2 edits | BT comments Redux While I think BT's approach is wrong, their concerns have some business merit. Bit's cost money to deliver end to end. Both Content and Users pay their costs of Transit. Content pays based on volume or peak traffic and Users pay a flat rate for Speed. When a provider only receives 1/2 (or less) of the revenue (and that is a flat rate) for new video, and have 99% of the end to end delivery costs, the economics get a bit challenged.
The problem is the legacy peering infrastructure built when all ISPs had equal costs. Today, there are questionable intermediate ISPs that are peered with BT and sell transit to Content to reach BTs subscribers (at very low rates). They can do this because that intermediate ISPs costs are low as they will just hand the traffic directly to BT. BT makes no money on that side of the equasion, but has to increase capacity to all the desinations of this traffic.
P2P makes this even more challenging. With content providers using P2P for distribution the ISP has to foot the cost for both sides of the traffic with 1/2 the revenue and at a flat rate.
Supportable traffic growth requires a supportable business plan. Content providers are pushing their costs onto the ISP/Consumers and the peering infrastructure of the 90's does not match the Internet economics of today.
Content companies are the ones driving this in the wrong direction and need to pay their fair of bit delivery. Not the consumers. |
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| Customers generally expect their ISP to provide access to today's Internet, not the Internet of five years ago (or of the even more distant past--when dial-up ruled). If an ISP cannot do that, then it should consider other business opportunities that don't require keeping up with the changing times and technologies. Live in the now. |
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2 edits | They can. They just need to change the business model to recover the costs as Content changes (video is really a game changer as far as bandwidth). Do you think Consumers should pay or Content should pay?
Content thinks that the Consumers should pay which is why they are pushing the costs to the broadband ISPs via bandwidth arbitrage, exploiting peering relationships and P2P. |
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 funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | reply to yt
said by yt:While I think BT's approach is wrong, their concerns have some business merit. Bit's cost money to deliver end to end. Both Content and Users pay their costs of Transit. Bit for bit, these costs are reduced by half every couple of years or so, a trend that's decades old and has no end in sight and keeps up with year-over-year increases
There is no bandwidth crisis, except the one being invented by the boardrooms of last-mile ISPs trying to put the squeeze on.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL |
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| reply to yt
I pay for my Internet access; each customer pays for his/her Internet access--this includes sites that host content. Which sites I visit is my business, not the business of my ISP. I pay for my access, something for which the sites I visit have no responsibility or liability. If my ISP wants more money to pay for supporting my usage, then it can raise the rates it charges its customers (or try to). The suggestion that any site which I may visit is in some way responsible to my ISP for supporting my access/usage is, in a word, silly. |
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3 edits | reply to funchords
said by funchords:Bit for bit, these costs are reduced by half every couple of years or so, a trend that's decades old and has no end in sight and keeps up with year-over-year increasesThere is no bandwidth crisis, except the one being invented by the boardrooms of last-mile ISPs trying to put the squeeze on. I agree on the past. While costs have reduced, demand has increased at about equal levels. What is different is speeds have dramatically increased over just the last few years and content is finding ways to shift their network costs drastically via P2P technologies, bandwidth arbitrage and questionable intermediate ISPs "reselling" broadband. Add to that a generation of users moving to all content, on demand, on the Internet.
You can perpetuate the "evil board room" theories (as that is very easy to do here on BBR). However I think a logical person who works on large scale networks would see the future is going to look very different than the past.
EDIT: The question is, if future traffic DOES change drastically with new video, who should pay for the network portion? Content or Users (ISPs)? |
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funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5
1 edit | said by yt:You can perpetuate the "evil board room" theories (as that is very easy to do here on BBR). However I think a logical person who works on large scale networks would see the future is going to look very different than the past. This is not new to the Internet. This is a very recurring theme. It comes in waves, but often struggled with something new sucking up the capacity. In the late 80s, it was large FTP archives. In the early 90s, it was images (pictures). Five years later, it was the web-boom itself and the popularization of online music. This "crunch" IS NOT ABOUT P2P*, it's about video.
How did we get out of each one? We grew the network's capacity. Nothing else truly works -- it all amounts to denying or delaying service in one way or another. To meet increased demand, increase supply.
*Oh, we've blamed the technology before, too. FTP used to be the hated protocol. Then it was PointCast and "push" technology that people loved and networks hated.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL |
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1 edit | Draw a graph of consumer Internet speeds and look at the last 2 years vs the last 20. Now add the wholesale price / mb change over the same period with the last 2 years driven by questionable peering and intermediate ISPs selling a router port hop (vs real transit).
No one can predict the future and I don't think the past is a good judge with as many changes that have happened very recently. My main point is there is a cost to deliver bits and if, I repeat IF, these costs drastically change, either Content or Users (ISP) will need to pay for it. Content wants to shift network costs away from their books in preparation of this. They have been working that angle and PR pretty effectively. |
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 nixenRockin' the BoxenPremium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA | reply to yt
Wow. Just ...Wow. So, which telco do you work for? This sounds EXACTLY like what I've seen telcos spew.
So, it's your assertion that peering agreements are always done as peers of equals? That, when there's an imbalance between the two parties to a peering point, that the peering agreements either don't get renegotiated or out-right terminated? That the poor, overburdened big guy, just sits there and "takes it" when someone else offloads through the peering?
Funny: I seem to remember a few front-page articles on DSLR about various Internet blackouts being caused by big guys terminating peering with "free-loader" peering partners. Perhaps my memory is faulty on that, though.
When it comes to money, telcos do nothing for free. If their expenses go up, they pass them along to their customers. If their existing peering contracts are imbalanced, they re-do or terminate those contracts.
This "they're making money off our pipes" BS is simply a grab for income. It ignores the whole fact that, were those content providers not out there, their own customers likely wouldn't be there, either.
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell |
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2 edits | Funny thing is, I don't dispute what you have said. Content is critical and it makes money off of subscriptions and/or advertising. It is a symbiotic relationship.
That said, the network still has costs. It has had costs in the past and has costs in the future. Those costs are not always flat and increase with any abnormal increase traffic. The costs shifts also have impact with any loss of because of ISPs selling each others routes. Someone needs to pay for the bits. Right now users pay a flat rate and Content has historically paid / Mb.
Why does Content all of a sudden want the Users to pay for all traffic by strong arming peering or other traffic tricks? |
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funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | said by yt:Why does Content all of a sudden want the Users to pay for all traffic by strong arming peering or other traffic tricks? What are you talking about here? Thanks.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL |
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 espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
 ·Clear Wireless
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said by funchords:This is a very recurring theme. It comes in waves, but often struggled with something new sucking up the capacity. In the late 80s, it was large FTP archives. In the early 90s, it was images (pictures). Five years later, it was the web-boom itself and the popularization of online music. This "crunch" IS NOT ABOUT P2P*, it's about video. It's not just about P2P, it's not just about video. It's about ANY technology that causes a drastic shift in the oversubscription model on which networks are built.
said by funchords:How did we get out of each one? We grew the network's capacity. Nothing else truly works -- it all amounts to denying or delaying service in one way or another. To meet increased demand, increase supply. To solve your debt problem, acquire more money. If only it were always that simple.
You can only grow your network once the necessary interfaces become available, and occasionally you have to push through large capital expenditures when a full refresh is required to improve capacity.
For example, right now I'm stuck building out capacity between data center locations using N*10GigE links because that's the only common link protocol my intermediate DWDM providers will support (outside of ungodly expensive OC768 options). The thing that is annoying about this is that traffic hashing algorithms aren't perfect, and to be able to sustain 22gbps of traffic I actually need 4*10GigE links in order to get the traffic to balance out. (on a 3 link hash one of the links would usually end up hitting in excess of 9.5gbps) 40GigE and 100GigE will make my life better, but the standards aren't set to be finalized for those options until next year, and even when they are finalized I'll still need to replace entire chassis for cases where my switching backplane doesn't have room to support 40/100GigE interfaces.
Upgrades take time, just look at DOCSIS 3.0: that spec was finalized in August 2006 and we're just seeing the rollouts starting now.
You're right in that increasing capacity is the only long term solution, but the problem is that today you can only deploy technologies that exist as actual products, and they need to fit within your capital budget. |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | reply to yt
Easy thing for BT to do: depeer the iffy ISP and rework an agreement.
If they're not willing to do that then they need the content companies, not the other way around. |
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funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | reply to espaeth
said by espaeth:It's not just about P2P, it's not just about video. It's about ANY technology that causes a drastic shift in the oversubscription model on which networks are built. Well that's not very new, either. I think ISPs picked up on the fact that users were pretty keen about surfing, but they also knew a large number of users were also keen on putting up their own websites and photos. ISPs responded to that by providing well-hosted sites and kept that heavier and repetitive upstream traffic off of the last mile. It was a tactic and it worked ... for a while.
The uplink demand was there, and the ISPs mitigated it. But their decision depended on the Internet users' uplink tastes not changing.
But I'll disagree even further up the argument and reaffirm that it is about video. If you removed video from the net, there's plenty of room for everything else -- down AND up. I may gripe that the ISPs haven't grown fast enough, but they've grown.
said by espaeth:said by funchords:How did we get out of each one? We grew the network's capacity. Nothing else truly works -- it all amounts to denying or delaying service in one way or another. To meet increased demand, increase supply. To solve your debt problem, acquire more money. If only it were always that simple. You can only grow your network once the necessary interfaces become available, and occasionally you have to push through large capital expenditures when a full refresh is required to improve capacity. Which is also not at all new. All of those truths of today were truths during those crises as well.
And we did try different other things to defer the time and expense. We put up proxies and caches. We crunched images. Ultimately, though, we grew the network and turned off those compromises.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL |
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1 edit | reply to yt
You miss one of the most basic principles in this and that is peering agreements are for the most part a wash, but if one ISP "passes on" too much data as compared to what they receive, they will pay a peering fee.
So BT is using the ISP's to make money just as much as the ISP's are using BT to make money. That simple truth is true of content providers as well. Without content (voice, data, whatever) ISP's and BT do not have a reason to be in existence. Without ISP's and BT, content providers would have no basis to serve content. This is yet just another simple money grab for these multi billion dollar a quarter companies trying to eliminate their responsibilities to their consumers.
They should just shut up and be the dumbpipes they are. |
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| reply to funchords
There is a calculate shift by Content and CDNs to move their bandwidth growth costs to the ISPs (and in turn the users). The cost of traffic growth around instant video is something Content and CDNs, obviously, do not want to pay transit for. If the source of traffic no longer pays their network share for the growth, it moves the costs to the Consumers.
Examples like ESPN360 may be the future and it is unclear if this is good or not. Also the BBC iPlayer over P2P or the PR campaign to force multicast peering. This gives the BBC unlimited free access and all the end to end traffic growth costs are pushed to the broadband ISPs without incremental revenue that was previously obtained (by someone) via Content transit. While Content may have not paid that specific ISP, with peering ratio balance requirements, this typically can wash out.
The major CDNs and major Content distributures have very creative ways to cause ISPs pain and manipulate peering relationships to either gain peering (typically with smaller broadband w/ transit costs) or exploit an intermediary ISPs peering relationship with a broadband ISP. Two examples were above, and there is also things like:
quote:
We both pay for transit, so why don't we just peer
Because the savings for the broadband ISP are for current or existing traffic. Unlimited free (for Content) bandwidth has the potential of large end to end, unexpected, growth costs of infrastructure. Unbalanced peering traffic growth is not mutually beneficial and is an enabler which brings with it large costs.
quote:
If you won't peer with me, I will peer with your most expensive transit provider and they will make money off of you.
or
I will connect to the same router port as you and your peer and pay them small amounts unless you peer with me.
I will not pay you the same amount I would pay your peer even though you carry the bits end to end.
Given the costs of a port vs the full end to end costs are small, the intermediate provider can do this. This is one of the reasons the peering environment is a mess.
All of these shifts have the potential to move the cost of traffic growth to the Consumer.
You can say "I don't care, I buy bandwidth from my ISP", but the reason for my information was to give another version of this story. |
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nixenRockin' the BoxenPremium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA | reply to funchords
said by funchords:said by yt:Why does Content all of a sudden want the Users to pay for all traffic by strong arming peering or other traffic tricks? What are you talking about here? Thanks. Exactly. I mean, I don't hear Google saying that they want their traffic for free. The *closest* it comes to that is saying that they don't think they should have to pay the content consumers' last-mile network providers. Given that those network providers are being paid by the content consumers and everyone else in between gets their monies or carriage via intervening peering arrangements, I don't see where anyone's asking for anything for free.
Oh, wait, I just remembered... The TELCOS are asking for free stuff. I seem to remember Verizon and others flogging "solutions" whereby I, as a cell phone user, pay the telephone company for the privilege of burning up my IP connection so that, not just my own, but anyone nearby can have their cell traffic offloaded from the local towers.
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell |
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1 edit | said by nixen:Exactly. I mean, I don't hear Google saying that they want their traffic for free. The key words in your statement are "I don't hear".
All smart Content providers have a strong push to force peering with ISPs. Those costs go away, large content growth is enabled with the costs of that growth moved towards the users as there is no longer incremental transit revenue. |
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nixenRockin' the BoxenPremium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA | said by yt:said by nixen:Exactly. I mean, I don't hear Google saying that they want their traffic for free. The key words in your statement are " I don't hear". Which, if you're saying that you *do* hear, pretty much confirms the supposition in my prior post...
said by yt:All smart Content providers have a strong push to force peering with ISPs. Those costs go away, large content growth is enabled with the costs of that growth moved towards the users as there is no longer incremental transit revenue. And, it comes down to, "so the hell what"? It's not like the bandwidth providers aren't going to pass the costs on. Saying that the carriers are going to absorb the cost is an asinine assertion.
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell |
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| Not sure what your point (or issue) is, but other than correcting a few of your incorrect assumptions, I have agreed with what you said
If Content pushes the cost to the ISPs, the ISPs will push incremental cost to the user. It is pretty logical and has historical precedent with TV content. The "so what" is, should the ISP be blamed when Content raised/shifted the price/cost? |
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