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Comment by amiga-workbench | Hacker News Reader

Its because DOCSIS has a limited number of frequency channels which can be assigned as either upstream/downstream and if they're comically over-subscribing their infrastructure you can offset that a bit by allocating most channels to downstream. I guess their thinking is that most users are going to be doing download heavy tasks and not upload, so it doesn't matter.

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My guess is that they prefer people to be doing download heavy tasks and not upload.

I think it's perhaps 1% preference and 99% realization of the reality.

  Up: "Hey YouTube, I'd like to watch this video."
  Down: Hundreds of MB of data from YouTube

  Up: "Hey <streaming TV>, I'd like to binge watch <XYZ>"
  Down: Hundreds of MB of data from the streaming service

Asymmetrical connections got more asymmetrical over time, limiting the utility of upload and shaping use of the internet (in most of the US) into more of a content portal or cable tv-like experience than it might otherwise be. I don't think it was purely an emergent phenomenon based on tech and consumer demand, but rather had a strategic element. I'll spare you all my tenuous reasoning, though, since I haven't got any real evidence that was the case.

Possibly because most users are using the Internet as a content portal, and that's all they want it for?

Plenty of consumer features could exist, like sharing actual high bitrate streams of your desktop or camera to others or syncing large amounts of data to servers for backup/sharing.

You miss the point. Those features do exist, and technically savvy folks like us use them (and they work fine with my asymetric connect). But the vast majority of users want YouTube/TikTok/etc to stream without a glitch and couldn't care less about backups, and as far as "high bitrate streams", pretty sure most users are thinking "works good on my iPhone, is good enough".

I think it's not so much that they care, just marketing.

If you have 1.2Gbps total bandwidth and you can split it as you wish, which do you think looks better to customers? 1Gbps (+200Mbps upload) or 600Mbps symmetric? Easier to sell a bigger number.

It's honestly probably that silly.

In my area it's more like 1Gbps down and 30Mbps up, which is very frustrating. That's only the tip of my iceberg of complaints about Comcast here. (A competition-free market, of course.)

Wouldn't this impact their peering agreements?

Summarizing greatly, but user upload = Comcast pays vs user download = Comcast's peers pay them.

I'd assume for last-mile ISPs, peering is a non-negligible source of revenue.

Most of Comcast’s internet is exchanged through transit-free peering agreements, so only about 1% of Comcast’s outbound traffic requires them to pay for IP transit. And that traffic is mainly overseas, so Comcast is effectively a Tier 1 network in the US. Which means their customers’ outbound traffic doesn’t cost them anything.

For most last-mile ISPs, peering isn’t a revenue source. Small ISPs have to pay for peering and IP transit, and large ISPs have transit-free peering agreements with most, if not all, of the internet.

However, large ISPs that enjoy regional monopolies can refuse to upgrade connections with peered networks in an attempt to force the content providers sending traffic over the peered network to instead peer directly with the ISP.

This tactic is really only feasible for ISPs who have captive customers that are unable to switch to another ISP, as the negotiation process requires the ISP to allow the service it is providing to its actual customers to degrade to such an extent that the content provider is forced to peer directly with the ISP.

Peering is based purely on negotiating power so Comcast will get paid no matter what happens.

Upload = people able to host and do things on their own.

Media companies like NBC/Sky/Universal/Xfinity/Comcast do not want you to be creators. They want you to consume consume consume... and it doesnt count against your bandwidth if you consume from THEM.

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