In Plain English: Why Your Internet Service Provider Is Satan Incarnate

"[T]he Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."

I presently reside in a condominium building.  My building "offers" precisely one option for accessing the internet: entering into a contract with Comcast in exchange for access to Comcast's latest stab at a chic re-branding, XFINITY^TM—y'know, "The future of awesome."

I pay Comcast approximately six-hundred dollars per year to provide download speeds of ten megabits per second ("mbps").¹

Yesterday, I tried to watch a six-minute YouTube video.  The video is offered in the following resolutions: 1080p; 720p; 480p; 360p; and 240p.²

I first tried watching the video in 1080p, reasoning that Google has officially certified "The Future of Awesome" as "HD Verified" in my geographic location.  

See for yourself (click to enlarge):

Please note the following:

1. The text left of the graph, which reads: "Users on YouTube HD Verified networks should expect smooth playback most of the time when watching high-definition YouTube videos (720p and above)" (emphasis added); and 
2. Below the graph, "The Future of Awesome" is listed as YouTube HD Verified.

Needless to say, hoping to watch in 1080p was wishful thinking.  So I downgraded to 720p; the video continued to buffer in perpetuity.  Becoming increasingly incensed, I proceeded to try watching in 480p, 360p, and finally 240p.

At 360p, after buffering for several minutes, the video began to stream for the first time.  But not for long: it froze and resumed buffering less than thirty seconds into the video.

Even at 240p, the lowest possible resolution, the resolution that's been obsolete since DVDs became available in the United States in March 1996—over eighteen-and-a-half years ago—the video continued to buffer for several minutes.

Fully twenty minutes after I initially pressed play, the video began streaming.  But I soon abandoned the effort outright, because the video's resolution was so poor that a dispassionate observer looking over my shoulder could have realistically concluded I was watching this:

Thankfully—despite Comcast's and its peer corporations' efforts on the contrary—there is an easy and free way to find out just exactly what you're getting in exchange for forking over $600 to Comcast.

Recall "The Future of Awesome" contractually promises me 10 mbps.  What was I actually getting?

That's right.  My download speed averaged .80 mbps, eight-tenths of a single megabit per second.  For those without ready access to an abacus, that's eight percent of the service I purchase.

While this anecdote is particularly egregious, I'm not alone.  Inexcusably poor internet service speed is a rampant problem in this country.

But why?  How is this possible?  How can Comcast and its peers get away with this?

Here's the short answer:

1. Extremely effective rent-seeking behavior; and 
2. A concerted, highly successful campaign of intentionally obfuscating how consumers access the internet.

A comprehensive, plain English explanation follows below.

——————————  ◊ ◊ ◊  ——————————

To get to the true root of the problem, I'm going to back up and start at the beginning.  Bear with me.

There are several distinct types of internet networks, and each type is designated by a numbered "Tier."  Tiers are not mutually exclusive, so many networks operate as a Tier [#X] in certain respects but also as a Tier [#Y] in other respects. 

At the top of the pyramid—colloquially known as the internet's "backbone"—are Tier 1 networks, which consist of approximately a dozen gigantic data centers dispersed across the globe.  These privately-owned networks receive Tier 1 designation because each can reach every part of the internet.

But a single Tier 1 network cannot reach every aspect of the internet alone.  Instead, inside those data centers, network ABC physically connects to network XYZ (and vice versa).  This physical connection—known as "peering"—enables internet traffic on ABC's network to seamlessly cross onto XYZ's network.  

Aggregating this practice creates the internet's "backbone," and it explains the definition of what constitutes a Tier 1 network: a network receives Tier 1 designation because it can reach every corner of the internet through its various peering agreements with other networks.  

This may strike some ardent capitalists as counter-intuitive, but the generally-accepted definition of "peering" are traffic exchanges agreements where no money is exchanged.  Why not?  Because peering is considered mutually beneficial: "I take your traffic, you take my traffic, and together we both reach corners of the internet that are otherwise inaccessible without a peering agreement."  

To be precise, these types of arrangements—ones where no money is exchanged—are called "settlement-free peering."

Alas, settlement-free peering arrangements break down when the free exchange of internet traffic isn't mutually beneficial, or, perhaps more accurately, when Network A accepts a significantly greater volume of internet traffic than it sends to Network B. 

One step down the pyramid—below these free exchanging peering Tier 1 networks—are Tier 2 networks.  Tier 2 networks do engage in some settlement-free peering with other networks, but they also pay other networks to take their traffic.  Paying a network to take traffic is a practice known as "buying transit."  Buying transit enables the purchaser-network to have its traffic accepted by its counterparty, and thus distributed to all networks connected to the internet.  

At the bottom of the pyramid are the corporations that most individuals pay for internet access—such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.  In common parlance, the consumer-facing aspects of these corporations are known as Internet Service Providers ("ISPs").

But calling them ISPs isn't terribly precise and can be confusing.  In legal-slash-telecommunications jargon, the companies you pay for internet access are known as "last-mile ISPs."  This is admittedly a misnomer, but the nomenclature is rooted in the idea that last-mile ISPs carry internet traffic over "the last mile"—from their data center(s) into your home.  

While consumers need last-mile ISPs to access content on the internet, the inverse is true too:  Internet content providers ("edge providers") also need access to the internet so that their content is successfully delivered into a consumer's house.  

The consumer-provider internet access situation is not, however, perfectly symmetrical.   Because last-mile ISPs are effectively capable of playing gatekeeper to consumers, edge providers expend a great deal of time and effort attempting to circumvent last-mile ISPs' gatekeeping abilities.

But in the interest of keeping things straightforward, here's a simplified hypothetical.

Assume there are four total actors.  First, there is a pair of parties who want/need access to the internet:

1. Bob, a regular dude, resides in Washington, D.C. and he's a Netflix subscriber;
2. Netflix, an edge provider, needs access to the internet to provide its internet content.

And then there's second a pair of parties, the companies that provide internet access to Netflix and Bob:

1. Comcast, Bob's last-mile ISP; 
2. Cogent, Netflix's ISP, which Netflix pays in exchange for Cogent to take Netflix's internet traffic.  Cogent, however, must buy transit in order to enable Netflix's traffic to reach individual consumers.  

Bob comes home one evening and decides to watch a two-hour HD movie available on Netflix.  As Bob navigates through Netflix's various menus en route to finding the movie he wants to watch, Bob sends some internet traffic "upstream"—albeit a very low volume of traffic.  Put another way, Bob is sending internet traffic from his house, across Comcast's "last-mile" to a Comcast data center.  When Bob's movie begins streaming, Bob's now having internet traffic (i.e., the HD Netflix movie) sent "downstream": from Comcast's data center, across the "last-mile," and into Bob's house.  

There is obviously a massive disparity in the amount of traffic that Bob sends across Comcast's "last mile" and the amount of traffic that Netflix sends across Comcast's "last mile."  Bob sends a handful of bits across Comcast's network when navigating Netflix's menus; Netflix sends approximately three gigabytes across Comcast's network, in the form of a two-hour HD film. 

Comcast isn't terribly pleased about the disparity in traffic exchanged between it and Netflix's ISP,  Cogent, but Cogent paid Comcast to take Netflix's traffic, so, grumbling aside, Comcast doesn't do anything—yet.  

But later, Comcast learns that Cogent recently entered into an agreement to have Verizon—a "competitor" last-mile ISP—take Netflix's traffic at a much higher price than Comcast currently charges Cogent to accept Netflix's traffic.

In short, Netflix (through its ISP, Cogent) pays Comcast X dollars to take Netflix's traffic, but Netflix  (through Cogent) pays Verizon 10X dollars to take the exact same Netflix traffic.  

So what does Comcast do?  It makes life as difficult as possible for Netflix and Cogent until Netflix pays Comcast the same (or more than) Netflix pays Verizon.  

But how can/does Comcast make Netflix's life difficult enough to induce a renegotiated increased price?  By intentionally allowing congestion (and refusing to remedy it) at the physical locations where Cogent's servers physically connect to Comcast's servers.  These physical locations are known as Interconnection Points ("IXP").  

As more as more dual Netflix-Comcast subscribers in a given geographic location attempt to stream Netflix content, the IXP where Netflix's traffic crosses onto Comcast's network becomes congested.  

Former Senator Ted Stevens was famously ridiculed for his description of the internet as "a series of tubes."  Yet the metaphor isn't terribly inaccurate.³  Only so much internet traffic (like HD video) can fit through the physical port connecting one ISP's network to another's.  This traffic-backup is aptly named congestion. 

And make no mistake:  Comcast is perfectly aware of the IXP congestion, and they can easily remedy it by installing additional ports—which costs a pittance—that would alleviate the congestion. 

But what reason does Comcast have to alleviate the IXP congestion?  Netflix revealed that smooth traffic transit to Verizon customers was worth $10X to Netflix.  So Comcast will install those new ports and alleviate the congestion—just as soon as Netflix forks over another $9X (or more).

That's pretty odious for a bunch of reasons—most of which I won't get into here—but there are two worth noting:

First, last-mile ISPs' complaints about the volume of data they receive from content/edge providers rests on a flawed premise.

Last-mile ISPs proclaim: "We send Cogent a handful of bits and in return Cogent/Netflix sends us gigabytes upon gigabytes of data!"

So who really causes last-mile ISPs to accept large volumes of data?  The last-mile ISPs would have you believe that the content providers, like Netflix, cause them to take troves of data—and thus the content providers should pony up.

But there's an equally persuasive argument that last-mile ISPs—not the content/edge providers—cause the traffic.  Lest we forget what, exactly, we consumers are paying last-mile ISPs for: access to the internet, the whole internet—including streaming video.

So last-mile ISPs spend millions upon millions of dollars on advertising themselves as God's gift to the universe for providing consumers access to every corner of the internet. ("The Future of Awesome.")  But behind closed doors, last-mile ISPs are perfectly content providing their subscribers only those corners of the internet that fork over enough cash.

Second, large disparities in the volume of traffic accepted versus the volume sent is an asinine reason to demand more expensive traffic exchange agreements.  Internet traffic is simply data.  The direction it flows has no bearing on cost/expense.

The only factors that determine the cost of internet traffic transmission are (a) the volume of data; and (b) the distance the data physically travels.

So last-mile ISPs' complaint that Netflix sends them a huge volume of data is certainty legitimate.  But the disparity of traffic exchanged between Comcast and Cogent doesn't cost Comcast anything; rather, the volume of traffic Comcast accepts from Netflix is the primary driver of cost; the direction the data flows is completely irrelevant.

The other internet-traffic-cost-driver is physical distance.  The greater the distance data travels, the more expensive traffic transmission becomes.

(As I briefly alluded to earlier, content providers are hard at work finding ways to circumvent last-mile ISPs' consumer gatekeeping power.  Presumably concerned that last-mile ISPs will soon try using transmission distance to further inflate prices, content/edge providers have started building their own data centers as close as possible to last-mile ISPs' data centers.)

So if we're going get serious about pricing internet traffic transmission rationally, then it's time to stop complaining about traffic exchange disparities, and instead focus on pricing transmission as a function of volume and distance.

This is all pretty abhorrent.  But I've saved the worst for last.

First, the ongoing "Net Neutrality" proceedings at the FCC do not address any of this.  Instead, the FCC's latest proposed rules only address the ability/legality of last-mile ISPs choking/slowing/degrading content over the "last mile."⁴

Meaning that IXP congestion—which, from a consumer's standpoint, is functionally indistinguishable from degrading content in the last-mile—isn't going anywhere. 

Finally, it's critical to consider the full implications of last-mile ISPs' behavior—especially who is ultimately footing the bill.  

Hint: it's you, the consumer, and you're paying your ISP three times for functional Netflix service:

1. First, you pay your ISP directly each month;
2. Second, your ISP charges Cogent (Netflix's ISP) to accept any of Netflix's traffic—a cost passed onto Netflix and then passed from Netflix onto you; and 
3. Third, the real kicker, if you want to actually watch Netflix content with minimal buffering, then every time an IXP becomes congested, Cogent and Netflix has no choice but to hand over even more cash to your ISP to alleviate the congestion—yet another cost ultimately passed down to the consumer.  

Oh, don't forget that you're making a fourth payment for functional service: the Netflix subscription itself.

So if the title of this post seemed hyperbolic at first blush, just remember:  You're the one paying your ISP three times—and for what?  8% of what you thought you were paying for?  

It's a racket that would make Tony Soprano blush.  

_______________________

1. "Broadband" internet service is defined as download speeds of five mbps or greater.

2. The resolution of a Blu-ray video is 1080p. The resolution of a DVD video is 720p.  Both are considered "high definition" ("HD") resolutions.  By contrast, 360p is considered "standard definition" and 480p is considered "enhanced standard definition" ("SD").  Television programs broadcast in SD now use 480p over 360p.  Finally, 240p, known as "Low Definition" ("LD"), was originally the resolution of a VHS magnetic tape recording.  

3. The same cannot be said for his accompanying comments, expressing frustration that "an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it [on Tuesday] Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on [in the series of tubes]."

4. Here's another kicker: the current proposed net neutrality regulations would, in fact, allow for the creation of internet "fast lanes."  They just call it "paid prioritization" instead, and poof! the FCC claims with a straight face they oppose internet fast lanes.  

In re Bret Easton Ellis's "American Psycho"

I think it’s a kind of black cynicism about today’s world that Ellis and certain others depend on for their readership. 

Look, if the contemporary condition is hopelessly shitty, insipid, materialistic, emotionally retarded, sadomasochistic, and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid, emotionally retarded, which is easy, because these sorts of characters require no development. With descriptions that are simply lists of brand-name consumer products. Where stupid people say insipid stuff to each other. If what’s always distinguished bad writing—flat characters, a narrative world that’s cliched and not recognizably human, etc.—is also a description of today’s world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. 

Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it. 

You can defend “Psycho” as being a sort of performative digest of late-eighties social problems, but it’s no more than that.¹

_______________________

1. Larry McCaffery, "A Conversation with David Foster Wallace," The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 13.2 (Summer 1993), available at http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/a-conversation-with-david-foster-wallace-by-larry-mccaffery/ (alternations added).

Jim DeRogatis Is Terrible

Jim DeRogatis [hereinafter "DeRo"] is a Chicago-based self-described "music critic."

According to Wikipedia, The Oxford Companion to Music defines "music criticism" as the "intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres."

While DeRo irrefutably attempts to engage in music criticism, his attempts fail for at least three discrete reasons:

1. DeRo is allegedly categorically incapable of engaging in any meaningful "intellectual activity";
2. DeRo's attempts to formulate judgments on the value of a particular work are typically uninformed and seemingly tone deaf; and
3. DeRo's proffered opinions of a particular work's "degree of excellence" (or lack thereof) are also categorically and diametrically wrong with a truly galling frequency.

Adding insult to injury, DeRo's writing is so atrocious that attempts to read and understand his prose is very often an exercise in abject futility.  

Here's an instructive example:  On Aug. 10, 2011, DeRo published his review panning Kanye West and Jay-Z collaboration album, Watch The Throne.  To be perfectly clear, I'm not here to provide a "judgment[] on the value and degree of excellence" of Watch The Throne.  

But in DeRo's rage-fueled haste to indict every aspect of the album, he manages to (seemingly inadvertently) reveal just how few brain cells he's working with.  

The following is excerpted from the above-linked review; alterations and emphasis mine:

[The lyrics of a different Watch The Throne track, "Niggaz In Paris,"] make it hard to buy the attempted sincerity of . . . the contemplation of black-on-black murder, “Murder to Excellence,” which starts out as a serious condemnation of an American crisis (“It’s a war going on outside we ain’t safe from/I feel the pain in my city wherever I go,” Kanye raps. “Three hundred fourteen soldiers died in Iraq/Five hundred nine died in Chicago”) before Jay seems to posit yet more materialism and pop-culture posing as a solution (“It’s a celebration of black excellence/Black tie, black Maybachs/Black excellence, opulence, decadence/ Tuxes next to the president, I’m present/I dress in Dries and other boutique stores in Paris/In sheepskin coats, I silence the lamb/Do you know who I am Clarice?”).

"Murder to Excellence" is available for listen on YouTube, and the track's lyrics are online here (as well as posted, in their entirety, below the jump).

As noted earlier, DeRo's writing is not terribly clear, so there is a certain degree of required guesswork to ascertain what, precisely, DeRo is asserting in the above-quoted passage.

So here's my best guess:  DeRo contends, citing the track's lyrics, that the track stands for the proposition that materialism and conspicuous consumption are the solution to black-on-black violence.

But a single review of the track's lyrics and/or an elementary understanding of the track's structure and production reveals that DeRo's asserted understanding of the song could not possibly be more incorrect.

Let's start with the obvious:  The song is two distinct tracks spliced together.  This is evident in at least four different ways:

1. After two minutes and forty-one seconds of the same loop & beat, the production distinctly changes to a different loop & beat — listen for yourself; 
2. The album's line notes — or Wikipedia — attribute the production of the first half of the track to Swizz Beats and the second half to the producer S1;
3. The track's name; and most importantly
4. The lyrics, which also distinctly change at the exact same point the production changes.

DeRo, in his infinite wisdom, astutely notes that the lyrics address two seemingly disparate (even opposite) topics, addressed in this order: 

1. Black-on-black murder/violence [hereinafter "Murder"]; and 
2. Black decadence/opulence/excellence [hereinafter "Excellence"] 

DeRo then proceeds to conclude that the latter portion is the rappers' proposed solution to the problem identified in the first portion.  ("Jay seems to posit [in "Excellence" that] yet more materialism and pop-culture posing [is] a solution [to] . . . a serious . . . American crisis.")

What led DeRo to conclude that his understanding of the track is accurate?  I genuinely don't know. 

For one, his interpretation is counter-intuitive: the former laments a problem with black culture while the latter focuses on examples of black success.  

In fact, there isn't a single shred of lyrical evidence to support DeRo's counter-intuitive belief that the lyrics of "Excellence" are the rappers' proposed solution to the issue discussed in "Murder." 

So what is the most likely accurate interpretation of the track?  Two pairs of passages seem to make it clear as day.  

The first pair, from "Murder": 

No shop class but half the school got a tool

And a "I could die any day"-type attitude

Plus his little brother got shot repping his avenue

It’s time for us to stop and redefine black power

[. . . .]

If you put crabs in a barrel to ensure your survival

You're gon' end up pulling down niggas that look just like you

What up, Blood? What up, cuz?

And the second pair, from "Excellence": 

Now please, domino, domino

Only spot a few blacks the higher I go

What’s up to Will? Shout out to O

That ain’t enough, we gonna need a million more

[ . . . ]

In the past if you picture events like a black tie

What the last thing you expect to see, black guys?

What’s the life expectancy for black guys?

The system’s working effectively, that’s why!

I will try to avoid belaboring the point:  What does the track mean?

On a basic level, it's a juxtaposition of two opposites: the worst parts of black culture and the best parts of black culture.  Why juxtapose these opposites in this way?  To contend that the reason there's a dearth of the best is because there is so much of the worst.  

Hence it's "time for us to stop and redefine black power" from its current meaning, and the focus on examples of black success (few as they are) in "Excellence" is the rappers' proffered rationale for why black culture is in dire need of being redefined: "Just look at how good you could have it!" 

So DeRo has it almost exactly backwards: material success isn't the solution to black-on-black violence; instead, curbing black-on-black violence will help create more examples of blacks' material success.   

The only level that DeRo's interpretation is even partially defensible is that material success should serve as an effective incentive to stop black-on-black violence.  

And yet even that's tenuous:  If that was really the track's thesis, then why isn't the incentive currently working?  

So, no DeRo, wrong yet again.  He doesn't like the track?  Fine, that's his prerogative. 

But DeRo's reason for disliking the track is nothing short of journalistic malpractice.