Re: worth reading -- Internet Clogged 2010? Report doesn't say that.

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dave Burstein <daveb () dslprime com>
Date: November 21, 2007 9:57:44 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () dandin com>
Subject: Internet Clogged 2010? Report doesn't say that.

> Bob, Dave, Dewayne

Re: "Oy again? Wasn’t the phone system supposed to collapse due to  
modems? The report is too full of nonsense to rebut in detail."

Lots of things to disagree with in Johna Till Johnson's report, but  
most of the news stories and comments on the list clearly didn't  
reflect the report. For example, in the summary she says

'It’s important to stress that failing to make that investment will  
not cause the Internet to collapse. "  and "core fiber and switching/ 
routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any  
conceivable user demand"  which doesn't sound like "collapse" to me.  
Similarly, "The impact of inadequate access infrastructure is likely  
to be relatively mild," in the conclusion.

    Nemertes' primary conclusion is sound. People will probably want  
more local
access - faster DSL and cable. This is almost certainly true - many   
people today want more than the maximum 1 meg up, 3-6 meg down that   
the telcos offer for DSL. Cable upstream is typically even slower.   
That's a small fraction of the bandwidth needed to send grandma the  
DV  video from a $400 camcorder. As more people move to HD and  
multiple  TVs, as well as other bandwidth hungry apps, many will want  
higher speeds.

    The pr people stretched this. possibly out of ignorance,  
including a headline "User Demand for the Internet Could Outpace  
Network Capacity by 2010."  "The Internet" is the network of networks,  
the part that "will scale nicely." The pr (partially paid by AT&T)  
added a uninformed comment from Larry Irving "a critical issue facing  
the Internet ...potentially face Internet gridlock that could wreak  
havoc on Internet services.” That's directly opposite the actual  
conclusions of the report, that the Internet does fine, and the local  
loop will have speeds higher than today's (except possibly with  
obsolete shared cable modems.) The press release, but not the report,  
had the Howler "it may take more than one attempt to confirm an online  
purchase".  Confirming an online purchase requires a small number of  
bytes and is not very sensitive to latency or even a significant  
slowdown.

    Some careless reporters then took it much further, including  
transforming "could" but unlikely to "will," as if it were almost  
inevitable. If his paper were not in the midst of a round of layoffs,  
I'd single out one particularly bad story.

    Author Johna Till Johnson and Sponsor Larry Irving are  
acquaintances who have done work I respect. Johna should have been far  
more careful about material attributed to her organization, and  
mistaken comments by her partners and reporters. We also have honest  
disagreements. I believe some of her numbers, like typical Internet  
usage today, are much too high. Because the carriers hide the data,  
neither of us can be sure who has it right. I also believe she's  
reading far too much into a simple model, clever as it may be.

    Former government officials Larry Irving and Bruce Mehlman are  
partners in the "Internet Innovation Alliance" , which bills itself as  
a non-profit with broad support. I believe in fact most or almost all  
their money comes from the carriers and their suppliers. Mehlman is a  
well-paid registered lobbyist for AT&T, and they consistently advocate  
positions useful to the Bells.  IIA may have found a loophole that  
allows them to skirt the law on registering as lobbyists, but it's  
disingenuous to suggest they are independent.

    All of which makes me wonder why I, Karl of DSL Reports, and  
others have spent hours  trying to get the correct facts out. We  
should be able to bypass foolish mistakes like this. But folks like  
Senators and FCC Commissioners far too often believe what they read in  
the papers. That's one reason even honest policymakers (Mike Powell)  
make profoundly wrong decisions. No one has calculated how much the  
telcos are spending "creating a climate of opinion."  If the number  
came out, it would be shocking. My best guess is upwards for $700M is  
spent each year to influence the FCC and policy, but I can't come  
close to proving that.

Dave Burstein







> Perhaps the absurdity is evident in their statement “This resulted  
> in the first-ever study that assessed both infrastructure investment  
> and current/projected traffic patterns independently, and compared  
> the two. It is also the first study to apply Moore’s Law (or  
> something very like it) to the pace of application innovation on the  
> “Net” and validate that it appears to conform to the available data  
> so far.” They are willing to apply Moore’s law to increasing demand  
> but not to the ability to take advantage of existing technology.  
> This is completely backwards – the point of the end-to-end  
> constraint is that we take advantage of opportunities – the  
> applications adapt to what is available and it’s not just about more  
> video from a central source – just the opposite! The highest value  
> applications put the least demand on the infrastructure! (OK, TV has  
> high value but…)
>
> They do say that the backbone will scale but the problem is in the  
> access network. Their solution, no surprise, is more of that Olde  
> Tyme Broadband. Of course the solution is more money for “broadband”  
> even as the industry works at a furious pace to prevent a repeat of  
> the overcapacity of the “fiber bubble”. It’s as if we need to pay  
> the carriers from continuing to keep their capacity unavailable and  
> wasting it in using their last mile networks in broadcast TV mode.
>
> "Want a seamless end-to-end network?" was the tagline for the ad  
> that greeting me going to the site. Of course that's a womb-to-tomb  
> model. It gives a sense that this is part of the IPSphere mentality  
> warning us that we need protection from the wrath of the network  
> owners if we deny them the money they demand to fund their networks.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dfarber () cs cmu edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 18:22
> To: ip () v2 listbox com
> Subject: [IP] Internet could clog networks by 2010, study says
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
> Date: November 21, 2007 10:37:44 AM EST
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Internet could clog networks by 2010, study  
> says
>
> Internet could clog networks by 2010, study says
> Telephony Online
> By Sarah Reedy
>
> User demand for the Internet could outpace network capacity by 2010,
> according to a study released today by Nemertes Research. The study
> found that corporate and consumer Internet usage could surpass the
> Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, but
> also worldwide, within the next three to five years.
>
> < http://telephonyonline.com/home/news/internet_network_capacity_111907/ 
>  >
>
>
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