Kiwi7 wrote:
VivienM wrote:
Kiwi7 wrote:Does this mean that Rogers was engaging in some kind of traffic management (throttling) just for Netflix? If so, it is not a matter of "so what". It should have been disclosed as per CRTC regulations and I do not believe Rogers ever did this! So even if you use Netflix without issues, that is not the point!
I don't think ANY ISP (in Canada or elsewhere) would be stupid enough to engage in any kind of traffic management on Netflix traffic.
Why not? Because they have the CRTC (and every other similar regulator) on speed dial. And while I personally would tend to take the ISPs' side over Netflix's, I also recognize that Netflix is very, very, very good at presenting its case. Netflix is not BitTorrent (which used to get its traffic shaped into oblivion precisely because it didn't have good lobbyists and PR consultants)...
Now, some ISPs in the U.S. are (or at least have been accused of) taking a different approach, i.e. not upgrading the paths between them and Netflix (which may involve third-parties like Level 3, Cogent, etc.) and letting congestion serve as de-facto traffic management. And I think it is going to come back to bite them... but that's another story.
Frankly, I think any reasonable ISP should probably just set up some 10GbE interconnects directly into Netflix's home-grown CDN and upgrade them the instant they hit 60-70% utilization. If the Netflix traffic gets too high and keeping up gets too expensive, bill their subscribers for the GB used, neutrally.
In this case, what I think the Rogers PR language means is that the numbers quoted by Netflix apply to Netflix traffic, and that Netflix isn't saying that Rogers customers get 1.whatever megabits/sec to the rest of the Internet. But, as is usually the case when PR folks write about telecom, they chose horrible wording and made things more confusing.
If you deliberately keep that connection with a low bandwidth, I can't see how it doesn't "equate" to throttling Netflix connections.....
Well, this is where things get political.
Let's take a very simple scenario. Let's assume you have a piece of fiber directly running between Rogers gear and Netflix gear in some carrier hotel somewhere (151 Front, 111 8th in NYC, wherever). That cable has reached capacity, so you want to add a second one. That means Rogers' gear needs an extra port, Netflix's gear needs an extra port, and someone needs to pay the landlord of the building to string another piece of fiber between the two racks.
Who pays the landlord? And who pays for the port on Rogers' gear?
And who is to blame for the fact that there is not enough capacity until these political issues are resolved?
Netflix is a monster. 1/3rd of Internet traffic, coming from a single company. That's unprecedented, and it gives rise to all kinds of technical and political issues.