This hilarious graph of Netflix speeds shows the importance of net neutrality

[MohRokTah]

41. Christopher Ingraham is an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Collect the same data from any Akamai client during the same time period and you'd have the same graph.

It's due to peering agreements between tier 1 and tier 2 providers. Cogent, for example, is a tier 1 provider. Comcast is a tier 2 provider. Because Comcast was pulling so much more content from the tier 1 providers due to the massive increase of Netflix and Amazon (as well as others like Youtube) traffic, the arcane peering agreement kicked in because Comcast content was not matching the content delivery to the tier 1 providers as was being pulled in from those tier 1 providers. This resulted in massive payments to the tier 1 providers by Comcast to make up the difference. Had it continued, Comcast would have gone broke.

I hate to say it because I hate to "stick up" for a piss poor company like Comcast, but the fact is the streaming traffic from Netflix, Amazon, and Youtube did, indeed, break part of the internet due to these arcane peering agreements.

The issue is, Comcast is not treated like a standard ISP because it is a cable company. Verizon has the same issue with its massive 4G wireless network. Cable and wireless Internet need to be regulated as common carriers to promote competition from competing ISPs.

What this would do would remove the necessity for the peering agreements, but would force Comcast and Verizon to allow competing ISPs to leverage their infrastructure so you can get the service without the Comcast and Verizon crap. It's like how AT&T may own the infrastructure that delivers landline voice capability to your house, but you can choose another carrier instead of AT&T as your phone company. This bit of regulatory competitiveness has not kept up with the technology as evidenced by how cable delivery or wirless 4G are not regulated the same way.