RE: Comcast Service for Non-Cap Bandwidth

[Nabil Sharma <nabilsharma () hotmail com>]

PC:
I also wish to know how much the Comcast "Paid Peering" service costs, and if this is an option that can get us the 
delivery we require.
Could you please help me to understand why it is protected by NDA? Is there anyone on the NANOG list who can share this 
pricing with me in private?
Sincerely,
Nabil

Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 11:18:37 -0500
Subject: Re: Comcast Service for Non-Cap Bandwidth
From: paul4004 () gmail com
To: Jason_Livingood () cable comcast com
CC: nabilsharma () hotmail com; nanog () nanog org

Hi Nabil,

DSCP tagging on inter-domain internet traffic is not expected to work (I wouldn't expect this to work at any ISP, quite 
frankly, absent some very special arrangements).

> From reading the article in the link below, it sounds like they are using DSCP to ensure when a user has maxed their 
> bandwidth allotment (say, downloading the latest WOW update), that TV viewing is not disrupted.  Instead of providing 
> QOS on it to do this, it seems they provide you an included-with-the-service additional bandwidth allotment/connection 
> not related to your internet connection, much how normal video is sent.  In theory, this service could work if you 
> cancelled your internet.  In reality, it probably won't.  Many providers do the same for VOIP traffic if they have 
> phone services, etc (which do often work with no internet service).



I will say this -- I do telemetry data distribution which is nothing more than a 1.5 megabit constant UDP stream 
(multicast anyone?  I wish).  The amount of traffic I push is roughly ~350gb/month per site.  With hundreds of business 
account sites on Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, cox, and others -- The statistics don't lie.  The Comcast network has the 
least packet loss of the bunch by a wide margin in many cases, and in my opinion, is the most well built consumer 
broadband access network out there.  With forward error correction, It's an extremely rare event that I see any 
requests for retransmission, generally isolated to maintenance activities.



My suggestion?  Just send your data towards comcast from a Tier 1 ISP.  Get it as close to your users (geographically) 
as you can, or use a CDN.  Then, I think you will be fine.

As for the connectivity, you might find it a good idea to explore the comcast paid peering/transit solution if comcast 
is your primary destination and packet delivery is critical.  Heavy NDA requirements resulting in lack of general 
pricing range input from the community every time the question has come up on NANOG has kept me from inquiring about 
paid peering.  But I will tell you just purchasing from the many transit providers who do publish pricing has not 
resulted in any problems or congestion, which is a good sign.





On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 9:25 AM, Livingood, Jason <Jason_Livingood () cable comcast com> wrote:


Mail formatting issue with my mail client again… Note that the 1st paragraph was quoted from Nabil...



> I generate http test stream with DSCP code point 5 to match the Xbox service,

> however Comcast is rewriting the packets as CS 1, even when serving out a

> server at Soft Layer (paid peer).  This is why I ask for name of service Microsoft

> is using, it is not the regular paid peering.



[JL] Yeah, that won't work but that marking is just for byte counting (which per my other not does not really have any 
effect now anyway since the 250GB policy was suspended. See also 
http://blog.comcast.com/2012/05/the-facts-about-xfinity-tv-and-xbox-360-comcast-is-not-prioritizing.html





For peering & interconnect, see:

http://www.comcast.com/peering/?SCRedirect=true

http://www.comcast.com/dedicatedinternet/?SCRedirect=true



Thanks

Jason