflix are connected via Level 3 they both have to pay Level 3 for the same traffic.
What if Comcast offered to host Open Connect devices for a fee -- would that be a violation of net neutrality? To me that just seems like the free market doing what free markets do (I'm ignoring for a moment that Comcast is basically a monopoly which is a legitimate problem).
What if Comcast throttled everyone _except_ Netflix. Is that really different than Comcast allowing _only_ Netflix to peer?
I am a net neutrality advocate in the sense that I'm against artificial traffic shaping. Netflix offering peering and cacheing solutions to offload massive amounts of traffic is not the same thing, and, in fact, is an attempt to prevent ISPs from shaping its traffic.
What? No.
This is the same situation as the company hosted in a DC that grows and prefers to pay for a 1Gbps connection than the previous 100MBps.
Net neutrality means treat all the traffic the same, doesn't matter where it comes from or what protocol it is. That's why "this" doesn't come up more often in the net neutrality debate, because it's got nothing to do with it.
Net neutrality was NEVER about making all content equally available to every consumer regardless of geography and network topology. If you're European or American serve customers in Australia, you should put a server there at your own cost, or your Australian users will suffer, net neutrality or not.
Netflix OpenConnect is just doing that on a much larger scale.
It's no different than if Netflix was paying Comcast (or whover ISP) to colo a server(s) in their data centers (you can do this as a normal citizen too).
The only difference, the idea is Comcast wouldn't charge Netflix for colo space since Netflix is "earning" it via cost reduction for the ISP. So they are still technically paying for the colo space.
Perhaps I missed your point though -- because this seems to be a much better way to a neutral net than having ISP's charging both sides of the pipe (which the small guys can't afford even more)
Is colo space at the ISP an unlimited resource? If not, then it will end up priced out of the reach of the small guys.
I suppose the ISP could offer some kind of "virtual colo", where instead of putting your servers in the ISP data center for fast access they offer some kind of faster connection to your data center. This would have two big advantages over physical colo. First, it would not have the space limitations so it could be more widely available. Second, the price could be based on how many customers you are serving at the ISP so that even small content providers can afford it.
This now sounds similar to "fast lanes", which have been the major focus of opposition to the proposed approach to net neutrality of trying to regulate under section 706.
The problem I see is that in both the company specific CDN approach and the "fast lane" approach it comes down to a content provider is making an arrangement with an ISP to make that content provider's content better for its customers on that ISP.
Is that against net neutrality? If the answer is "yes", then I don't see why it should matter if it is done via physical boxes placed on the ISP's network or by prioritizing traffic from that content provider or by purchasing a higher capacity interconnect to the backbone providers that content provider's traffic comes through. This seems to me to be one of those things where it should be looked at as a black box, and net neutrality should be concerned with the externally visible behavior of the box, not the mechanisms within the box.
The small guys can use Akamai who already has many cache boxes in place.
My understanding is that private peering and caches are primarily a cost optimization and are not about performance (as long as the "normal" Internet isn't deliberately congested). This way of thinking makes CDNs compatible with net neutrality.
Unless I'm reading this incorrectly this is a peering arrangement, which is qualitatively different than just hosting a box in a DC run by Comcast (which doesn't exist, as far as I know, so I can't do it as a normal citizen). I could colo a box "near" Comcast, but I'll be more hops away (worse performance) and I'll have to purchase transit from some ISP that does peer with Comcast (more expensive).
Most (all) major ISP's do have DC"s that you can colo in (including comast). Just call up their business services line and ask.
So, yes, you can colo in one of your ISP's DC's. Netflix is doing just that (which is why it's not a peering agreement, it's a colo agreement). They just don't get charged because they are saving the ISP the money they would normally charge for the colo service (sometimes more).
Even if you can colo with Comcast (which I can't find any information about online) you're still not direct-peering with their AS, which is what Netflix is asking for with Open Connect. I'm sure they'll also charge you for bandwidth. This is definitely different than putting a box in a colo facility. This is putting a box in a peering location and eliminating the transit cost and performance hit.
But charging some and not others is pretty clear discrimination. Colocation should definitely be allowed, but Netflix should pay the same rate a start up would.
Wanted to add a little bit more to my previous comment since I've been thinking about this for a while. The story I heard about broadcast was that they pursued this sort of peering arrangement with smaller ISPs so they didn't have to pay for transit -- basically to reduce their bandwidth bill. It was really a brilliant move on their part. Since then lots of other large bandwidth consumers have done the same.
I'm not against net neutrality but I do think the issue is more complicated than people make it out to be. Once you understand that this is common practice the position of Comcast, et al. does make more sense. If Netflix is saving a shit-ton of money and providing a better service to their customers by peering, and Comcast has less upside, why shouldn't Comcast charge Netflix for the privilege?
If Netflix is saving a shit-ton of money and providing a better service to their customers by peering, and Comcast has less upside, why shouldn't Comcast charge Netflix for the privilege?
I don't know if we can accurately estimate who's saving how much, and I definitely don't believe anything coming from Comcast. Given that there is no way to reach Comcast customers other than Comcast and both parties have an incentive to lie about their costs, I think zero is the fairest price for such peering.
I don't think your conclusion logically follows. The free market argument would be that the fairest price is whatever Comcast can get netflix to pay (or vice-versa). From a policy perspective I don't see a reason to intervene except that both parties have unfair advantages relative to their competitors (and Comcast basically has a monopoly). However, if that's the reason to intervene on traffic shaping then I think it's a reason to intervene on peering relationships too. I'd love to be able to peer with Comcast, but I can't. That's not fair.
I worked at MSN in WAN-OPS in the 90s. We did exactly that: find out what ma-and-pa ISPs we were paying transit for, offer to run a T1 directly to them for all MSCOM/MSN traffic. Easiest sales call ever.
Because Netflix uses something like 45% of North American internet traffic, they need to do something like this in order to efficiently deliver video. Of course this is going to give Netflix better ability to stream, but I don't think it is unfair.
It would be unfair if Netflix was paying to "speed up its traffic" (read as: slow down competitor's traffic).
This is not a new practice and I'm surprised it doesn't come up more frequently in the net neutrality debate. It's been going on for years -- broadcast.com did it, YouTube and Google do it, and I'm sure others do as well. We've never really had net neutrality -- peering agreements have been happening forever in shady back room deals at NANOG. At least the more recent shenanigans are happening out in the open.