Netflix Secretly Holds Subscribers Hostage to Gain Favorable FCC
<p><pre><code>  &gt; Based on industry norms with respect to peering and its
  &gt; experience with the Level 3 gambit, Netflix knew that
  &gt; transferring its traffic to settlement-free routes would
  &gt; result in network congestion by dramatically altering the
  &gt; ratio of traffic exchanged.
</code></pre>
This is a poorly crafted hit piece. The &quot;ratio&quot; of traffic exchanged wouldn&#x27;t have changed. At most it would merely have shifted origins--from whatever link Akamai and Comcast shared, to the Cogent-Comcast link. Comcast is principally an edge ISP to content consumers, so Netflix&#x27;s change in providers meant nothing to them in terms of usage patterns. And because it&#x27;s a good bet that the exchange facilities were the same in all scenarios, setting aside potential contractual issues it likely resulted in no change in network traffic whatsoever.<p>I have no idea if Netflix&#x27; CDN strategy was also a maneuver in the regulatory realm. I would hope they were smart enough, at least, to have considered the potential conflicts beforehand. OTOH, it would be extremely stupid and risky (and thus highly unlikely) for the change in providers to have been intended primarily as a regulatory gambit. For all we know it was Comcast who strategically saw an opportunity to test the regulatory waters.<p>What I do believe with some confidence given the context and errors is that the article is a poorly written hit piece, perhaps paid for directly or indirectly by Comcast as part of its marketing and regulatory strategy, if not actually written by Comcast.