AT&T again told the FCC the interconnection ecosystem...
AT&T again told the FCC the interconnection ecosystem developed “without any regulation to handle all of the traffic exchanged on the global Internet,” it said Thursday in an ex parte filing in dockets 10-90, 14-28 and 01-92 (http://bit.ly/1s7zWjL). AT&T pointed…
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to cost implications of the exchange and carriage of Internet traffic “that has become significantly out-of-balance,” it said. Interconnection imposes substantial costs on network providers that involve far more than the meet point between networks, and “that are unrelated to ‘last mile’ Internet access costs, and that are not end user specific,” AT&T said in an attached presentation (http://bit.ly/1uLKXvA). Netflix said Open Internet rules should prohibit ISPs from charging access fees to terminate traffic. Some ISPs confused the issue “by conflating upstream degradation at the ISP’s terminating access point with larger interconnection or peering issues,” it said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-28 (http://bit.ly/1o8ZYCt). The allegation that Netflix causes congestion by deliberately choosing to deliver traffic over congested routes is false, it said. Reaching the subscriber via the subscriber’s last mile broadband ISP is the only means of reaching a subscriber, it said. AT&T and Netflix reached an interconnection agreement in May, the companies said in statements. The companies “have been working together to provision additional interconnect capacity to improve the viewing experience of our mutual subscribers,” they said. Netflix is paying AT&T to directly connect, “which should ease congestion and allow our mutual subscribers to have a much improved viewing experience,” a Netflix spokeswoman said.