Trying to Make Sense of the Comcast/Level 3 Dispute

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

Interesting article:

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/sjs/trying-make-sense-comcast-level-3
- -dispute

Considering the fact that I received an e-mail survey request today from
Netflix (I am a subscriber) which, among other questions, asked if I ever
did streaming of their services on the Internet, Wii, Live TV, etc. (I
don't), as well as asked if I am a Comcast subscriber (I am), among other
last-mile service provider options -- I just found the timing of all of
this very "interesting".

FYI,

- - ferg

2

I suppose this is all just a smoke screen to force one/both sides to
upgrade inter-links before the l3/flix cdn contract goes whole hog. A
stalling tactic and one to push buttons (political/PR buttons) raising
the stakes/pushing timing up on installs...

is interesting though.

-chris

3

In a message written on Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 09:40:01PM -0800, Paul Ferguson wrote:

Considering the fact that I received an e-mail survey request today from
Netflix (I am a subscriber) which, among other questions, asked if I ever
did streaming of their services on the Internet, Wii, Live TV, etc. (I
don't), as well as asked if I am a Comcast subscriber (I am), among other
last-mile service provider options -- I just found the timing of all of
this very "interesting".

Unfortunately Netflix's state of mind if you will is something we
can't derive from the routing tables.

They might have gone into this hand in hand with Level 3, wanting
to make a point to Comcast/The FCC/The Public about something. On
the other hand, Level 3 might have told them things were just peachy
with Comcast and they could easily handle this traffic and Netflix
got sold a pig in a poke. If so, they could be rather unhappy that
their new CDN partner is dragging them into this mess before they
even turn up.

But I have to wonder, why ask if you are on Comcast? It's not hard
to identify all of Comcast's IP space from the routing table, and
they know the endpoint of every stream they serve. They have perfect
data from their servers, why use error prone data from a survey?

4

In a message written on Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 09:40:01PM -0800, Paul Ferguson wrote:

Interesting article:

Trying to Make Sense of the Comcast / Level 3 Dispute - Freedom to Tinker
- -dispute

Here's an excellent summary, complete with some pictures:

http://www.voxel.net/blog/2010/12/peering-disputes-comcast-level-3-and-you

5

Agreed there, very nice. Thanks.

6

Unfortunately, they got at least part of the diagram wrong;
Yahoo uses Global Crossing to reach Comcast, not TATA.

Matt

7

my guess is the info for that was pulled off comcast's route server, where
only tata is seen

BGP routing table entry for 98.137.128.0/19, version 681406320
Paths: (8 available, best #8, table Default-IP-Routing-Table)
  Not advertised to any peer
  6453 10310 36752 36752, (received & used)
    68.86.1.43 (metric 72251) from 68.86.80.5 (68.86.1.5)
      Origin IGP, metric 0, localpref 250, valid, internal
      Community: 7922:43 7922:3050 7922:3120
      Originator: 68.86.1.43, Cluster list: 68.86.1.5
  6453 10310 36752 36752, (received & used)
    68.86.1.40 (metric 78885) from 68.86.80.15 (68.86.1.15)
      Origin IGP, metric 0, localpref 250, valid, internal
      Community: 7922:40 7922:3050 7922:3120
      Originator: 68.86.1.40, Cluster list: 68.86.1.15
  6453 10310 36752 36752, (received & used)
    68.86.1.41 (metric 85042) from 68.86.80.7 (68.86.1.7)
      Origin IGP, metric 0, localpref 250, valid, internal
      Community: 7922:41 7922:3050 7922:3120
      Originator: 68.86.1.41, Cluster list: 68.86.1.7, 68.86.1.13
  6453 10310 36752 36752, (received & used)
    68.86.1.44 (metric 101555) from 68.86.80.10 (68.86.1.10)
      Origin IGP, metric 0, localpref 250, valid, internal
      Community: 7922:44 7922:3050 7922:3120
      Originator: 68.86.1.44, Cluster list: 68.86.1.10
  6453 10310 36752 36752, (received & used)
    68.86.1.42 (metric 70822) from 68.86.80.0 (68.86.1.0)
      Origin IGP, metric 0, localpref 250, valid, internal
      Community: 7922:42 7922:3050 7922:3120
      Originator: 68.86.1.42, Cluster list: 68.86.1.0
  6453 10310 36752 36752, (received & used)
    68.86.1.41 (metric 85042) from 68.86.80.13 (68.86.1.13)
      Origin IGP, metric 0, localpref 250, valid, internal
      Community: 7922:41 7922:3050 7922:3120
      Originator: 68.86.1.41, Cluster list: 68.86.1.13
  6453 10310 36752 36752, (received & used)
    68.86.80.11 (metric 92374) from 68.86.80.11 (68.86.1.11)
      Origin IGP, metric 0, localpref 250, valid, internal
      Community: 7922:11 7922:3050 7922:3120
  6453 10310 36752 36752, (received & used)
    68.86.1.46 (metric 65585) from 68.86.80.2 (68.86.1.2)
      Origin IGP, metric 0, localpref 250, valid, internal, best
      Community: 7922:46 7922:3050 7922:3120
      Originator: 68.86.1.46, Cluster list: 68.86.1.2

8

Asymmetric routing on the Internet? What will they think of next?!

That said, does changing the name of the middle network change the substance of the post?

9

my guess is the info for that was pulled off comcast's route server, where
only tata is seen

Asymmetric routing on the Internet? What will they think of next?!

That said, does changing the name of the middle network change the substance of the post?

Nope--just pointing out that Yahoo content is not stuck on the
congested pathway in the direction in which the congestion
exists, at least until Comcast decides to start sending sufficient
outbound traffic to cause congestion in both directions. Just
didn't like the portrayal of our connectivity as being stuck behind
a traffic jam of other data, potentially causing Comcast users to
subconsciously avoid going to Yahoo sites for fear they might be
somehow affected by that line of cars.

--
TTFN,
patrick

P.S. And does Y! have a route-server to figure this stuff out? :slight_smile:

Not one that the security team would allow me to open up to outside
queries, I'm afraid. :frowning:

Matt