Re: BT Heavily Throttling BBC, All Video

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Date: June 12, 2009 12:17:37 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net, "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] BT Heavily Throttling BBC, All Video

At 08:57 AM 6/12/2009, David Burstein wrote:

> This is a major carrier whose video lead has just resigned under  
> fire (below) because they aren't getting enough customers, and is  
> actively cutting competitive video down to half the usual bit rate

There is no need to claim anticompetitive tactics here. The simple  
fact is that P2P takes the carrier's bandwidth, for the content  
provider's benefit, without permission or compensation.

My ISP -- which cannot be accused of favoring its own video business  
because we do not provide any ourselves -- was on the cutting edge of  
managing this problem because our backbone bandwidth costs are  
particularly high. Some larger providers, such as BT, were able to  
absorb the impact at first simply because they had lower bandwidth  
costs and deep pockets.

Ultimately, however, the bigger the provider is, the more service is  
taken from it due to heavy P2P if it does not do P2P mitigation. And,  
thus, the greater its losses. As I mentioned in my testimony before  
the FCC a year ago, iPlayer has created a huge problem in the UK in  
particular because of the BBC's wealth of programming.

For an explanation of why this is a serious problem and why ISPs are  
justified in doing something about it, also see my slides and  
testimony from that hearing at

http://www.brettglass.com/FCC/remarks.html

The article quoted by David also makes the false claim that

> while increased video use is driving traffic growth, the cost of the  
> routers, Internet peering/transit etc. is going down about as fast.  
> The cost per customer of bandwidth has been about flat for several  
> years, about $1/month/customer at a carrier like BT.

Unfortunately, this is incorrect ( they are reporting UK djf)  Due to  
increasing concentration in the market for Internet backbone  
bandwidth, the prices per megabit we are being quoted, as an ISP, are  
actually increasing. What's more, the cost of a router goes up  
exponentially, rather than linearly, with the load it can handle.  
Today's routers are being taxed even by legitimate video traffic, let  
alone P2P.

--Brett Glass





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