[171742] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman (Level3) (was: RIP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Livingood, Jason)
Mon May 12 15:49:45 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood@cable.comcast.com>
To: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2014 19:48:50 +0000
In-Reply-To: <2E5842F9-D6E8-4C10-A76B-67CFBBF10FF0@delong.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On 5/12/14, 10:55 AM, "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com<mailto:owen@delong.com=
>> wrote:
Who cares? It=92s insensitive from the end-customer perspective. Same as wh=
at I pay to Comcast is insensitive to my usage. Amazon hasn=92t negotiated =
insensitive pricing with their shipping companies, just as Comcast hasn=92t=
negotiated insensitive pricing for infrastructure upgrades.
Seems to me that the analogy holds.
Interesting analogy.
To digress a bit. UPS/FedEx/UPS generally serve as the package delivery net=
work for Amazon Prime shipments, though sometimes they do so via smaller re=
gional package delivery networks. Also Amazon seems to be experimenting wit=
h direct delivery in some areas in order to provide a level of delivery qua=
lity they don=92t feel they can get via 3rd party (same day delivery). As =
you describe, the end users (consumers of Amazon Prime) are insensitive to =
the shipping cost due to the flat fee the consumer paid to Amazon.
This dynamic appears to have contributed to a 2013 holiday shipping season =
that saw package delays (packages sent exceeded capacity to deliver on time=
), which appears to have played a role in FedEx=92s recent announcement of =
a plan to charge shippers by size, rather than purely by weight. Some analy=
sis I read was that this may prompt companies like Amazon to get more effic=
ient in what they send to package delivery networks; packages will become s=
maller (think fewer of those inflatable plastic bags inside).
Jason
