In the latest battle to profit from control of the Internet, the consumer is stuck in the middle

[Commentary] Comcast customers are complaining about the poor quality of Netflix streaming during evening hours and wondering what’s going on. Their comments are both a reflection of Comcast’s previous bad behavior -- blocking peer-to-peer (P2P) content on its network back in 2008 -- and evidence of frustration that they can’t get the content they want on the broadband network they pay for. What these consumers may not realize is that their frustration and complaints are actually a key element in negotiations between Comcast and the giants of the Internet. It’s a negotiation playing out with greater frequency as many ISPs (not just Comcast) try to enforce their vision of how the Internet should be paid for, and it’s a vision that Internet content companies don’t share. Some ISPs believe they should be able to charge companies like Google or Netflix -- which send the ISP a large amount of traffic -- a fee for sending that traffic over the ISP’s network.

While this may sound like a network neutrality issue, it’s not. It’s a far more hidden and seemingly capricious problem: It’s a peering dispute. Peering governs how networks directly connect to each other on the Internet, and most people like it because it’s an efficient way to exchange traffic across networks, so providers don’t have to build capacity to every single location in the world. And when it comes to peering disputes the customer always loses, because the customer becomes a pawn in the negotiations between Internet superpowers (or wannabe superpowers).