nanog mailing list archives
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
From: Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 11:35:39 -0700
It's hard to see a revolution when you're in the middle of it. As consumers transition from watching multicast TV on the networks' schedule past time-shifting and on to VoD, the traffic demands on the infrastructure will grow by 25 - 40 times. Similarly, the Internet will shift from a tool for reading web sites and watching occasional cat videos to a system whose main job (from the perspective of traffic) is video streaming. The magnitude of the change will necessarily cause a re-evaluation of the norms for interconnection, aggregation, content placement, and protocol design.
I think it's a mistake to approach this transformation in a "nothing to see here, move along" manner. It's reality that packet networks are statistical, especially at the level of aggregation and middle-mile distribution. The Internet's traditional financial model is one in which infrastructure providers make the most serious investments and edge services extract the highest profits. This model may not be the most sustainable one, and it may not be consistent with supporting the upgrades the infrastructure needs for adaptation to this new application. Alternative models - such as Europe's open access regime - fare even worse in this regard than the vertical integration model that's the norm in North America and East Asia.
I don't claim to have all the answers here, or even any of them, but I think it's important to keep an open mind and pay attention to what works. I'm also not enthusiastic about relying on government programs to upgrade infrastructure to fiber of some random spec, because the entry of government into this market suppresses investments by independent fiber contractors and doesn't necessarily lead to optimal placement of new fiber routes. The First Net experience is proving that to be the case, I believe.
In other words, the Internet that we have today isn't the best of all possible networks, it's just the devil we know.
RB On 7/28/14, 10:56 AM, William Herrin wrote:
On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com> wrote:"You've designed your network to handle the traffic demands of web browsing? That's cute, now rebuild it to handle 40 times more traffic while I sit back and call you a crook for not anticipating my innovation."Right, because how could anyone anticipate that more than a handful of folks might want to use 5 or 6 mbps of traffic on a 25mbps flat-rate product for hours at a time. How rude to suggest that an allegedly high speed network designed only to handle the traffic demands of web browsing is little different than that age old confidence scheme, the pig in a poke. Regards, Bill Herrin
-- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Current thread:
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity, (continued)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Matthew Petach (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Matt Palmer (Jul 27)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Richard Bennett (Jul 27)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Miles Fidelman (Jul 27)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Paul WALL (Jul 27)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Matt Palmer (Jul 27)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity mcfbbqroast . (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Paul WALL (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Miles Fidelman (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity William Herrin (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Richard Bennett (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Daniel Corbe (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity William Herrin (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Michael Thomas (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Matt Palmer (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Richard Bennett (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity William Herrin (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Jim Richardson (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Matthew Petach (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Owen DeLong (Jul 28)
- Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity Owen DeLong (Jul 28)