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nikanj

Probably not, as Netflix has no way to prove Comcast is throttling them and the FCC is toothless

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Netflix customers can, though. Netflix set up a site, Fast.com for customers to test speed to their network.

During the day now: 72 Mb/s In the evenings: 7Mb/s In the evenings, with my employer's VPN turned on: 66Mb/s

(I'm on Comcast)

Maybe you just take another route to your VPN gateway than to Netflix. So Netflix may be saturated, when your VPN is not.

Without VPN, the traceroute shows a direct connection to the destination. It's quite literally the next hop on the network.

   7  hu-0-10-0-1-pe04.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.83.182)  22.233 ms  11.978 ms  10.577 ms
   8  a104-72-128-31.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com (104.72.128.31)  11.783 ms  11.075 ms  18.287 ms

With VPN, it's Comcast -> Corp -> ATT -> Netflix/Akamai. That's a rather longer route.

Doesn't matter. What will be full in 99% of the cases will be the Comcast connection to $content_provider. In many cases an entire metro area will have no spare capacity between any of the major backbone providers and Comcast, so there is almost nothing you can do if you do not have the capability to route that traffic to a different region. This is why many times you will see "scenic routes" when on Comcast - it's providers routing traffic around Comcast's regional congestion in many cases.

While this happens with many providers, Comcast is about the worst offender. They are quite happy to allow peering links to remain full at peak indefinitely - it's a way to put pressure on the content networks to pay for access to their routes over a private peering session. If you're a major web hosting operation, your customers will demand great performance to Comcast. They don't really care that Comcast is strong-arming paid peering agreements via those demands. It's especially awesome because Comcast generally charges more for bits to their tiny portion of the Internet, than what you pay for bits to a major backbone for the full table.

Unfortunately you can't prove whether the decreased throughput is due to throttling or simply congested routes.

Level3 had an interesting blog post on this a while back: http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/observations-internet-m...

Basically certain ISPs refuse to increase connection capacity with backbone providers like level3. Instead they (Comcast) is trying to get Netflix to connect directly with them and charge them a premium in doing so.

They refuse to increase settlement free capacity. Level 3 can pay for the bit-miles beyond what they are carrying in return for the ISPs, or Netflix can do what every other company does and lease lines as needed.

Do you have any links to articles or discussions that talk about this? I'd like to understand it more.

Level 3 is never going to pay someone else for capacity, they are a tier 1. Their entire business model is "being big enough to never have to pay someone else for capacity".

Is this ruling not the FCC regaining "teeth"?

No, this is validation that the FCCs position is legal. Nor they need a mechanism to enforce it properly.

That doesn't just mean the ability to impose penalties (which is part of it) but also means the power to know what's going on so that penalties can be imposed.

The FCC has existing complaint-based, investigatory, and other enforcement mechanisms, which have been around for a long time, and have been available to use (e.g., complaints have been accepted) under the Open Internet Order since it was issued (heck, they've had successful enforcement actions under the part of the old [2010] Open Internet Order -- the transparency rule -- that weren't struck down in Verizon v. FCC, such as the $100M penalty against AT&T Mobility for misrepresenting its "unlimited" plans.)

What do you imagine it doesn't have that it needs with regard to the Open Internet Order in this area?

On paper you are correct, but I doubt the person who runs the FCC gets to golf with the president[0][1].

[0]http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/08/obama-golfs-with... [1]http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375116/how-comcast-bou...

That's a pretty ironic view. This all got started when the FCC ordered Comcast to stop blocking file-sharing services like BitTorrent. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08...

Comcast sued and the FCC spent the next eight years fighting.

I'm having trouble seeing the irony. Have you known corporations in America to suffer consequences of significant magnitude for illegal actives of late? Especially ones that own media companies and donate heavily to political campaigns[0]? It's entirely possible the FCC has no teeth, or is muzzled by some paymaster.

[0]http://littlesis.org/person/2261/Brian_L_Roberts/political

The irony, of course, is that you insinuate the FCC would never go after Comcast despite the fact that going after Comcast is the very thing that kicked off the entire net neutrality debate.

> Have you known corporations in America to suffer consequences of significant magnitude for illegal actives of late?

Well, if we're staying with the FCC, this would seem to qualify: https://www.fcc.gov/document/att-mobility-faces-100m-fine-mi.... The FCC fined AT&T $100 M for violation of an Open Internet rule--the FCC found that they essentially "mislabeled" their broadband Internet service as'unlimited' without disclosing that speeds would be throttled after a user exceeded a certain soft cap. $100 M seems to me like a pretty robust fine for that kind of violation.

While likely a large number to you and me, we are talking about a corporation that claims 120 billion in sales a year. That is less than a single days profits. Not nearly punitive enough to prevent this behavior in the future.

What amount do you think would be reasonable, given that violation?

Lying to consumers is a serious offense. They would feel something in the vicinity of 10 billion. Roughly a 1/5th of their profits for the year.

Huh. Well, I think we're just going to have to disagree on that one. While some lies are worse than others (and I suppose I can think of lies that might warrant the astronomical fine you propose), this particular 'lie'--marketing a data plan as unlimited when speeds were in fact throttled when you exceed a certain monthly cap--arguably in violation of a brand new rule doesn't seem nearly serious enough to warrant the huge fine you're talking about.

Its worth noting that that $100 million fine was -- by the FCC's own description -- significantly moderated because it was the first fine under the Transparency Rule [0]

[0] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-63A1.pd... (para. 38)

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