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Time Warner Defends Comcast In Level 3 Dispute
A big battle is happening over Internet service so,naturally, people have added large dollops of fear and misinformationand are shouting about it on Facebook. On December 21, the FCC willfinally vote on adopting net neutrality rules. This may (or may not)have been caused by Comcast's spat with Level 3 now that Level 3 won abig contract to handle Netflix's video streaming.
Grind it all together, output it to Facebook and you get this campaign: "Save the Internet: Stop Comcast from Blocking Netflix.Without strong net neutrality rules, companies like Comcast can demandfees from innovative companies like Netflix in an attempt to chokeconsumer freedom and coerce users to adopt its own video servicesinstead."
Comcast insists that this has nothing to do with blocking the upstartNetflix's business but about how much of Level 3's traffic it mustcarry before it gets to send Level 3 a bill [PDF]. Level 3's traffic has greatly increased thanks to Netflix.
On Thursday, Comcast's frienemy, Time Warner, issued a statement of support for Comcast that eloquently explained the pro-cable provider side of the fight.
"The recent news regarding the negotiations between Level 3 andComcast has raised many questions about the way peering agreements arenegotiated between Network Operators and has been inappropriately lumpedinto the issue of network neutrality. These agreements have been andcontinue to be negotiated based on the amounts of traffic, not the type,being delivered to each party’s network by the other.
"When the amount of traffic being delivered between two networks isgenerally balanced a 'Settlement Free' peering agreement is likely theresult. However, when the amount of traffic is not balanced, it iscommonplace for the network operator receiving the greater level oftraffic to insist on compensation for the added costs that are faced as aresult. Again, the issue in these negotiations is the amount, not thetype of data being transported. Additionally, regardless of whether twoNetwork Operators reach an agreement, end users will still be able toreceive any data or content they wish to reach as that traffic will findan alternate route over other available interconnecting networks.
"Because there is no discrimination among different types of content,and no blocking of content, peering agreements between NetworkOperators don’t raise Net Neutrality issues and have never been part ofthe Net Neutrality debate."
To add juice to that argument, Comcast this week said it actually supports the FCC's proposed rules. Note that the rules could allow ISPs to do some traffic rationing.
The issue is reaching fever pitch, jump started because the FCCcommissioner wants a vote to take place before the new Congress arrivesin 2011. Funny, just announcing the meeting's agenda caused every FCCcommissioner to immediately issue a statement with Republicans(predictably) opposed and Democrats (predictably) in favor.
And now, every oddball group is jumping in to add to the netneutrality hype. We've gotten press releases this week from groups asdiverse as The Hispanic Leadership Fund (opposed) to the NationalMedical Association (in favor).
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