Oh, I'm not proposing symmetrical connectivity at all. I'm just
supporting the argument that in the context of this discussion I think
it's silly for a residential ISP to purport themselves to be a neutral
carrier of traffic and expect peering ratios to be symmetric when the
overwhelming majority of what they're selling (and have been selling for
over a decade) is asymmetric connectivity. Their traffic imbalance is,
arguably, their own doing.
How residential ISPs recoup costs (or simply increase revenue/profit) is
another question entirely. I think the most insightful comment in this
discussion was made by Mr. Rick Astley (I assume a pseudonym), when he
states that ISPs have several options to increase revenue A) Increase
price of their product, B) Implement usage restrictions, or C) Charge
someone else/Make someone else your customer. I think he successfully
argues that option C may be the best. As we've seen, the wireless market
in the US went for option B. We've yet to see where the wireline market
will go.
Of course, the market would ideally keep ISPs' demands for
revenue/profit in check and we'd all reach a satisfactory solution. One
of the arguments, one I happen to support, in this thread is that there
is not a free market for internet connectivity in many parts of the US.
If there was, I believe Comcast would be focusing on how to provide a
balance between the best product at the lowest cost and not on how they
can monetize their paying customers in order to increase profits. I
appreciate honesty; When a service provider advertises X Mbps Internet
speeds, I expect they can deliver on their claims (to the whole
Internet, and not just the portions of it they've decided). I understand
congestion, overselling, etc. But choosing which portions of the
internet work well and which don't is a lot more like censorship than
service.
--Blake
Scott Helms wrote the following on 5/16/2014 12:39 PM:
Blake,
You're absolutely correct. The world adapts to the reality that we
find ourselves in via normal market mechanics. The problem with
proposing that connectivity for residential customers should be more
symmetrical is that its expensive, which is why we as operators didn't
roll it out that way to start. We also don't see consumer demand for
symmetrical connections and with the decline in peer to peer file
sharing we've actually seen a decrease the ratio of used upstream
bandwidth (though not a decrease in absolute terms).
I would like to deliver symmetrical bandwidth to all consumers just so
those few customers who need it today would have lower bills but
trying to justify that to our CFO without being able to point to an
increase in revenue either because of more revenue per sub or more
subs is a very tough task. I don't believe my situation is uncommon.
Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ZCorum
(678) 507-5000
--------------------------------
http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
--------------------------------
On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 1:20 PM, Blake Hudson <bl...@ispn.net
<mailto:bl...@ispn.net>> wrote:
Thanks for the insight Scott. I appreciate the experience and
point of view you're adding to this discussion (not just the
responses to me). While I might be playing the devil's advocate
here a bit, I think one could argue each of the points you've made
below.
I do feel that general usage patterns are a reflection of the
technologies that have traditionally been available to consumers.
New uses and applications would be available to overcome hurdles
if the technologies had developed to be symmetrical. I'm not
saying that the asymmetrical choice was a bad one, but it was not
without consequences. If residential ISPs sell asymmetric
connections for decades, how can the ISP expect that application
developers would not take this into account when developing
applications? I don't think my application would be very
successful if it required X Mbps and half of my market did not
meet this requirement. Of course content/service providers are
going to tailor their services based around their market.
--Blake
Scott Helms wrote the following on 5/16/2014 12:06 PM:
Blake,
I might agree with your premise if weren't for a couple of items.
1) Very few consumers are walking around with a HD or 4K
camera today.
2) Most consumers who want to share video wouldn't know how
to host it themselves, which isn't an insurmountable issue but
is a big barrier to entry especially given the number of
NAT'ed connections. I think this is much more of a problem
than available bandwidth.
3) Most consumers who want to share videos seem to be
satisfied with sharing via one of the cloud services whether
that be YouTube (which was created originally for that use),
Vimeo, or one of the other legions of services like DropBox.
4) Finally, upstream bandwidth has increased on many/most
operators. I just ran the FCC's speedtest (mLab not Ookla)
and got 22 mbps on my residential cable internet service. I
subscribe to one of the major MSOs for a normal residential
package.
Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ZCorum
(678) 507-5000 <tel:%28678%29%20507-5000>
--------------------------------
http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
--------------------------------
On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Blake Hudson <bl...@ispn.net
<mailto:bl...@ispn.net> <mailto:bl...@ispn.net
<mailto:bl...@ispn.net>>> wrote:
Certainly video is one of the most bandwidth intensive
applications. I don't deny that a < 1 Mbps video call is
both less
common and consumes less bandwidth than an 8Mbps HD stream.
However, if Americans had access to symmetric connections
capable
of reliably making HD video calls (they don't, in my
experience),
we might be seeing video calls as a common occurrence and
not a
novelty. I think the state of usage is a reflection on the
technology available.
If the capability was available at an affordable price to
residential consumers, we might see those consumers stream
movies
or send videos from their home or mobile devices via their
internet connection directly to the recipient rather than
through
a centralized source like Disney, NetFlix, Youtube, etc. Video
sharing sites (like youtube, vimeo, etc) primary reason for
existence is due to the inability of the site's users to
distribute content themselves. One of the hurdles to
overcome in
video sharing is the lack of availability in affordable
internet
connectivity that is capable of sending video at reasonable
(greater than real time) speeds.
--Blake
Scott Helms wrote the following on 5/16/2014 11:02 AM:
Blake,
None of those applications come close to causing
symmetrical
traffic patterns and for many/most networks the upstream
connectivity has greatly improved. Anything related
to voice
is no more than 80 kbps per line, even if the SIP traffic
isn't trunked (less if it is because the signaling data is
shared). Document sharing is not being impinged, on my
residential account right now I've uploaded about 30
documents
this morning including large PDFs and Power Point
presentations.
Off site back up is one use that could drive traffic,
but I
don't believe that the limiting factor is bandwidth. We
looked at getting into that business and from what we
saw the
limiting factor was that most residential and SOHO
accounts
didn't want to pay enough to cover your storage &
management
costs. In our analysis the impact of bandwidth on the
consumer side adoption was basically zero. There is no
expectation that back ups run instantly. Having said
all of
that, even if hosted back up became wildly popular
would not
change the balance of power because OTT video is both
larger,
especially for HD streams, and used much more frequently.
Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ZCorum
(678) 507-5000 <tel:%28678%29%20507-5000>
<tel:%28678%29%20507-5000>
--------------------------------
http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
--------------------------------
On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Blake Hudson
<bl...@ispn.net <mailto:bl...@ispn.net>
<mailto:bl...@ispn.net <mailto:bl...@ispn.net>>
<mailto:bl...@ispn.net <mailto:bl...@ispn.net>
<mailto:bl...@ispn.net <mailto:bl...@ispn.net>>>> wrote:
Jay Ashworth wrote the following on 5/16/2014
10:35 AM:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Tinka" <mark.ti...@seacom.mu
<mailto:mark.ti...@seacom.mu>
<mailto:mark.ti...@seacom.mu
<mailto:mark.ti...@seacom.mu>>
<mailto:mark.ti...@seacom.mu
<mailto:mark.ti...@seacom.mu>
<mailto:mark.ti...@seacom.mu
<mailto:mark.ti...@seacom.mu>>>>
While that is true a lot of the time
(especially
for eyeball
networks), it is less so now due to social
media.
Social
media forces the use of symmetric
bandwidth (like
FTTH),
putting even more demand on the network,
Oh yes; clearly, Twitter will be the end of L3.
:-)
Could you expand a bit, Mark on "Social media
forces
the use
of symmetric
bandwidth"? Which social media platform is it
that
you think
has a)
symmetrical flows that b) are big enough to
figure into
transit symmetry?
Cheers,
-- jra
Applications like Skype and Facetime (especially
conference calls)
would be one example where an application benefits
from
symmetric
(or asymmetric in favor of higher upload speed)
connectivity.
Cloud office applications like storage of documents,
email, and
IVR telephony also benefit from symmetrical
connectivity.
Off-site
backup software is another great example. Most
residential
connections are ill suited for this. I believe these
applications
(and derivatives) would be more popular today if the
connectivity
was available.
--Blake