Reply to post: Re: That's rather interesting

Indie ISP to Netflix: Give it a rest about 'net neutrality' – and get your checkbook out

-v(o.o)v-

Re: That's rather interesting

Ok, I'll try. I work at a very small ISP around the world but try to follow what is happening in the West.

Big problems with the U.S. Netflix situation are geographical and "telco-political" (yeah I made that up, deal with it). Very large country, largely sparsely populated where these micro/nano-ISPs (often wireless/WISP) provide only viable service that could described as "approaching broadband". Other option would be the incumbent and bad DSL over bad copper, often at ridiculous prices. To someone not from US it may seem unbelievable that even in middle of urban area, say Silicon Valley, there might be only one provider who can service you with residential fibre or high-speed cable.

The other issue is importance of private peering over Internet Exchanges. In Europe large amount of interconnection between providers is done at IXPs. At US there are very few IXPs and providers have their own private peering arrangements. Add to this the geographical/competetive situation and politics of peering by the big (at least a local monopoly really) players and what is left is the 1000 mile dark fibre from the rural WISP to Netflix.

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