more on worth reading "A Piece of the Action" (was: Charging "content providers" ...)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Steven Bauer <bauer () mit edu>
Date: January 17, 2006 7:41:25 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] worth reading "A Piece of the Action" (was:  
Charging "content providers" ...)

> Quoted text by Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>

Content providers already pay extra for improved network connectivity
to their customers.  Content providers today just happen to pay
these fees to content distribution networks like Akamai.

Arguably, what ISPs like BellSouth want is a piece of the revenue
that Akamai is currently collecting.

> Let's be really clear about what's being talked about here.  First,
> if BellSouth gets away with this, the content providers (and by
> extension the customers of those content providers, who will
> ultimately foot the bill) will have to similarly deal with all of the
> ISPs, phone companies, exchange points, and other entities around the
> world who want their individual "pieces of the action."

This is exactly what created the market opportunity for Akamai.
A large N number of content providers pay Akamai and then Akamai
maintains relationships and servers in a large N number of ISPs.

> Many end users may not see any improvements, since the overall
> bandwidth they get is dependent not only on (for example) the speeds
> that BellSouth supplies to the distant content providers who are not
> their customers, but also on the subscriber line speeds, subscribers'
> individual computer speeds/capabilities, etc.--that is, the *overall
> bandwidth end-to-end*.  A big pipe from BellSouth does no good if
> everything else along the line isn't up to the same capacity.  Like
> water through hoses, the maximum flow rate is determined by the
> narrowest points.

Above is true enough, but again my guess is that Bellsouth is
talking about caching of 3rd party content and services locally in their
network, again like Akamai.  This does make a user noticeable
difference in performance.  But other benefits exist as well to content
providers in terms of reliability, availability, and server and network
capacity provisioning.

> And remember, what appears to be under discussion here is not really
> providing *additional* bandwidth -- rather, these appear to be
> offers not to *restrict* available bandwidth, said restrictions of
> course subject to revisions and additional charges when it's deemed
> desirable to squeeze more money out of the content providers or  
> others.

This isn't necessarily true under the CDN interpretation of
Bellsouth's plan.  Broadband companies *could* operate a CDN
service and not explicitly restrict non-CDN traffic.  Though
this does raise an important issue of whether ISPs have an incentive to
invest in additional capacity for traffic that does not generate
additional revenue.

Steven Bauer
Advanced Network Architecture Group
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
MIT




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