Not only is my Netflix connection much worse since they signed this deal with Comcast, now Comcast is sticking these weird commercials right in the middle of scenes when I watch a TV show on demand:
Five major internet service providers in the US and one in Europe have been accused of abusing their market share to interfere with the flow of the internet for end users. The accusations come from Level 3, a communications company that helps connect large-scale ISPs like Comcast or AT&T to the rest of the internet. According to the company, these six unnamed ISPs are deliberately degrading the quality of internet services using the Level 3 network, in an attempt to get Level 3 to pay them a fee for additional traffic caused by services like Netflix, a process known as paid peering.
“They are not allowing us to fulfill the requests their customers make for content.”
“They are deliberately harming the service they deliver to their paying customers,” writes Level 3’s Mark Taylor. “They are not allowing us to fulfill the requests their customers make for content.” While Taylor doesn’t name names, he describes the six offenders as “large broadband consumer networks with a dominant or exclusive market share in their local market.” He adds that “in countries or markets where consumers have multiple broadband choices (like the UK) there are no congested peers.” He also says that Level 3 won’t be paying up. “Our policy is to refuse to pay arbitrary charges to add interconnection capacity,” he explains.
The situation recalls recent claims by Netflix that Comcast is intentionally throttling traffic with intermediaries like Level 3 and Cogent, a problem that Netflix says ultimately led it to start signing direct traffic deals — Comcast and Verizon have been paid so far, with more likely to come.
Thanks to Ed Tayter.
It’s clear that more often then not Obama is siding with the corporations against the consumers. He has big plans for his future and the wealth coming his way after he leaves the presidency. Obama’s is still pushing for passage of the TPP. He refuses to kill the Keystone XL pipeline outright. Gitmo remains open. His most recent outrage is not releasing the 6300 page Senate report outlining the crimes of the CIA.
Not just Obama. The silence from the rest of the Dem caucus (veal pen) is pretty deafening and damning. I am represented by a congressman who is considered very liberal (Blumenauer), and when I wrote him about the internet mergers and monopolies in my area, his lame response was that we need to build more infrastructure for the monopolies so that somehow this would create competition (and there is no reason to believe that we don’t already have plenty of infrastructure in most major cities, the bottlenecks are mostly deliberate so they can try maximize charges for what little they provide, artificial scarcity).