Why Google Fiber, unlike Comcast, gives Netflix free peering

Impetus

According to Netflix, Google Fiber provides the fastest access to Netflix in the US.

A story in Ars outlines how Google hosts Netflix servers in its data centres giving much faster access to Google Fiber subscribers, and they don't charge for this service. This delivers HD and Netflix Ultra high def (4k) video.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/05/why-google-fiber-unlike-comcast-gives-netflix-free-peering/

http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa

(click on include smaller ISPs)

Irish Netflix download speeds:

http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/ireland

AlanS181824

That's really interesting.

who_me

It's strange to me that ISPs are demanding payment for this kind of peering. You'd think they'd want to do this for free, to advertise this to potential customers. "Come to us for the best Netflix performance". Google seem to be one step ahead of the game.

Impetus

who_me wrote: »

It's strange to me that ISPs are demanding payment for this kind of peering. You'd think they'd want to do this for free, to advertise this to potential customers. "Come to us for the best Netflix performance". Google seem to be one step ahead of the game.

Intelligent action. It distinguishes Google from most of the rest of the planet.

Knasher

who_me wrote: »

It's strange to me that ISPs are demanding payment for this kind of peering. You'd think they'd want to do this for free, to advertise this to potential customers. "Come to us for the best Netflix performance". Google seem to be one step ahead of the game.

In a lot of the American market the ISP has a virtual monopoly over a lot of their area. So they have the ability to strong arm whomever without really having to worry about loosing customers. I doubt Netflix would cave in Europe to the same type of pressure, it would be much easier to wait out the ISP and simply advertise to its customers that the ISP is throttling the customers connections.

Impetus

Knasher wrote: »

In a lot of the American market the ISP has a virtual monopoly over a lot of their area. So they have the ability to strong arm whomever without really having to worry about loosing customers. I doubt Netflix would cave in Europe to the same type of pressure, it would be much easier to wait out the ISP and simply advertise to its customers that the ISP is throttling the customers connections.

The US is further down the road of consumer internet services being a total single cable monopoly, due to negligent regulation and political corruption (massive donations from cable operators to politicians).

Comcast seems to be succeeding in buying up everything, with no obligation to unbundle. Comcast owns broadcaster NBC and are in the process of taking over Time Warner cable. They are also trying or have tried to take over content companies (eg Disney). Vertical integration with total control of the customer interface.

The same trends are visible in Ireland with UPC having bought up all cable operators are now entering the mobile phone market.

Based on the current trend, it is only a matter of time before Ireland becomes similarly monopolised because there is no plan for unbundled fibre to every premises to deliver a level playing field to all suppliers and customers.

BeerWolf

Tempted to move to the US just to enjoy Google Fibre's 1Gig connection

lucast2007us

BeerWolf wrote: »

Tempted to move to the US just to enjoy Google Fibre's 1Gig connection

Applying for a green card as we speak!!!

Impetus

BeerWolf wrote: »

Tempted to move to the US just to enjoy Google Fibre's 1Gig connection

While I wouldn't wish to live in the US, period, Ameri-centric Google has picked some poor locations for fiber deployment:

https://fiber.google.com/newcities/

Austin - Texas humid + Austin allergies
Salt Lake city - "religious" Disneyworld
Kansas City - humid, red neck

No sign of Google fiber in healthy locations such as Aspen/Snowmass, Zurich, Geneva, Barcelona, Vancouver, Okinawa, Reykjavik, etc

crawler

https://fiber.google.com/newcities/

Expansion plans