@scottalanmiller said:

Peering is swapping or doing favours (that sounds naughty.)

Netflix is a customer. A big customer. The biggest. Netflix is a special case, sort of, due to their size. But they shouldn't be treated unfairly and in this case I doubt that they are. But if we agree that they are not really peering and are, according to the Wikipedia article, just a "customer" then.... what's the discussion about? I'm a customer in the same way. I have a network that pays for a link to a peer-level carrier. Aren't we back to Netflix being a subscriber / customer like me?

this was my whole point. Why is Netflix being singled out? It's true that Netflix is pumping out tons more data than it brings in, but that really shouldn't be Netflix's problem, that should be Cogent's problem since Cogent is providing the ISP access (the real Peering points) to the rest of the internet. Cogent is the one in violation of peering agreement with the other providers.

Scott's right, the internet's model is now broken. Perhaps Cogent should have simply said.. sorry Netflix, you're using an unbalanced amount of internet traffic, so you have to stop, or we have to find a new model to bill you upon.

Netflix has started doing this on their own already by placing banks of servers directly on several of the major players networks so that customers of those networks aren't traveling over the Peering links to get the content.

My next question is, why did some carriers accept this and others not? It is because Verizon didn't want to allow Netflix to compete with it's own content? and this was/is a way to hold them hostage?

@scottalanmiller said:

I worked at those for ten years. Suck it up. LOL

Well i am sure you learned a lot working this stuff.

Just my two cents.

I agree with Scott. It was just a matter of time.

@Nic said:

My bet is that Starbucks et al weren't making enough money to cover what they were paying Facebook for the privilege of getting suggested. Contracts are ending and now FB is scrapping the program.

That's not surprising. Often those kinds of programs cost a fortune and deliver relatively little.

Stop "Russian" Things! (bah dum psst)

I think for the majority of people today, at least at home, just surf the web. Not many applications being installed for average users. Chromebooks are ideal for them. Very low cost, low power consumption, very easy to use and no extra worries about antivirus, updates, getting ripped off by Geek Squad, etc.

The US is very anti-immigration, more than just about anywhere (except Japan.) We lose tons of talent simply because we either turn them away outright or they just give up because it is not worth it. It's more than just losing incoming talent, talent flows out of the US as well.

That's insane. Luckily Oracle DB is rare in the SMB.

Great link, thanks for providing it here.

@scottalanmiller said:

I still have a BB. <insert sad face>

LOL...ah my first phone that pocket dialed people!

@scottalanmiller said:

I've been doing a lot of Hadoop work over the years and I know of several other people who work on it too. Including SW, for example. Not just my banking and financial contacts. Hana is making noise but I've not seen it anywhere in the enterprise space yet, though.

That's really interesting, we actually moved over to a derivative of SAP Q1/2012 so I'm a bit of a fanboy of them I think.

Yeah, we use these at my wifes store for customer loyalty etc. target marketing. LoyalBlocks is the name of the service. it's neat!

I found it, it must have gone up since you posted the news. Netgear ReadyRecover

@scottalanmiller said:

If I use my fingers to gauge the length of Japan, going from end to end of the main body would be similar to a Seattle to San Diego trip here.

Basically yes.

The common quoted phrase is "1/3 the population of the US in a land area the size of California."
That is not exactly right, but makes it easy to see on a map of the US.