Last week StreamingMedia.com hosted a webinar with Microsoft and iStreamPlanet talking about the backend technology and platforms that powered the online streaming of the Winter Olympics. During the Q&A portion of the event, the companies gave out details on server technology, protocols, encoding bitrates, transport services and other pieces of information. Below are their answers to some of the most frequently asked questions during the webinar.

Question: How many peak concurrent connections were recorded during the Sochi Olympics?
NBC Sports hasn’t officially confirmed their peak concurrent viewership numbers, but the New York Times did report that the USA vs. Canada men’s hockey game viewership peaked at 850,000 concurrent viewers before the end of the game.

Question: What was your highest & lowest bit rate per device?
The highest bit rate was 3.5 Mbps (1280×720) and the lowest bit rate was 200 kbps (340×192). Alex Zambelli’s blog contains additional information about the Olympics encoding specifications.

Question: How many total GBs of live video were delivered from opening to closing ceremonies?
NBC Sports reported that 10.8 million hours of streamed video were consumed during the Sochi Winter Olympics, of which 80% were live streams consumed via NBCOlympics.com and NBC Sports Live Extra apps. Those numbers are cumulative and NBC hasn’t officially stated how many hours or gigabytes of video were actually delivered.

Question: What is the latency you have for the live streaming?
Latency depends on multiple variables in the workflow, including the geographical distance between the content acquisition and the content delivery, the encoding buffer size, the duration of the media segments (fragments), CDN caching and edge structure, and the player buffer duration. Typical end-to-end latency observed in HTTP-based adaptive streaming can range anywhere between 15 seconds to over a minute.

Question: Why use Flash Player and not Silverlight since you guys used Windows Azure Media Services?
The customer will often determine the playback platforms and formats and in this case NBC Sports chose Adobe Primetime and Flash for the client experiences. Both Aventus and Windows Azure Media Services are capable of delivering live video in multiple HTTP-based adaptive streaming formats, such as Smooth Streaming, HDS and HLS.

Question: What kind of redundancy was used to ensure that feeds continued streaming despite any technical failures?
There were multiple levels of redundancy built into every aspect of the live video workflow, from the content acquisition to the content delivery. A few examples: content was acquired via IP over fiber networks but for key events satellite back up was ready. iStreamPlanet replicated the streams at Switch SuperNAP and sent them to Azure U.S. East and West data centers for geographical redundancy. Finally, within each data center Aventus used full VM redundancy to ensure uninterrupted publishing even in the case of partial channel failures.

Question: Can you give us some detail about the transport services necessary to convey the live streams from ingest to CDN?
The live feeds from Sochi were delivered over a private IP network from Sochi Olympics Broadcasting Services (OBS) to NBC’s facility in Stamford, CT; to iStreamPlanet’s data center at Switch SuperNAP in Las Vegas, NV; and to Microsoft’s Windows Azure U.S. East and West data centers.

Question: What is the orchestration layer used to deploy and configure additional channel instances in the cloud?
Aventus has built in orchestration layer to deploy and launch Aventus channels while the details of the Azure cloud orchestration layer used to launch Window Azure Media Services channels will be made available when Windows Azure Media Services officially launches their Live service.

Question: How much consideration is given to content protection/DRM and how is it achieved?
Our customers give a lot of thought to content protection and content security since most of the content we stream is considered premium content. Aventus supports PlayReady DRM and AES-128 encryption although NBC Sports chose not to use these technologies for live streaming the Olympics. NBC Sports used CDN token authentication in addition to TVE authentication to prevent unauthorized access to video streams.

Question: What KPIs were used in the monitoring? Was the dashboard simply viewed by humans?
Both Aventus and Windows Azure Media Services relied on their own telemetry systems, respectively, to monitor system performance. Due to the high profile nature of the event additional human monitoring was provided by iStreamPlanet and Microsoft operations teams.

Question: Where were the ad triggers inserted (SCTE?) and did the player insert ads or the stream leaving the cloud?  Was Freewheel the ad insertion tool?
iStreamPlanet built a video CMS tool used for ad insertion. Ad markers were inserted into encoded streams via Aventus web-based API, and converted to HLS and HDS-compatible ad markers by Windows Azure Media Services. Ad insertion was then performed client-side by the respective player apps.

Question: What was the origin encoder at iStreamPlanet?  Elemental?  Cisco Media Processor?  Digital Rapids?
None of the above. The Olympics video feeds were ingested and transcoded to multiple bitrates and packaged into Smooth Streaming for delivery to Windows Azure using iStreamPlanet’s proprietary video encoding solution Aventus. Aventus is a cloud-based live video encoding solution, built for the cloud from the ground up, capable of delivering live events and live linear channels in a scalable fashion while utilizing commodity x86-64 hardware.

Question: How was Android supported? Was RTSP in the mix for the native android browser or was HLS in Chrome utilized  or was an app solely relied on?
Android was supported via a Google Play store app which consumed HLS streams.

Question: What server technology was used to deliver the live multiprotocol streams?
Windows Azure Media Services was used to dynamically remux video into Apple HLS and Adobe HDS format for delivery to compatible devices.

Question: What processing is done at Switch?
In the case of the Olympics the streams were aggregated and replicated at the Switch SuperNAP data center and then sent to Azure U.S. East and West for processing. iStreamPlanet also uses Switch SuperNAP for hosting its own private Aventus SaaS offering.

Question: Was there a way to prevent viewers from recording live or on demand content?
Using content protection solutions such as PlayReady DRM it is possible to restrict media playback to only secure playback platforms over certified output paths (e.g. HDCP/HDMI). This type of content protection was not used by NBC Sports for streaming the Sochi Olympics.

Question: Was this technology used solely for NBC or was it the streaming infrastructure for all global streaming (i.e. CBC in Canada, Network Ten in Australia, etc)?
iStreamPlanet Aventus was used solely for NBC Sports live streaming video coverage of the Sochi Olympics.

Question: What device or appliance was used to deliver the video from NBC Sports Stamford to iStreamPlanet?
NBC Sports used Ericsson video encoders to create broadcast-quality MPEG-2 Transport Streams for delivery to iStreamPlanet.

Question: Where there any major issues or failover situations during the games? I know the infrastructure was built to span multiple datacenters for redundancy.
The solution performed extremely well and there were no failovers required, however, the solution was architected to fail over to new VMs and servers with minimal to no interruption to the streams.

Question: What kind of CMS was used and how do they relate to each other?
iStreamPlanet worked with NBC Sports to create a custom CMS for the Olympics to perform ad and slate insertion. Other CMS solutions were used by NBC Sports to manage live and on-demand video assets.

Tomorrow, at 2pm ET, I’ll be moderating another StreamingMedia.com webinar, this time on the topic of, “Best practices for designing multi-device video experiences.” Delivering a consistent brand experience across multiple devices is paramount, but it is becoming harder to control as some new platforms dictate their own User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI). There is also the question of relevancy of features and content. Should they be exactly the same across all devices? Or should context of use dictate a different approach? This and other topics will be covered in the webinar with Leigh Brett, VP of Experience & Design at Piksel. Other subjects to be covered include:

• Brief overview of what UX is and isn’t
• Multi-device design techniques
• Designing for context of use
• Content and feature strategies
• Delivering design in agile environments

REGISTER NOW to join us for this FREE Web event and learn the best practices in ensuring a ‘familiar’ video-centric service spanning a multitude of devices, as well as how you determine what features add value to your customers amidst content provider and technology constraints.

We’ve seen quite a few web events have some pretty big streaming failures lately including the Oscars, Golden Globes, WWE Network and last night’s True Detective finale on HBOGO. After these kinds of failures, the companies involved are quick to point to a large volume of traffic as the reason for the failure when in fact, that’s not the case at all. Technical issues with vendors, a breakdown in technology and lack of planning are the true cause of viewer’s frustration. Today HBO said that the problems viewers encountered last night was due to “an excessive amount of traffic“, which is not the real reason there was a problem.

Like almost all content providers, HBO relies on third-party CDNs for the delivery of their videos and these CDNs are in the business of handling large scale live events. That’s what they do. So making it sound like these CDNs can’t handle the traffic caused by these events, from a bandwidth or server capacity perspective is not the case. They have the resources to handle it, but many times, technical issues in the video ecosystem keep these events from happening without problems and more often than not, poor planning also plays a part in the failure.

However, it’s not always CDNs that are the cause of the problem, it can also be issues with other platforms in the video chain that all have to work perfectly in order to make the live streaming event a success. In the case of the Oscars, ABC said the live streams were down nationwide “due to a traffic overload/greater than expected“, but that’s not what happened. In fact, the live stream going over CDN provider EdgeCast and Akamai (Updated 3/12: Akamai did not stream the Oscars but was the CDN for the website) was fine, but Verizon had an issue with the signal acquisition portion of the event. Verizon’s Uplynk software runs on Amazon Web Services platform, which encountered a problem during the broadcast. So it had nothing to do with a “traffic overload” on the CDNs or them not being able to handle the capacity of the live stream itself.

In the case of the recent problems the WWE had when they launched their new streaming platform WWE Network, the company outsourced the infrastructure requirements to Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), which had problems with their ecommerce infrastructure that kept people from being able to sign up for the service. The day the service launched, WWE said that MLBAM “was overwhelmed and its systems have been unable to process most orders since 9 am due to demand for WWE Network.” In reality, the “demand” is not what caused the issue, this wasn’t even a live event, but rather technical issues with MLBAM infrastructure and software. And keep in mind, MLBAM does not own their own infrastructure, they run their software on top of other cloud and CDN providers.

For the media reports that say these live events are failing because there is so much demand, that’s not true. Remember that the live webcast of the Oscar’s was only available in eight cities in the U.S. and you had to be a subscriber to cable TV. In the case of HBOGO, last week HBO’s CEO said that only a small percentage of subscribers to HBO actually use the HBOGO service. So user demand and traffic to these live and on-demand events is not what’s causing them to fail and the number of people trying to watch the video streams aren’t that large. It simply comes down to the technology platforms that are being used which are not as reliable as broadcast TV. Media reports implying that a “broadband shortage” or “overwhelming popularity” is what’s causing these failures is not accurate.

The fact is the Internet will never be as reliable or scalable as broadcast TV distribution. Some don’t like to hear that, but that’s reality and you can’t argue with it. The Internet was not built to handle large scale live video events with the same reliability, quality and viewership numbers as broadcast TV. We’ve been live streaming events over the Internet for 20 years now and in that time, the average live video stream has only grown in quality from about 300Kps in 1999 2000/2001, to an average of 1.5Mbps today. I would argue that’s not a lot of quality improvement over the past 15 years, especially when compared to how much broadcast TV has improved quality wise during the same time.

Some new speaking spots have just opened for the Streaming Media East show, taking place May 13-14 in NYC. In addition to these speaking spots, I also now have room to add two more sessions to the program. If you want to organize and moderate a session around a particular topic, please contact me. One 60 minute round table panel spot is open and I am accepting all suggestions from everyone on topics and pitches. The second round table panel will be about streaming live events, specifically around content like gaming from services like Twitch.tv and others. I am looking for a moderator and speakers for this session as well.

In addition, some of the moderators in the program are looking for specific speakers for their sessions, so contact me if you are interested in any of these openings:

4K Streaming: Cost, QoS, and Cutting Through The Hype
It seems every year the online video space is inundated with the next big thing and a push toward the latest technology must-have. In years past, we saw pushes for 3D streaming and HEVC; this year, it’s all about 4K. This session will cut through the 4K hype and discuss what real-world impact 4K could have and what the requirements really are to stream in 4K. Hear from experts from various sides of the industry to get some clarity on what 4K will cost content owners to implement, how QoS will be addressed, and what the future may hold for 4K streaming.

Looking for one content owner/distributor/syndicator specifically.

How Advertisers Can Master the Spend Between Television and Digital Video
This year’s TV Upfront marks one of the first years that a common set of measurement metrics is available in the advertising world for both television and digital video. Agencies and brands alike are now faced with the challenge to create a holistic spending strategy that brings the most value from both online and television ad dollars. In this session, speakers will explain how technology is now enabling businesses to strategically map cross-screen advertising spend in order to maximize campaign ROI. The panel will discuss how these strategies are effectively optimizing campaign reach and influence, as well as combating struggles of fragmenting reach and inventory restraints that have historically come with television-only campaigns.

Looking for moderator and accepting all speaking submissions.

Paid Media on YouTube: Strategies for Brands
Most consumer brands have developed some presence on YouTube, but paid media on the entertainment behemoth remains a mystery for many. Should YouTube be treated as an extension of search or television, performance or branding? Is cost-per-completed-view an appropriate performance metric? With easy access to TrueView ads through AdWords, should media agencies oversee these budgets? This session will discuss multi-channel networks and YouTube technology partners, looking at how they add value and how brands should work with a third party to manage content on YouTube.

Looking for speakers who are content owners, agencies or brands.

Achieving Video Advertising Campaign Goals Through Data
Traditional video ad buys were broad, untargeted and inefficient. However these days with the move to programmatic buying, and the expansion of the video market, a whole new wave of efficient buying has emerged. Based on a campaign’s key performance indicators, be it clicks, or completes, far greater performance can be achieved at a much lower cost. This session will look at the leading ways to slice and dice audiences by demographics, psychographic, behavioral and contextual data. It will also explore the most important metrics for engagement and performance as viewed by brands, agencies, and networks.

Accepting all speaking submissions.

The Economics of Mobile Video: Building a Profitable Business
Delivering premium content to mobile devices has moved from sideshow to the main event. Publishers and broadcasters are now tasked with making streaming profitable on all screens, which involves a lot of complexity. From the expense of creating a high-quality experience for multiple devices and platforms, to the complexities of transcoding, ad insertion and measurement, monetizing mobile video remains challenging. This session will discuss which approaches are working in the market, what type of content consumers are viewing, how big of an opportunity mobile is to premium content owners and how they can build an effective mobile video strategy.

Looking for content owners/distributors/syndicators specifically.

Each year I collect industry pricing data from customers who used third party content delivery networks for the delivery of video. Last year, more than 700 customers filled out the 15 question survey and got a copy of the results. This year’s survey is now live and all results will be shared, free of charge, if you include your email at the end of the survey. You will also be entered into a drawing to win an Apple TV, Roku 3 and Kindle Fire.

If you have any questions about the going rate for CDN pricing or would like access to current or previous pricing data for video delivery, dynamic content delivery or transit pricing, please contact me at any time.

Tomorrow, at 2pm ET, I’ll be moderating another StreamingMedia.com webinar, this time on the topic of, “Streaming the Olympics, A Case Study In Moving Media Processing To The Cloud.” The live streaming of NBC’s coverage of the 2014 Olympics represented an important milestone in the automation and virtualization of the live video workflow. The cloud-based solution created by Microsoft, iStreamPlanet, Adobe and NBC powered 41 live streaming channels running continuously for 18 days, ultimately delivering over 3000 hours of high definition, adaptive bitrate, multi format live content to a broad spectrum of devices on the iOS, Android and Windows platforms.

Join Microsoft and iStreamPlanet for a live, in depth discussion of the 2014 Olympics live video workflow and the advantages of moving media processing to the cloud. In this session you will learn how the solution was implemented with Windows Azure Media Services, and iStreamPlanet’s Aventus live video workflow to help NBC expand their digital audience while simultaneously reducing the cost and complexity involved in delivering a first rate viewing experience to all connected devices.

REGISTER NOW to join us for this FREE Web event.

There’s been a lot of speculation involving the business and technical details surrounding the recent deal between Comcast and Netflix and plenty of wrong numbers and information being used. I thought it would be helpful to detail what’s really taking place behind the scenes, highlight some important publicly available data in the market, talk about the deal size, and debunk quite a few myths that people are spouting as facts. It’s time we cut through a lot of the misconceptions of the deal, from both a business and technical level, and focus on what’s really happening. This is a long post, but if you really want to know what’s happening, I’ve tried to make it really detailed. [My first post on the deal can be found here: Inside The Netflix/Comcast Deal and What The Media Is Getting Very Wrong]

From a technical level, Netflix has their own servers that are sitting inside third-party colocation facilities in multiple locations. To connect Netflix’s servers to ISPs, Netflix buys transit from multiple providers, which then connect their networks to the ISPs. Netflix pays the transit providers for those connections and with that, gets a certain level of capacity from the transit provider. While Cogent is one of the companies Netflix is buying transit from, they are not the only one. Netflix buys transit from multiple companies, including Cogent, Level 3, Tata, XO, Telia, and NTT, with Cogent and Level 3 being the primary providers. Transit providers like Cogent then connect their networks to ISPs like Comcast in what’s called peering. This is where a lot of the confusion starts as many are under the impression that ISPs like Comcast are suppose to allow any transit provider to push an unlimited amount of traffic into their network without any compensation. This isn’t a Comcast specific policy, but rather one that is standard for all ISPs.

ISPs have something called a peering policy (comcast.com/peering), which are rules that govern how networks connect with one another and exchange traffic. ISPs like Comcast will allow transit providers like Cogent to connect to their network, for free, in what’s called settlement-free peering. However, once the transit provider sends more traffic to the ISP then they are allowed to, per the ISPs peering policy, the transit provider pays the ISP for more capacity to get additional traffic into their network. Remember, Netflix is the one paying Cogent and Cogent is selling Netflix on the principle that it can get all of Netflix’s traffic into an ISP like Comcast. As a result, Cogent has to take all the necessary business steps to make sure Cogent has enough capacity to pass Netflix’s traffic on from Cogent’s network to Comcast. But Cogent isn’t doing that.

The reason for the poor quality streaming is that Cogent refuses to pay Comcast to add more capacity, even though Cogent is taking Netflix’s money for the service. Cogent is charging Netflix for a service it can’t deliver. Some are arguing that Comcast should be the one to pay to upgrade that connection with Cogent since Comcast charges consumers to get access to the Internet and is double dipping by charging both the consumer and the content owner. In reality, they aren’t. Netflix does not need to go direct to Comcast and pay them anything, they chose to because they could not get the level of service they were paying Cogent for directly. Netflix has also decided it makes more business sense for them to build their own CDN instead of relying 100% on third party CDNs (cdnlist.com) like they used to.

You will notice that when Netflix was using third party CDN providers Akamai, Level 3 and Limelight for 100% of their video delivery, there were no quality issues. Just look at their speed ratings from 2012. The reason for this is that those CDNs already have their servers connected to ISPs like Comcast and have put in place all the necessary links, both free and paid, to guarantee, via an SLA, that they can deliver Netflix’s video. So for all the people who say that Comcast forced Netflix into paying or is strong arming them, that is not true. Netflix has multiple options in the market for delivering good quality video, but Netflix chose to build their own CDN and change their delivery strategy because they want to have more control over it and save money. Netflix’s streaming quality is based on business decisions, that’s it.

In a little known, but public fact, anyone who is on Comcast and using Apple TV to stream Netflix wasn’t having quality problems. The reason for this is that Netflix is using Level 3 and Limelight to stream their content specifically to the Apple TV device. What this shows is that Netflix is the one that decides and controls how they get their content to each device and whether they do it via their own servers or a third party. Netflix decides which third party CDNs to use and when Netflix uses their own CDN, they decide whom to buy transit from, with what capacity, in what locations and how many connections they buy, from the transit provider. Netflix is the one in control of this, not Comcast or any ISP.

As a result, this also shoots down all the arguments where people are saying that this deal is bad because streaming services that aren’t as big as Netflix won’t be able to cut the same direct deal with Comcast. Why would they? They don’t need to connect directly to Comcast as they don’t have enough traffic for it to make sense and haven’t built out their own CDN. All they have to do is use a third party CDN provider to be able to get their content to the ISP with excellent quality, guaranteed with an SLA by the CDN. Nearly every single content owner today outside of Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Amazon and a few others all use third party CDNs for video delivery. Pick any major broadcaster, sports league, Hulu etc. they all use third party CDNs as they are cheap and back up their service with a guarantee. It works really well.

Now that Netflix has a deal direct with Comcast, here’s how it will work. Netflix’s servers that are sitting in third party data centers connect to Comcast’s network, which is also in the building, via a cross connect that Netflix buys from the co-lo facility provider. While I have heard people say that Netflix will need thousands of physical interconnects into Comcast’s network, that’s not accurate. Comcast has a total of 18 national locations (public info) and Netflix and Comcast will initially connect in about 10 of those locations to start. Out of those 10 locations, Netflix will need 300+ 10GigE ports. Netflix gets a guaranteed level of service from Comcast but as the two companies have announced, Netflix does not get any prioritization in the last mile. This is also where many are getting confused. Some are saying that Netflix is now getting “guaranteed delivery through the last mile”, but that’s not true. That would be paid prioritization, which Comcast cannot do and does not offer.

Moving on to the deal size, I’ve seen all kinds of crazy numbers put out there, with many saying Netflix will spend $25M-$50M a year with Comcast. Some even reported that Comcast was asking Netflix to pay $400M, based on a report put out by Wedbush Securities, which I will get to in a moment. While I do have a lot of sources and are privy to a lot of details others aren’t, there is plenty of public and easily accessible data that allows you to get a good estimate on the size of this deal and debunk the numbers being reported. For starters, no one has reported how much traffic Netflix is actually sending into Comcast’s network and you need to know that before you can discuss the size of the deal. Without doing that math first, any dollar signs attached to this deal are pure guesses.

In 2012, Comcast said they were carrying 4 Tbps of traffic and with the current Internet growth rates, one could easily extrapolate that Comcast’s network is now at 8 Tbps. Based on Sandvine’s data that says Netflix account for 1/3 of traffic, Netflix would need about 3 Tbps of capacity from Comcast today, with that number growing. The way these deals are priced is on a per Mbps sustained model, also known as 95/5 or 95th percentile. Wedbush Securities put out a report that ran numbers based on a per GB delivered model, not per Mbps sustained, saying “Comcast likely sought as much as $0.01/GB transmitted”.

They then estimated that each of Netflix’s 33M U.S. subscribers consume 100 GB of data per month and came up with a total of 3.3B GB of data delivery per month, saying “Netflix would be required to pay approximately $400M per year.” While Wedbush’s numbers are wrong and aren’t using the per Mbps sustained model, the number they gave out was for all of Netflix’s delivery, across all ISPs, not just Comcast’s. However, the media didn’t read it right and went with the idea that Comcast was asking Netflix for $400M, which is sloppy reporting. Once one media outlet said it, many never second guessed the number and started re-quoting it. In the end, Wedbush said they “estimate that Comcast will charge Netflix between $25M-$50M annually”, which still isn’t right and they provide no methodology of how they came up with that range. I provide methodology below to show it’s not accurate.

What no one seems to have noticed is that Comcast has previously stated that less than .1% of their total revenue came from these kind of commercial interconnect relationships in 2013. That means that for all of last year, Comcast got paid between $30M-$60M, which included all of the similar deals they have with Google, AOL and others. So the idea that Netflix would be larger than all of those deals combined, makes no sense. If you want to get a sense, not an exact number, but an idea of what Netflix is paying use transit pricing.

I laugh when I see all of these “save the internet” people saying these deals are bad as they are clouded in secrecy and no when knows what’s really taking place. When we know how much traffic Netflix has and we know the average going rate of transit, both public numbers, you can estimate what Netflix’s cost is. That said, keep in mind a few things. Transit pricing is higher than what Netflix pays Comcast as wholesale is cheaper than transit. Also, Netflix is not the “average” customer and their contract clearly has to have a lot of variables in it, with lots of sliding scale pricing, and different ways to measure it, since the volume of their traffic increases so quickly.

So with those caveats, some of the lowest transit pricing I have seen, which I have previously published here, is around $.50 per Mbps. If Netflix needs 3 Tbps of capacity from Comcast to start, that would cost Netflix $1.5M per month. But, and this is a big one, Netflix isn’t the average customer. Their price will be special and they have a multi-year contract and a lot of variables. So to get a “rough estimate” of what this deal costs Netflix, simply pick whatever per Mbps price you want and multiply it times 3 Tbps. Some will pick a higher number, some lower. If you pick a number a bit lower than $0.50, this deal would cost Netflix about $12M per year. But run the numbers yourself using whatever variable you want, now that I have outlined how much capacity Netflix needs.

I have seen people suggest that Comcast will pull a bait-and-switch on Netflix and raise rates or not deliver good quality video now that they have them locked in a contract. That’s a lame argument as Netflix isn’t a bunch of dummies, they are anything but. It’s the whole reason why Netflix signed a multi-year deal and, this is really important to note, Netflix is getting an install SLA, packet loss SLA and latency SLA from Comcast, which guarantees quality. This is very different from what Netflix was getting from Cogent because Comcast is providing fully dedicated capacity, unlike sending it through someone like Cogent where those connections are potentially over-subscribed if a transit provider over-sells their capacity, which Cogent has a history of doing.

To date, Cogent has had peering disputes with AOL, Teleglobe, France Telecom, Level 3, TeliaSonera, Sprint-Nextel and Verizon. I find it interesting no one in the press mentioned how Cogent always seems to be the one major transit provider who continues to have disputes with so many other network providers, year after year.

A few weeks ago there were all these viral Internet reports of Comcast throttling Netflix content, supposedly backed-up by experiments where somebody would stream Netflix at home on Comcast and get a lower bitrate. Then they’d run that same stream through a VPN (which connects to a different ISP) and get a different and better bit-rate and stream quality. It was the smoking gun gotcha for a lot of folks and 100% sure-fire proof of throttling to some, even though Netflix’s own CEO publicly denied ISPs were throttling. What was happening in the VPN experiment backs-up my earlier points that Netflix was making these networking and performance decisions based on ISP and other factors.

Also, let’s play out what might have happened if Comcast gave Cogent all the capacity it wanted for free. Does that mean Netflix would work well into perpetuity and everyone would be happy? No. Netflix switches providers quite frequently. What if Netflix then moved traffic to NTT and Telia, we’d be back where we started, as those providers would then need all the capacity they wanted on Comcast. What if Netflix started making other traffic shifts to extract greater concessions from ISPs and transit vendors? Fortunately we’re now past that with this Netflix and Comcast deal, but instead of seeing the benefit here to Netflix’s customers, the picture is clouded with far-fetched negatives. The winner in the whole deal is you and me, the consumer. We get better quality video and Netflix gets a cheaper cost over time to deliver the stream to us, which keeps them from having to raise the price of our subscription to give us better quality.

Now all of this aside, I get that many people don’t think the proposed Comcast and TWC cable merger is good for consumers, that cable TV providers raise their rates every year and that Net Neutrality is something that needs to be watched. Those are all valid concerns to debate. However, don’t use the deal between Netflix and Comcast as ammunition in those arguments as it’s not relevant. If you have further questions about the deal, put them in the comments section and I will try to answer them if I can. I know this is a touchy subject for many, but be professional. Lively debates are welcomed but comments that use foul language will be removed. Also for those that have asked, I do not have Comcast as my ISP, I have Verizon FiOS as I live in the NYC area.