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Comment by CocaKoala | Hacker News Reader

L3 is not pushing. I cannot stress that enough. L3 is not pushing. L3 does not push. Pushing is not something L3 does. In the Game of Pushing, L3 is not a player. If you navigate to wikipedia.org/things_which_push, L3 is not on that list. If all the entities of the universe were put into two groups, one labeled "pushers" and one labeled "not pushers", L3 would be in the second group.

The ISPs must play ball with L3 because their customers are asking for content that L3 is trying to provide. If the customers ask for different content from somebody else, then somebody else would be providing the data.

And excuse me? Don't blame me for the crappy analogy; you're the one who brought it up. I thought it was a stupid analogy too, but I thought that speaking in your own terms might help you understand the situation.

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Customers are not asking for L3. Customers are asking for content, of which L3 is one of the providers. L3 is pushing L3, even if you say they're not.

Without customers asking for content, L3 wouldn't provide anything to Comcast. It's at the specific request of the customers that L3 relays the replies. The customers initiate the request, and L3 provides the response.

Without the service L3 provides, Comcast wouldn't be able to (as efficiently) provide the service to their customers. In a sense, Comcast should pay L3 for their access to the content.

But they're not asking for L3, they're asking for Netflix. So maybe Netflix should hire a CDN that can play ball with Comcast, instead of L3, who is apparently being shut out.

> So maybe Netflix should hire a CDN that can play ball with Comcast, instead of L3

Um, didn't someone upthread point out that Level3 doesn't actually carry any Netflix content?

So what you are saying is that Netflix should pay extortion money to Comcast - either directly, or via a CDN - because Comcast have a monopoly situation.

You can try to package it any other way you like, but that's what you are suggesting: The only reason Comcast is in position to try this gambit is because there are alternatives (albeit very few) to backbone providers, and major content providers can be bullied directly, but most Comcast customers do not have alternatives to Comcast.

If anything, that Comcast even dares ask for this should be evidence that they are abusing a monopoly situation, and ought to be a trigger for massive reform - in a free market, they'd get told to take a hike.

L3 is not the provider, Netflix is the provider. Netflix has chosen to contract with L3 so that their customers can receive the content. L3 is also an ISP and so has peering agreements with other ISPs. Netflix has customers who aren't using L3 as an ISP so L3 and these ISPs make use of their peering setup to transmit Netflix's content to the ISPs' customers.

L3 is not pushing, the customers are pulling. The ISPs serving the customers are not able to keep up.

You want pushing? That'd be L3 using (as an example) Comcast to reach customers of TWC. Then L3 would be pushing through Comcast. That's not the (apparent) situation here. The end user is on the other side of this peering divide, not multiple peers away. Customers are pulling data from Netflix which happens to be on L3. Blame the customers and up their rates if that's what's needed to cover the costs. But at $15+ billion a year in profit Comcast can probably afford to use the customers' money to provide them with the promised experience.

L3 is pushing to maintain its contract with Netflix. L3 is pushing, because L3 isn't the only CDN responsible for Netflix traffic. "Comcast" (it may not actually be Comcast and in fact I doubt it is given Netflix's recent agreement with Comcast) can just use Netflix's other CDNs, and traffic will continue to flow normally.

L3 is not necessary here, and everyone who's actually involved knows it, including L3.

If Comcast can't handle the amount of data, how would using a different CDN help? Does the other CDN somehow send less data given exactly the same requests?

Or are you arguing that an ISP should be allowed to restrict which services people are allowed to access depending on how much those services pay the ISP?

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