History:
Around 2010 an Internet provider named Cogent was experiencing performance issues, and found that their peering connection with Verizon was saturated with traffic, demand exceeded capacity. Cogent further found that one of its clients, named Netflix, was the source of a huge chunk of that traffic, in fact, it found that Netflix streams accounted for 30% of the traffic on the entire Internet.To increase the capacity of a peering connection both sides must upgrade their respective hardware. Cogent asked Verizon to play along with that plan, but Verizon said screw that, why should we pay, it was fine without Netflix. They’re making money, why should it cost us? So Cogent says, well there’s a slight performance problem, and Verizon says, simple, throttle Netflix. That plan appealed to Netflix, not at all.
As it happened, Netflix had no fundamental problem with pitching in for the upgrade, but Cogent was having none of it, and refused to give any additional money to Verizon, on grounds of principle. (They likened it to extortion… not the brightest bulb on the string, the decision cost them one of the biggest single ISP clients in the world.)
So Netflix went shopping providers, but what they really wanted was to buy access to an NAP, and pay tier 1 providers to let them peer directly. Given that Netflix is not, in fact, an ISP, such an arrangement didn’t fit the tech/business models, so Netflix settled for a new provider, named Cox. The exact nature of their deal with Cox isn’t public, but it really isn’t all that relevant, suffice to say Cox had the capacity to handle Netflix traffic, and Netflix had the money to pay for it.
Facts:
Shopping for a provider to carry 1/3 of all Internet traffic from a single source is likely impossible to do in secret. Because it’s rather common for corporate accountants and lawyers to know nothing about the technology that pays their bills, simplified analogies had to be concocted to somewhat explain the scenario to non-technical staff.
The “Pay to Play” fabricated scenario originated within the FCC, it has no basis in fact nor even intent, and is entirely implausible, in a technical sense as well as a business sense. Netflix was and is a special case, fair arrangements to accommodate their load are specific to them, and do not translate to a paradigm shift for the entire Internet.
Supposition:
The FCC gets wind of these goings on, and are reminded of just how little control they have over something they think ought to fall within their purview. They start making noise but the industry tells them to bugger off. What to do?
So the FCC borrows from the evil government fear-mongering playbook, invents an entirely farcical “attack” on Internet freedom, something nobody has ever planned, something that isn’t even technologically feasible, but WTF does the ignorant public know? They make the future sound dire, and they avoid any possibility of the appearance they might even be thinking about acting act on the fake problem.
Predictably multiple activist causes pick up the ball and run with it, and a few years later it evolves into a mandate for the FCC (or congress) to take decisive action to “fix” the imaginary “problem.” The FCC obliges, in total secrecy, of course, and enough of the sheeple applaud their “solution” to diffuse those that have misgivings.
And that’s where we are today. They don’t have to sell a ruse to everybody, just enough to polarize the groups that would take up such a cause. And when they manage to coerce multiple well-intended groups that properly should distrust the FCC deeply, into campaigning for a mandate for the FCC to do whatever the fuck it wants… guess who’s WINNING?!
Conclusion:
All of those that have been spreading the “Pay to Play” fable, as reason to support net neutrality, were used as a tool of the FCC — you campaigned to give them carte blanc, nice going. Anyone with enough hubris to claim ‘victory’ before the FCC has even released their new policy, is likely delusional.