<story><title>Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter</title><url>http://www.cnbc.com/id/101728447</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>josh2600</author><text>An ISP&amp;#x27;s job, as a private company, is to maximize shareholder value. The circuit consumers are sold is a &amp;quot;best-effort&amp;quot; connection in stark contrast to, say, a T1, which is a dedicated circuit.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also very hard to prove that Verizon is throttling, versus, say, simply physically underprovisioning the connection.&lt;p&gt;With respect to public money, I think you&amp;#x27;ve hit the nail on the head. The crux of the Net Neutrality debate, to my mind, is whether these networks are public or private. If they&amp;#x27;re private, Net Neutrality is bullshit. If they&amp;#x27;re public, it&amp;#x27;s obvious.&lt;p&gt;It is in consumer interest for the networks to be public, but the same could be said about the socialization of any number of industries. I&amp;#x27;m constantly fascinated by the way folks consider socializing the telecom industry to be incredibly reasonable and socializing, say, the healthcare industry to be insanity.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Maybe I need to tag all of these posts with #DevilsAdvocate to avoid being downvoted into oblivion.</text></item><item><author>ljd</author><text>An ISP&amp;#x27;s job is to provide internet access to last mile users, such as ourselves.&lt;p&gt;If they choose to reduce that speed for any reason, or throttle any kind of connection they are entitled to do that but they can&amp;#x27;t complain when someone else says that is what they are doing.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think given how much public money has gone into infrastructure and the amount of money I pay in taxes it seems insane for me to first pay for the ISP&amp;#x27;s infrastructure with taxes then have to pay them again.   So while they have a right to throttle, they don&amp;#x27;t have a right to throttle my connection on infrastructure that they did not pay 100% for.   Which probably accounts for the majority of their infrastructure.</text></item><item><author>josh2600</author><text>Playing Devil&amp;#x27;s advocate here for a second:&lt;p&gt;If Netflix is 35% of global internet traffic at peak capacity (as per the Akamai CEO&amp;#x27;s comments at a number of events), is it really fair to treat them like every other company? That is to say, if Netflix is really the sole driver of Network upgrades, why does Verizon have to subsidize their costs of business?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not taking the stance that this is correct, only querying as to why the dynamics here are such that we automatically assume Netflix is in the right. Guilt tripping Verizon into adding more routers is a major net positive to Netflix&amp;#x27;s business.&lt;p&gt;Yes, ISP customers are paying for access but the business reality is that the ARPU per subscriber is decreasing every year at a rate lower than additional subscriber acquisition can sate. As Wall Street demands growth, it has to come from somewhere, and since Carriers are not able to sell consumers additional services (no matter how hard they try), they need to find another set of wallets (content providers). They&amp;#x27;re not utilities and have a profit motive, right?&lt;p&gt;Again, I&amp;#x27;m not saying this is correct, simply trying to add another viewpoint to the conversation.</text></item><item><author>Arjuna</author><text>Awesome response to the C&amp;amp;D, via spokesman Jonathan Friedland:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;This is about consumers not getting what they paid for from their broadband provider. We are trying to provide more transparency, just like we do with the ISP Speed Index, and Verizon is trying to shut down that discussion.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DrJokepu</author><text>Oh no, not the &amp;quot;maximising shareholder value&amp;quot; argument again! This argument has three fundamental problems. First, it is difficult to tell what would &amp;quot;maximise shareholder value&amp;quot;. Second, it misses the fact that something that could &amp;quot;maximise shareholder value&amp;quot; on short term could very well minimise &amp;quot;shareholder value&amp;quot; on long term (or the other way around). Third, and this is the biggest one, people involved in a private company (employees, directors, shareholders) often have an agenda that goes beyond simply making more money. That&amp;#x27;s because they are human beings.</text></comment>
<story><title>Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter</title><url>http://www.cnbc.com/id/101728447</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>josh2600</author><text>An ISP&amp;#x27;s job, as a private company, is to maximize shareholder value. The circuit consumers are sold is a &amp;quot;best-effort&amp;quot; connection in stark contrast to, say, a T1, which is a dedicated circuit.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also very hard to prove that Verizon is throttling, versus, say, simply physically underprovisioning the connection.&lt;p&gt;With respect to public money, I think you&amp;#x27;ve hit the nail on the head. The crux of the Net Neutrality debate, to my mind, is whether these networks are public or private. If they&amp;#x27;re private, Net Neutrality is bullshit. If they&amp;#x27;re public, it&amp;#x27;s obvious.&lt;p&gt;It is in consumer interest for the networks to be public, but the same could be said about the socialization of any number of industries. I&amp;#x27;m constantly fascinated by the way folks consider socializing the telecom industry to be incredibly reasonable and socializing, say, the healthcare industry to be insanity.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Maybe I need to tag all of these posts with #DevilsAdvocate to avoid being downvoted into oblivion.</text></item><item><author>ljd</author><text>An ISP&amp;#x27;s job is to provide internet access to last mile users, such as ourselves.&lt;p&gt;If they choose to reduce that speed for any reason, or throttle any kind of connection they are entitled to do that but they can&amp;#x27;t complain when someone else says that is what they are doing.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think given how much public money has gone into infrastructure and the amount of money I pay in taxes it seems insane for me to first pay for the ISP&amp;#x27;s infrastructure with taxes then have to pay them again.   So while they have a right to throttle, they don&amp;#x27;t have a right to throttle my connection on infrastructure that they did not pay 100% for.   Which probably accounts for the majority of their infrastructure.</text></item><item><author>josh2600</author><text>Playing Devil&amp;#x27;s advocate here for a second:&lt;p&gt;If Netflix is 35% of global internet traffic at peak capacity (as per the Akamai CEO&amp;#x27;s comments at a number of events), is it really fair to treat them like every other company? That is to say, if Netflix is really the sole driver of Network upgrades, why does Verizon have to subsidize their costs of business?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not taking the stance that this is correct, only querying as to why the dynamics here are such that we automatically assume Netflix is in the right. Guilt tripping Verizon into adding more routers is a major net positive to Netflix&amp;#x27;s business.&lt;p&gt;Yes, ISP customers are paying for access but the business reality is that the ARPU per subscriber is decreasing every year at a rate lower than additional subscriber acquisition can sate. As Wall Street demands growth, it has to come from somewhere, and since Carriers are not able to sell consumers additional services (no matter how hard they try), they need to find another set of wallets (content providers). They&amp;#x27;re not utilities and have a profit motive, right?&lt;p&gt;Again, I&amp;#x27;m not saying this is correct, simply trying to add another viewpoint to the conversation.</text></item><item><author>Arjuna</author><text>Awesome response to the C&amp;amp;D, via spokesman Jonathan Friedland:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;This is about consumers not getting what they paid for from their broadband provider. We are trying to provide more transparency, just like we do with the ISP Speed Index, and Verizon is trying to shut down that discussion.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>couradical</author><text>I think the issue is more that the ISPs are demanding payment at both ends of the tunnel. They charge you and I for transit (best-effort though it may be) and then when a bulk of their customers traffic turns to a popular network, attempt to charge that network to upgrade their port speed. (something which is customarily handled for free between peered carriers since both are charging their customers) Think of it this way - it&amp;#x27;s as if I pay UPS to send packages and then they request fees from the cities they deliver to, or they only deliver 100 packages a day to the municipality. That would be insane, and laughed out of court, but that&amp;#x27;s what Comcast&amp;#x2F;Verizon are doing.&lt;p&gt;Also, intentionally physically underprovisioning the connection is throttling, plain and simple. You are limiting the amount of traffic that can traverse that network boundary to 10G&amp;#x2F;40G&amp;#x2F;Whatever your port speed is. What difference does it make if I do it in software or simply refuse to bind more ports to the team?</text></comment>