Re: RTT from NY to New Delhi?
Seems pretty damned reasonable to me considering the shortest distance between these two locations is a little less than 14,000 kilometers. Given the speed of light through glass, a convoluted fiber path, quite a few O/E - E/O conversions (EDFAs will only get you so far), and several switches, a 350ms RTT is decent. Removing the gear and assuming an impossibly direct fiber path, would still give an RTT of about 140ms. Gian Anthony Constantine On May 16, 2007, at 10:59 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote: On May 16, 2007, at 10:35 AM, Tim Franklin wrote: On Wed, May 16, 2007 2:20 pm, Joe Maimon wrote: What should I expect? I am seeing ~350 from a vendor provided mpls cloud to a site in Sukhrali Chowk, Gurgaon, Haryana, India Seems not-unreasonable. I remember getting about 150ms or 250ms from London to Gurgaon depending on whether we were on the straight-across cable or the round-the-bottom cable. (Sorry, both my geography and my cable-names are hazy). The best recent data I have is from Bangalore to Tyco Road in Virginia through VSNL and Cogent. Here is a sample (this goes through San Jose) : Mon Mar 5 05:26:21 EST 2007 from Bangalore through the VSNL network --- 63.105.122.1 ping statistics --- 10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 285.495/319.649/395.330/38.576 ms 370 ms seems a little high but not unreasonable. Regards Marshall Eubanks Going east from NY, you'd add 70 or 80ms to that - and a quick look suggests routes going west instead. (Test from home to .IN NS goes London - NY - West Coast - Singtel - India, for ~370ms) It's starting to head a bit towards walkie-talkie mode for VoIP, but not too bad other than that... Regards, Tim.
Re: Thoughts on increasing MTUs on the internet
I agree. The throughput gains are small. You're talking about a difference between a 4% header overhead versus a 1% header overhead (for TCP). One could argue a decreased pps impact on intermediate systems, but when factoring in the existing packet size distribution on the Internet and the perceived adjustment seen by a migration to 4470 MTU support, the gains remain small. Development costs and the OpEx costs of implementation and support will, likely, always outweigh the gains. Gian Anthony Constantine On Apr 12, 2007, at 7:50 AM, Saku Ytti wrote: On (2007-04-12 11:20 +0200), Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote: What do you guys think about a mechanism that allows hosts and routers on a subnet to automatically discover the MTU they can use towards other systems on the same subnet, so that: 1. It's no longer necessary to limit the subnet MTU to that of the least capable system 2. It's no longer necessary to manage 1500 byte+ MTUs manually To me this sounds adding complexity for rather small pay-off. And then we'd have to ask IXP people, would the enable this feature if it was available? If so, why don't they offer high MTU VLAN today? And in the end, pay-off of larger MTU is quite small, perhaps some interrupts are saved but not sure how relevant that is in poll() based NIC drivers. Of course bigger pay-off would be that users could use tunneling and still offer 1500 to LAN. IXP peeps, why are you not offering high MTU VLAN option? From my point of view, this is biggest reason why we today generally don't have higher end-to-end MTU. I know that some IXPs do, eg. NetNOD but generally it's not offered even though many users would opt to use it. Thanks, -- ++ytti
Re: Thoughts on increasing MTUs on the internet
I did a rough, top-of-the-head, with ~60 bytes header (ETH, IP, TCP) into 1500 and 4470 (a mistake, on my part, not to use 9216). I still think the cost outweighs the gain, though there are some reasonable arguments for the increase. Gian Anthony Constantine On Apr 12, 2007, at 12:07 PM, Saku Ytti wrote: On (2007-04-12 16:28 +0200), Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote: On 12-apr-2007, at 16:04, Gian Constantine wrote: I agree. The throughput gains are small. You're talking about a difference between a 4% header overhead versus a 1% header overhead (for TCP). 6% including ethernet overhead and assuming the very common TCP timestamp option. Out of curiosity how is this calculated? [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]% echo 1450/(1+7+6+6+2+1500+4+12)*100|bc -l 94.27828348504551365400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]% echo 8950/(1+7+6+6+2+9000+4+12)*100|bc -l 99.02633325957070148200 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]% I calculated less than 5% from 1500 to 9000, with ethernet and adding TCP timestamp. What did I miss? Or compared without tcp timestamp and 1500 to 4470. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]% echo 1460/(1+7+6+6+2+1500+4+12)*100|bc -l 94.92847854356306892000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]% echo 4410/(1+7+6+6+2+4470+4+12)*100|bc -l 97.82608695652173913000 Less than 3%. However, I don't think it's relevant if it's 1% or 10%, bigger benefit would be to give 1500 end-to-end, even with eg. ipsec to the office. -- ++ytti
Re: IPv6 Finally gets off the ground
Yes. Silly of you. I think you may have missed more than the singular reference. This back and forth has little to do with morality and more to do with opinion. Yet it begs, how moral is an argument of 'my opinion is superior to your opinion'? Such a lashing of another's opinion under the pretense of removing someone from their lofty perch to restore equality is hardly equality at all. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Though, I doubt Mr. Yao was expressing his so strongly. Gian Anthony Constantine On Apr 10, 2007, at 1:35 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: On Apr 10, 2007, at 1:24 PM, Joseph S D Yao wrote: On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 12:10:59PM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: ... Second, who said v6 was the heights? ... My, aren't we serious? Too serious to realize that satellites are a little higher than I, at least, can reach. Guess I missed that reference. Silly of me. Fine imagery. Just like the stuff you can get for free if you use a v6 stack :) As for being serious, I do believe you were the one who claimed v6 was going into the gutter, and the depth. Pot, kettle, black? Actually, you went beyond being serious by implying some type of moral superiority. Which is fine, you packets can be morally superior to mine -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
Actually, I acknowledged the calculation mistake in a subsequent post. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 21, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Petri Helenius wrote: Gian Constantine wrote: I agree with you. From a consumer standpoint, a trickle or off- peak download model is the ideal low-impact solution to content delivery. And absolutely, a 500GB drive would almost be overkill on space for disposable content encoded in H.264. Excellent SD (480i) content can be achieved at ~1200 to 1500kbps, resulting in about a 1GB file for a 90 minute title. HD is almost out of the question for internet download, given good 720p at ~5500kbps, resulting in a 30GB file for a 90 minute title. Kilobits, not bytes. So it's 3.7GB for 720p 90minutes at 5.5Mbps. Regularly transferred over the internet. Popular content in the size category 2-4GB has tens of thousands and in some cases hundreds of thousands of downloads from a single tracker. Saying it's out of question does not make it go away. But denial is usually the first phase anyway. Pete
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
The problem with this all (or mostly) VoD model is the entrenched culture. In countries outside of the U.S. with smaller channel lineups, an all VoD model might be easier to migrate to over time. In the U.S., where we have 200+ channel lineups, consumers have become accustomed to the massive variety and instant gratification of a linear lineup. If you leave it to the customer to choose their programs, and then wait for them to arrive and be viewed, the instant gratification aspect is lost. This is important to consumers here. While I do not think an all or mostly VoD model will work for consumers in U.S. in the near term (next 5 years), it may work in the long term (7-10 years). There are so many obstacles in the way from a business side of things, though. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 15, 2007, at 9:31 AM, Joe Abley wrote: On 15-Jan-2007, at 08:48, Michal Krsek wrote: This system works perfectly in our linear-line distribution (channels). As user you can choose time you want to see the show, but not the show itself. Capacity on PVR device is finite and if you don't want to waste the space with any broadcasted content you have to program the device. I have ten channels in my cable TV and sometimes I'm confused what to record. Beeing in the US and paid for ~100 channels will make me mad to crawl channel schedules :-) So the technology is nice, but not a What you want is what you get. So you cannot address the long tail using this technology. These are all UI details. The (Scientific Atlanta, I think) PVRs that Rogers Cable gives subscribers here in Ontario let you specify the *names* of shows that you like, rather than selecting specific channels and times; I seem to think you can also tell it to automatically ditch old recorded material when disk space becomes low. One thing that may not be obvious to people who haven't had this misfortune of consuming it at first hand is that North American TV, awash with channels as it is, contains a lot of duplicated content. The same episode of the same show might be broadcast tens of times per week; the same advertisement might be broadcast tens of times per hour. How much more programming would the existing networks support if they were able to reduce those retransmissions, relying on the ubiquity of set-top boxes with PVR functionality? Joe
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
The cable companies have been chomping at the bit for unbundled channels for years, so have consumers. The content providers will never let it happen. Their claim is the popular channels support the diversity of not-so-popular channels. Apparently, production costs are high all around (not surprising) and most channels do not support themselves entirely. The MSOs have had a la carte on their Santa wish list for years and the content providers do not believe in Santa Claus. :-) They believe in Benjamin Franklin...lots and lots of Benjamin Franklin. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 13, 2007, at 7:14 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote: In the USA at least, the cable companies make you pay for bundles to get channels you want. I have to pay for 3 bundles to get 2 channels we actually want to watch. (One of these bundle is apparently only sold if you are already getting another, which we don't actually care about.) So, it actually costs us $ 40 + / month to get the two channels we want (plus a bunch we don't.) So, it occurs to me that there is a business selling solo channels on the Internet, as is, with the ads, for order $ 5 - $ 10 per subscriber per month, which should leave a substantial profit after the payments to the networks and bandwidth costs.
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
Yes, the NCTC. I have spoken with two of the vendors you mentioned. Neither have pass-through licensing rights. I still have to go directly to most of the content providers to get the proper licensing rights. There are a few vendors out there who will help a company attain these rights, but the solution is not turnkey on licensing. To be clear, it is not turnkey for the major U.S. content providers. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 12, 2007, at 10:14 AM, Frank Bulk wrote: You mean the NCTC? Yes, they did close their doors for new membership, but there are regional head ends that represent a larger number of ITCs that have been able to directly negotiate with the content providers. And then there's the turnkey vendors: IPTV Americas, SES Americom' IP-PRIME, and Falcon Communications. It's not entirely impossible. Frank From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gian Constantine Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 7:47 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Marshall Eubanks; nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? Many of the small carriers, who are doing IPTV in the U.S., have acquired their content rights through a consortium, which has since closed its doors to new membership. I cannot stress this enough: content is the key to a good industry- changing business model. Broad appeal content will gain broad interest. Broad interest will change the playing field and compel content providers to consider alternative consumption/delivery models. The ILECs are going to do it. They have deep pockets. Look at how quickly they were able to get franchising laws adjusted to allow them to offer video. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc.
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
I am pretty sure we are not becoming a VoD world. Linear programming is much better for advertisers. I do not think content providers, nor consumers, would prefer a VoD only service. A handful of consumers would love it, but many would not. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 12, 2007, at 10:05 AM, Frank Bulk wrote: If we're becoming a VOD world, does multicast play any practical role in video distribution? Frank -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michal Krsek Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 2:28 AM To: Marshall Eubanks Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? Hi Marshall, - the largest channel has 1.8% of the audience - 50% of the audience is in the largest 2700 channels - the least watched channel has ~ 10 simultaneous viewers - the multicast bandwidth usage would be 3% of the unicast. I'm a bit skeptic for future of channels. For making money from the long tail, you have to have to adapt your distribution to user's needs. It is not only format, codec ... but also time frame. You can organise your programs in channels, but they will not run simultaneously for all the users. I want to control my TV, I don't want to my TV jockey my life. For the distribution, you as content owner have to help the ISP find the right way to distribute your content. In example: having distribution center in Tier1 ISP network will make money from Tier2 ISP connected directly to Tier1. Probably, having CDN (your own or pay for service) will be the only one way for large scale non synchronous programing. Regards Michal
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
I have spoken with a colleague in the industry regarding 4com. Apparently, they have been able to acquire some sort of pass-through licensing on much of the content, but I have not spoken directly with 4com. I heard the same of Broadstream and SES Americom, but both proved to be more of an aid in acquisition, and not outright pass- through rights. VoD is one of the main drivers, along with HD, but neither are a full- service alone. Consumers will demand linear programming. They have become accustomed to it. More importantly, the advertisers have become accustomed to it. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 12, 2007, at 5:29 PM, Michael Painter wrote: - Original Message - From: Gian Constantine Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 5:24 AM Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? Yes, the NCTC. I have spoken with two of the vendors you mentioned. Neither have pass-through licensing rights. I still have to go directly to most of the content providers to get the proper licensing rights. There are a few vendors out there who will help a company attain these rights, but the solution is not turnkey on licensing. To be clear, it is not turnkey for the major U.S. content providers. Back in the 'day', these folks were great to work with, but I have no idea of how they would deal with IPTV. http://www.4com.com/Company-Profile.html Btw, I thought VoD was one of the main drivers of IPTV, at the local level at least. --Michael
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
Many of the small carriers, who are doing IPTV in the U.S., have acquired their content rights through a consortium, which has since closed its doors to new membership. I cannot stress this enough: content is the key to a good industry- changing business model. Broad appeal content will gain broad interest. Broad interest will change the playing field and compel content providers to consider alternative consumption/delivery models. The ILECs are going to do it. They have deep pockets. Look at how quickly they were able to get franchising laws adjusted to allow them to offer video. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 10, 2007, at 2:30 AM, Christian Kuhtz wrote: Marshall, I completely agree, and due diligence on business models will show that fact very clearly. And nothing much has changed here in terms of substance over the last 4+ yrs either. Costs and opportunities have changed or evolved rather, but not the mechanics. Infrastructure capital is very much the gating factor in every major video distribution infrastructure (and the reason why DOCSIS 3.0 is just such a neato thing). The carriage deals are merely table stakes, and that doesn't mean they're easy. They are obtainable. And some business models are just fundamentally broken. Examples for infrastructure costs are size of CSA's or cost upgrading CPE is a far bigger deal than carriage. And if you can't get into RT's in a ILEC colo arrangement, that doesn't per se globally invalidate business models, but rather provides unique challenges and limitations on a given specific business model. What has changed is that ppl are actually 'doing it'. And that proves that several models are viable for funding in all sorts of flavors and risks. IPTV is fundamentally subject to the analog fallacies of VoIP replacing 1FR/1BR service on 1:1 basis (toll arbitrage or anomalies aside). There seems to be plenty of that. A new IP service offering no unique features over specialzed and depreciated infrastructure will not be viable until commoditized and not at an early maturity level like where IPTV is at. Unless an IPTV service offers a compelling cost advantage, mass adoption will not occur. And any cost increase will have to be justifiable to consumers, and that cannot be underestimated. But, some just continue to ignore those fundamentals and those business models will fail. And we should be thankful for that self cleansing action of a functioning market. Enough rambling after a long day at CES, I suppose. Thanks for reading this far. Best regards, Christian -- Sent from my BlackBerry. -Original Message- From: Marshall Eubanks [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 01:52:06 To:Gian Constantine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc:Bora Akyol [EMAIL PROTECTED],Simon Lockhart [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? On Jan 9, 2007, at 8:40 PM, Gian Constantine wrote: It would not be any easier. The negotiations are very complex. The issue is not one of infrastructure capex. It is one of jockeying between content providers (big media conglomerates) and the video service providers (cable companies). Not necessarily. Depends on your business model. Regards Marshall Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 9, 2007, at 7:57 PM, Bora Akyol wrote: Simon An additional point to consider is that it takes a lot of effort and to get a channel allocated to your content in a cable network. This is much easier when TV is being distributed over the Internet. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Simon Lockhart Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 2:42 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? On Tue Jan 09, 2007 at 07:52:02AM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Given that the broadcast model for streaming content is so successful, why would you want to use the Internet for it? What is the benefit? How many channels can you get on your (terrestrial) broadcast receiver? If you want more, your choices are satellite or cable. To get cable, you need to be in a cable area. To get satellite, you need to stick a dish on the side of your house, which you may not want to do, or may not be allowed to do. With IPTV, you just need a phoneline (and be close enough to the exchange/CO to get decent xDSL rate). In the UK, I'm already delivering 40+ channels over IPTV (over inter-provider multicast, to any UK ISP that wants it). Simon
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
Ah-ha. You are mistaken. :-) My focus is next-gen broadband and video. The wifi guys have their own department. Good try, though. :-) Personally, I am against the peer-to-peer method for business reasons, not technical ones. It will be difficult to get blessed by the content providers and painful to support (high opex). I have confidence in creative engineers. I am sure any one of us could come up with a workable solution for P2P given the time and proper motivation. All in all, P2P is really limited to a VoD model. It is hard to say whether or not VoD would ever become such an important service over the Internet, as to press content providers into an agreeable nature. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 10, 2007, at 3:25 AM, Frank Coluccio wrote: Gian wrote: From a big picture standpoint, I would say P2P distribution is a non-starter, too many reluctant parties to appease. From a detail standpoint, I would say P2P distribution faces too many hurdles in existing network infrastructure to be justified. Simply reference the discussion of upstream bandwidth caps and you will have a wonderful example of those hurdles. Speaking about upstream hurdles, just out of curiosity (since this is merely a diversionary discussion at this point;) ... wouldn't peer-to-peer be the LEAST desirable approach for an SP that is launching WiFi nets as its primary first mile platform? I note that Earthlink is launching a number of cityscale WiFi nets as we speak, which is why I'm asking. Has this in any way, even subliminally, been influential in the shaping of your opinions about P2P for content distribution? I know that it would affect my views, a whole lot, since the prospects for WiFi's shared upstream capabilities to improve are slim to none in the short to intermediate terms. Whereas, CM and FTTx are known to raise their down and up offerings periodically, gated only by their usual game of chicken where each watches to see who'll be first. Frank On Mon Jan 8 22:26 , Gian Constantine sent: My contention is simple. The content providers will not allow P2P video as a legal commercial service anytime in the near future. Furthermore, most ISPs are going to side with the content providers on this one. Therefore, discussing it at this point in time is purely academic, or more so, diversionary.Personally, I am not one for throttling high use subscribers. Outside of the fine print, which no one reads, they were sold a service of Xkbps down and Ykbps up. I could not care less how, when, or how often they use it. If you paid for it, burn it up.I have questions as to whether or not P2P video is really a smart distribution method for service provider who controls the access medium. Outside of being a service provider, I think the economic model is weak, when there can be little expectation of a large scale take rate.Ultimately, my answer is: we're not there yet. The infrastructure isn't there. The content providers aren't there. The market isn't there. The product needs a motivator. This discussion has been putting the cart before the horse.A lot of big pictures pieces are completely overlooked. We fail to question whether or not P2P sharing is a good method in delivering the product. There are a lot of factors which play into this. Unfortunately, more interest has been paid to the details of this delivery method than has been paid to whether or not the method is even worthwhile.From a big picture standpoint, I would say P2P distribution is a non-starter, too many reluctant parties to appease. From a detail standpoint, I would say P2P distribution faces too many hurdles in existing network infrastructure to be justified. Simply reference the discussion of upstream bandwidth caps and you will have a wonderful example of those hurdles. Gian Anthony ConstantineSenior Network Design EngineerEarthlink, Inc. On Jan 8, 2007, at 9:49 PM, Thomas Leavitt wrote:So, kind of back to the original question: what is going to be the reaction of your average service provider to the presence of an increasing number of people sucking down massive amounts of video and spitting it back out again... nothing? throttling all traffic of a certain type? shutting down customers who exceed certain thresholds? or just throttling their traffic? massive upgrades of internal network hardware? Is it your contention that there's no economic model, given the architecture of current networks, which would would generate enough revenue to offset the cost of traffic generated by P2P video? Thomas Gian Constantine wrote: There may have been a disconnect on my part, or at least, a failure to disclose my position. I am looking at things from a provider standpoint, whether as an ISP or a strict video service provider. I agree with you. From a consumer standpoint, a trickle or off- peak download model
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
All H.264? Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 10, 2007, at 4:41 AM, Richard Naylor wrote: At 08:40 p.m. 9/01/2007 -0500, Gian Constantine wrote: It would not be any easier. The negotiations are very complex. The issue is not one of infrastructure capex. It is one of jockeying between content providers (big media conglomerates) and the video service providers (cable companies). We're seeing a degree of co-operation in this area. Its being driven by the market. - see below. snip On Jan 9, 2007, at 7:57 PM, Bora Akyol wrote: An additional point to consider is that it takes a lot of effort and to get a channel allocated to your content in a cable network. This is much easier when TV is being distributed over the Internet. The other bigger driver, is that for most broadcasters (both TV and Radio), advertising revenues are flat, *except* in the on-line area. So they are chasing on-line growth like crazy. Typically on- line revenues now make up around 25% of income. So broadcasters are reacting and developing quite large systems for delivering content both new and old. We're seeing these as a mixture of live streams, on-demand streams, on-demand downloads and torrents. Basically, anything that works and is reliable and can be scaled. (we already do geographic distribution and anycast routing). And the broadcasters won't pay flash transit charges. They are doing this stuff from within existing budgets. They will put servers in different countries if it makes financial sense. We have servers in the USA, and their biggest load is non-peering NZ based ISPs. And broadcasters aren't the only source of large content. My estimate is that they are only 25% of the source. Somewhere last year I heard John Chambers say that many corporates are seeing 500% growth in LAN traffic - fueled by video. We do outside webcasting - to give you an idea of traffic, when we get a fiber connex, we allow for 6GBytes per day between an encoder and the server network - per programme. We often produce several different programmes from a site in different languages etc. Each one is 6GB. If we don't have fiber, it scales down to about 2GB per programme. (on fiber we crank out a full 2Mbps Standard Def stream, on satellite we only get 2Mbps per link). I have a chart by my phone that gives the minute/hour/day/month traffic impact of a whole range of streams and refer to it every day. Oh - we can do 1080i on demand and can and do produce content in that format. They're 8Mbps streams. Not many viewers tho :-) We're close to being able to webcast it live. We currently handle 50+ radio stations and 12 TV stations, handling around 1.5 to 2million players a month, in a country with a population of 4million. But then my stats could be lying.. Rich (long time lurker)
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
Sounds a little like low buffering and sparse I-frames, but I'm no MPEG expert. :-) Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 10, 2007, at 5:42 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote: On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: between handling 30K unicast streams, and 30K multicast streams that each have only one or at most 2-3 viewers? My opinion on the downside of video multicast is that if you want it realtime your SLA figures on acceptable packet loss goes down from fractions of a percent into the thousands of a percent, at least with current implementations of video. Imagine internet multicast and having customers complain about bad video quality and trying to chase down that last 1/10 packet loss that makes peoples video pixelate every 20-30 minutes, and the video stream doesn't even originate in your network? For multicast video to be easier to implement we need more robust video codecs that can handle jitter and packet loss that are currently present in networks and handled acceptably by TCP for unicast. -- Mikael Abrahamssonemail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
I am not sure what I was thinking. Mr Bonomi was kind enough to point out a failed calculation for me. Obviously, a HD file would only be about 3.7GB for a 90 minute file at 5500kbps. In my haste, I neglected to convert bits to bytes. My apologies. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 8, 2007, at 9:07 PM, Gian Constantine wrote: There may have been a disconnect on my part, or at least, a failure to disclose my position. I am looking at things from a provider standpoint, whether as an ISP or a strict video service provider. I agree with you. From a consumer standpoint, a trickle or off-peak download model is the ideal low-impact solution to content delivery. And absolutely, a 500GB drive would almost be overkill on space for disposable content encoded in H.264. Excellent SD (480i) content can be achieved at ~1200 to 1500kbps, resulting in about a 1GB file for a 90 minute title. HD is almost out of the question for internet download, given good 720p at ~5500kbps, resulting in a 30GB file for a 90 minute title. Service providers wishing to provide this service to their customers may see some success where they control the access medium (copper loop, coax, FTTH). Offering such a service to customers outside of this scope would prove very expensive, and likely, would never see a return on the investment without extensive peering arrangements. Even then, distribution rights would be very difficult to attain without very deep pockets and crippling revenue sharing. The studios really dislike the idea of transmission outside of a closed network. Don't forget. Even the titles you mentioned are still owned by very large companies interested in squeezing every possible dime from their assets. They would not be cheap to acquire. Further, torrent-like distribution is a long long way away from sign off by the content providers. They see torrents as the number one tool of content piracy. This is a major reason I see the discussion of tripping upstream usage limits through content distribution as moot. I am with you on the vision of massive content libraries at the fingertips of all, but I see many roadblocks in the way. And, almost none of them are technical in nature. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 8, 2007, at 7:51 PM, Bora Akyol wrote: Please see my comments inline: -Original Message- From: Gian Constantine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 4:27 PM To: Bora Akyol Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? snip I would also argue storage and distribution costs are not asymptotically zero with scale. Well designed SANs are not cheap. Well designed distribution systems are not cheap. While price does decrease when scaled upwards, the cost of such an operation remains hefty, and increases with additions to the offered content library and a swelling of demand for this content. I believe the graph becomes neither asymptotic, nor anywhere near zero. To the end user, there is no cost to downloading videos when they are sleeping. I would argue that other than sports (and some news) events, there is pretty much no content that needs to be real time. What the downloading (possibly 24x7) does is to stress the ISP network to its max since the assumptions of statistical multiplexing goes out the window. Think of a Tivo that downloads content off the Internet 24x7. The user is still paying for only what they pay each month, and this is network neutrality 2.0 all over again. You are correct on the long tail nature of music. But music is not consumed in a similar manner as TV and movies. Television and movies involve a little more commitment and attention. Music is more for the moment and the mood. There is an immediacy with music consumption. Movies and television require a slight degree more patience from the consumer. The freshness (debatable :-) ) of new release movies and TV can often command the required patience from the consumer. Older content rarely has the same pull. I would argue against your distinction between visual and auditory content. There is a lot of content out there that a lot of people watch and the content is 20-40+ years old. Think Brady Bunch, Bonanza, or archived games from NFL, MLB etc. What about Smurfs (for those of us with kids)? This is only the beginning. If I can get a 500GB box and download MP4 content, that's a lot of essentially free storage. Coming back to NANOG content, I think video (not streamed but multi-path distributed video) is going to bring the networks down not by sheer bandwidth alone but by challenging the assumptions behind the engineering
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
Those numbers are reasonably accurate for some networks at certain times. There is often a back and forth between BitTorrent and NNTP traffic. Many ISPs regulate BitTorrent traffic for this very reason. Massive increases in this type of traffic would not be looked upon favorably. If you considered my previous posts, you would know I agree streaming is scary on a large scale, but unicast streaming is what I reference. Multicast streaming is the real solution. Ultimately, a global multicast network is the only way to deliver these services to a large market. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 9, 2007, at 11:01 AM, Joe Abley wrote: On 8-Jan-2007, at 22:26, Gian Constantine wrote: My contention is simple. The content providers will not allow P2P video as a legal commercial service anytime in the near future. Furthermore, most ISPs are going to side with the content providers on this one. Therefore, discussing it at this point in time is purely academic, or more so, diversionary. There are some ISPs in North America who tell me that something like 80% of their traffic *today* is BitTorrent. I don't know how accurate their numbers are, or whether those ISPs form a representative sample, but it certainly seems possible that the traffic exists regardless of the legality of the distribution. If the traffic is real, and growing, the question is neither academic nor diversionary. However, if we close our eyes and accept for a minute that P2P video isn't happening, and all growth in video over the Internet will be in real-time streaming, then I think the future looks a lot more scary. When TSN.CA streamed the World Junior Hockey Championship final via Akamai last Friday, there were several ISPs in Toronto who saw their transit traffic *double* during the game. Joe
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
You are correct. Today, IP multicast is limited to a few small closed networks. If we ever migrate to IPv6, this would instantly change. One of my previous assertions was the possibility of streaming video as the major motivator of IPv6 migration. Without it, video streaming to a large market, outside of multicasting in a closed network, is not scalable, and therefore, not feasible. Unicast streaming is a short-term bandwidth-hogging solution without a future at high take rates. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 9, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Joe Abley wrote: On 9-Jan-2007, at 11:29, Gian Constantine wrote: Those numbers are reasonably accurate for some networks at certain times. There is often a back and forth between BitTorrent and NNTP traffic. Many ISPs regulate BitTorrent traffic for this very reason. Massive increases in this type of traffic would not be looked upon favorably. The act of regulating p2p traffic is a bit like playing whack-a- mole. At what point does it cost more to play that game than it costs to build out to carry the traffic? If you considered my previous posts, you would know I agree streaming is scary on a large scale, but unicast streaming is what I reference. Multicast streaming is the real solution. Ultimately, a global multicast network is the only way to deliver these services to a large market. The trouble with IP multicast is that it doesn't exist, in a wide- scale, deployed, inter-provider sense. Joe
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
The available address space for multicast in IPv4 is limited. IPv6 vastly expands this space. And here, I may have been guilty of putting the cart before the horse. Inter-AS multicast does not exist today because the motivators are not there. It is absolutely possible, but providers have to want to do it. Consumers need to see some benefit from it. Again, the benefit needs to be seen by a large market. Providers make decisions in the interest of their bottom line. A niche service is not a motivator for inter-AS multicast. If demand for variety in service provider selection grows with the proliferation of IPTV, we may see the required motivation for inter- AS multicast, which places us in a position moving to the large multicast space available in IPv6. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 9, 2007, at 1:09 PM, Joe Abley wrote: On 9-Jan-2007, at 13:04, Gian Constantine wrote: You are correct. Today, IP multicast is limited to a few small closed networks. If we ever migrate to IPv6, this would instantly change. One of my previous assertions was the possibility of streaming video as the major motivator of IPv6 migration. Without it, video streaming to a large market, outside of multicasting in a closed network, is not scalable, and therefore, not feasible. Unicast streaming is a short-term bandwidth-hogging solution without a future at high take rates. So you are of the opinion that inter-domain multicast doesn't exist today for technical reasons, and those technical reasons are fixed in IPv6? Joe
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
This is a little presumptuous on my part, but what other reason would motivate a migration to IPv6. I fail to see us running out of unicast addresses any time soon. I have been hearing IPv6 is coming for many years now. I think video service is really the only motivation for migrating. I am wrong on plenty of things. This may very well be one of them. :-) Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 9, 2007, at 1:21 PM, Marshall Eubanks wrote: On Jan 9, 2007, at 1:04 PM, Gian Constantine wrote: You are correct. Today, IP multicast is limited to a few small closed networks. If we ever migrate to IPv6, this would instantly change. I am curious. Why do you think that ? Regards Marshall One of my previous assertions was the possibility of streaming video as the major motivator of IPv6 migration. Without it, video streaming to a large market, outside of multicasting in a closed network, is not scalable, and therefore, not feasible. Unicast streaming is a short-term bandwidth-hogging solution without a future at high take rates. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 9, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Joe Abley wrote: On 9-Jan-2007, at 11:29, Gian Constantine wrote: Those numbers are reasonably accurate for some networks at certain times. There is often a back and forth between BitTorrent and NNTP traffic. Many ISPs regulate BitTorrent traffic for this very reason. Massive increases in this type of traffic would not be looked upon favorably. The act of regulating p2p traffic is a bit like playing whack-a- mole. At what point does it cost more to play that game than it costs to build out to carry the traffic? If you considered my previous posts, you would know I agree streaming is scary on a large scale, but unicast streaming is what I reference. Multicast streaming is the real solution. Ultimately, a global multicast network is the only way to deliver these services to a large market. The trouble with IP multicast is that it doesn't exist, in a wide- scale, deployed, inter-provider sense. Joe
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
Fair enough. :-) Nearly everything has a time and place, though. Pretty much everything on this thread is speculative. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 9, 2007, at 2:13 PM, John Kristoff wrote: On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 13:21:38 -0500 Marshall Eubanks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are correct. Today, IP multicast is limited to a few small closed networks. If we ever migrate to IPv6, this would instantly change. I am curious. Why do you think that ? I could have said the same thing, but with an opposite end meaning. You take one 10+ year technology with minimal deployment and put it on top of another 10+ year technology also far from being widely deployed and you end up with something quickly approaching zero deployment, instantly. :-) John
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
It would not be any easier. The negotiations are very complex. The issue is not one of infrastructure capex. It is one of jockeying between content providers (big media conglomerates) and the video service providers (cable companies). Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 9, 2007, at 7:57 PM, Bora Akyol wrote: Simon An additional point to consider is that it takes a lot of effort and to get a channel allocated to your content in a cable network. This is much easier when TV is being distributed over the Internet. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Simon Lockhart Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 2:42 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? On Tue Jan 09, 2007 at 07:52:02AM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Given that the broadcast model for streaming content is so successful, why would you want to use the Internet for it? What is the benefit? How many channels can you get on your (terrestrial) broadcast receiver? If you want more, your choices are satellite or cable. To get cable, you need to be in a cable area. To get satellite, you need to stick a dish on the side of your house, which you may not want to do, or may not be allowed to do. With IPTV, you just need a phoneline (and be close enough to the exchange/CO to get decent xDSL rate). In the UK, I'm already delivering 40+ channels over IPTV (over inter-provider multicast, to any UK ISP that wants it). Simon
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
There you go. SSM would be a great solution. Who the hell supports it, though? We still get back to the issue of large scale market acceptance. High take rate will be limited to the more popular channels, which are run by large media conglomerates, who are reluctant to let streams out of a closed network. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 10, 2007, at 12:08 AM, Sean Donelan wrote: On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Multicast streaming may be a big win when you're only streaming the top 5 or 10 networks (for some value of 5 or 10). What's the performance characteristics if you have 300K customers, and at any given time, 10% are watching something from the long tail - what's the difference between handling 30K unicast streams, and 30K multicast streams that each have only one or at most 2-3 viewers? 1/2, 1/3, etc the bandwidth for each additional viewer of the same stream? The worst case for a multicast stream is the same as the unicast stream, but the unicast stream is always the worst case. Multicast doesn't have to be real-time. If you collect interested subscribers over a longer time period, e.g. scheduled downloads over the next hour, day, week, month, you can aggregate more multicast receivers through the same stream. TiVo collects its content using a broadcast schedule. A long tail distribution includes not only the tail, but also the head. 30K unicast streams may be the same as 30K multicast streams, but 30K multicast streams is a lot better than 300,000 unicast streams. Although the long tail steams may have 1, 2, 3 receivers of a stream, the Parato curve also has 1, 2, 3 streams with 50K, 25K, 12K receivers. With Source-Specific Multicast addressing there isn't a shortage of multicast addresses for the typical broadcast usage. At least not until we also run out of IPv4 unicast addresses. There is rarely only one way to solve a problem. There will be multiple ways to distribute data, video, voice, etc.
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
Well, yes. My view on this subject is U.S.-centric. In fairness to me, this is NANOG, not AFNOG or EuroNOG or SANOG. I would also argue storage and distribution costs are not asymptotically zero with scale. Well designed SANs are not cheap. Well designed distribution systems are not cheap. While price does decrease when scaled upwards, the cost of such an operation remains hefty, and increases with additions to the offered content library and a swelling of demand for this content. I believe the graph becomes neither asymptotic, nor anywhere near zero. You are correct on the long tail nature of music. But music is not consumed in a similar manner as TV and movies. Television and movies involve a little more commitment and attention. Music is more for the moment and the mood. There is an immediacy with music consumption. Movies and television require a slight degree more patience from the consumer. The freshness (debatable :-) ) of new release movies and TV can often command the required patience from the consumer. Older content rarely has the same pull. I agree there is a market for ethnic and niche content, but it is not the broad market many companies look for. The investment becomes much more of a gamble than marketing the latest and greatest (again debatable :-) ) to the larger market of...well...everyone. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 8, 2007, at 5:15 PM, Bora Akyol wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gian Constantine Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 7:18 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? snip In entertainment, content is king. More specifically, new release content is king. While internet distribution may help breathe life into the long tail market, it is hard to imagine any major shift from existing distribution methods. People simply like the latest TV shows and the latest movies. What's new to you is very different from what's new to me? I am very happy watching 1 year old episodes of Top Gear whereas if you are located in the UK, you may consider this as old news. The story here is about the cost of storing the video content (which is asymptotically zero) and the cost of distributing it (which is also asymptotically approaching zero, despite the ire of the SPs). So, this leaves us with little more than what is already offered by the MSOs: linear TV and VoD. This is where things become complex. The studios will never (not any time soon) allow for a subscription based VoD on new content. They would instantly be sued by Time Warner (HBO). This is a very US-centric view of the world. I am sure there are hundreds of TV stations from India, Turkey, Greece, etc that would love to put their content online and make money off the long tail. I guess where I am going with all this is simply it is very hard to make this work from a business and marketing side. The network constraints are, likely, a minor issue for some time to come. Interest is low in the public at large for primary (or even major secondary) video service on the PC. Again, your views are very US centric, and are mono-cultural. If you open your horizons, I think there is a world of content out there that the content owners would be happy to license and sell at 10 cents a pop. To them it is dead content, but it turns out that they are worth something to someone out there. This is what iTunes, and Rhapsody are doing with music. And the day of the video is coming. Bora -- Off to raise some venture funds now. (Just kidding ;)
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
There may have been a disconnect on my part, or at least, a failure to disclose my position. I am looking at things from a provider standpoint, whether as an ISP or a strict video service provider. I agree with you. From a consumer standpoint, a trickle or off-peak download model is the ideal low-impact solution to content delivery. And absolutely, a 500GB drive would almost be overkill on space for disposable content encoded in H.264. Excellent SD (480i) content can be achieved at ~1200 to 1500kbps, resulting in about a 1GB file for a 90 minute title. HD is almost out of the question for internet download, given good 720p at ~5500kbps, resulting in a 30GB file for a 90 minute title. Service providers wishing to provide this service to their customers may see some success where they control the access medium (copper loop, coax, FTTH). Offering such a service to customers outside of this scope would prove very expensive, and likely, would never see a return on the investment without extensive peering arrangements. Even then, distribution rights would be very difficult to attain without very deep pockets and crippling revenue sharing. The studios really dislike the idea of transmission outside of a closed network. Don't forget. Even the titles you mentioned are still owned by very large companies interested in squeezing every possible dime from their assets. They would not be cheap to acquire. Further, torrent-like distribution is a long long way away from sign off by the content providers. They see torrents as the number one tool of content piracy. This is a major reason I see the discussion of tripping upstream usage limits through content distribution as moot. I am with you on the vision of massive content libraries at the fingertips of all, but I see many roadblocks in the way. And, almost none of them are technical in nature. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 8, 2007, at 7:51 PM, Bora Akyol wrote: Please see my comments inline: -Original Message- From: Gian Constantine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 4:27 PM To: Bora Akyol Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously? snip I would also argue storage and distribution costs are not asymptotically zero with scale. Well designed SANs are not cheap. Well designed distribution systems are not cheap. While price does decrease when scaled upwards, the cost of such an operation remains hefty, and increases with additions to the offered content library and a swelling of demand for this content. I believe the graph becomes neither asymptotic, nor anywhere near zero. To the end user, there is no cost to downloading videos when they are sleeping. I would argue that other than sports (and some news) events, there is pretty much no content that needs to be real time. What the downloading (possibly 24x7) does is to stress the ISP network to its max since the assumptions of statistical multiplexing goes out the window. Think of a Tivo that downloads content off the Internet 24x7. The user is still paying for only what they pay each month, and this is network neutrality 2.0 all over again. You are correct on the long tail nature of music. But music is not consumed in a similar manner as TV and movies. Television and movies involve a little more commitment and attention. Music is more for the moment and the mood. There is an immediacy with music consumption. Movies and television require a slight degree more patience from the consumer. The freshness (debatable :-) ) of new release movies and TV can often command the required patience from the consumer. Older content rarely has the same pull. I would argue against your distinction between visual and auditory content. There is a lot of content out there that a lot of people watch and the content is 20-40+ years old. Think Brady Bunch, Bonanza, or archived games from NFL, MLB etc. What about Smurfs (for those of us with kids)? This is only the beginning. If I can get a 500GB box and download MP4 content, that's a lot of essentially free storage. Coming back to NANOG content, I think video (not streamed but multi- path distributed video) is going to bring the networks down not by sheer bandwidth alone but by challenging the assumptions behind the engineering of the network. I don't think you need huge SANs per se to store the content either, since it is multi-source/multi-sink, the reliability is built-in. The SPs like Verizon ATT moving fiber to the home hoping to get in on the value add action are in for an awakening IMHO. Regards Bora ps. I apologize for the tone of my previous email. That sounded grumpier than I usually am.
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
My contention is simple. The content providers will not allow P2P video as a legal commercial service anytime in the near future. Furthermore, most ISPs are going to side with the content providers on this one. Therefore, discussing it at this point in time is purely academic, or more so, diversionary. Personally, I am not one for throttling high use subscribers. Outside of the fine print, which no one reads, they were sold a service of Xkbps down and Ykbps up. I could not care less how, when, or how often they use it. If you paid for it, burn it up. I have questions as to whether or not P2P video is really a smart distribution method for service provider who controls the access medium. Outside of being a service provider, I think the economic model is weak, when there can be little expectation of a large scale take rate. Ultimately, my answer is: we're not there yet. The infrastructure isn't there. The content providers aren't there. The market isn't there. The product needs a motivator. This discussion has been putting the cart before the horse. A lot of big pictures pieces are completely overlooked. We fail to question whether or not P2P sharing is a good method in delivering the product. There are a lot of factors which play into this. Unfortunately, more interest has been paid to the details of this delivery method than has been paid to whether or not the method is even worthwhile. From a big picture standpoint, I would say P2P distribution is a non- starter, too many reluctant parties to appease. From a detail standpoint, I would say P2P distribution faces too many hurdles in existing network infrastructure to be justified. Simply reference the discussion of upstream bandwidth caps and you will have a wonderful example of those hurdles. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 8, 2007, at 9:49 PM, Thomas Leavitt wrote: So, kind of back to the original question: what is going to be the reaction of your average service provider to the presence of an increasing number of people sucking down massive amounts of video and spitting it back out again... nothing? throttling all traffic of a certain type? shutting down customers who exceed certain thresholds? or just throttling their traffic? massive upgrades of internal network hardware? Is it your contention that there's no economic model, given the architecture of current networks, which would would generate enough revenue to offset the cost of traffic generated by P2P video? Thomas Gian Constantine wrote: There may have been a disconnect on my part, or at least, a failure to disclose my position. I am looking at things from a provider standpoint, whether as an ISP or a strict video service provider. I agree with you. From a consumer standpoint, a trickle or off- peak download model is the ideal low-impact solution to content delivery. And absolutely, a 500GB drive would almost be overkill on space for disposable content encoded in H.264. Excellent SD (480i) content can be achieved at ~1200 to 1500kbps, resulting in about a 1GB file for a 90 minute title. HD is almost out of the question for internet download, given good 720p at ~5500kbps, resulting in a 30GB file for a 90 minute title. Service providers wishing to provide this service to their customers may see some success where they control the access medium (copper loop, coax, FTTH). Offering such a service to customers outside of this scope would prove very expensive, and likely, would never see a return on the investment without extensive peering arrangements. Even then, distribution rights would be very difficult to attain without very deep pockets and crippling revenue sharing. The studios really dislike the idea of transmission outside of a closed network. Don't forget. Even the titles you mentioned are still owned by very large companies interested in squeezing every possible dime from their assets. They would not be cheap to acquire. Further, torrent-like distribution is a long long way away from sign off by the content providers. They see torrents as the number one tool of content piracy. This is a major reason I see the discussion of tripping upstream usage limits through content distribution as moot. I am with you on the vision of massive content libraries at the fingertips of all, but I see many roadblocks in the way. And, almost none of them are technical in nature. Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. Office: 404-748-6207 Cell: 404-808-4651 Internal Ext: x22007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Jan 8, 2007, at 7:51 PM, Bora Akyol wrote: Please see my comments inline: -Original Message- From: Gian Constantine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 4:27 PM To: Bora Akyol Cc: nanog@merit.edu mailto:nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
You know, when it's all said and done, streaming video may be the motivator for migrating the large scale Internet to IPv6. I do not see unicast streaming as a long term solution for video service. In the short term, unicast streaming and PushVoD models may prevail, but the ultimate solution is Internet-wide multicasting. I want my m6bone. :-) Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc. On Jan 6, 2007, at 1:52 AM, Thomas Leavitt wrote: If this application takes off, I have to presume that everyone's baseline network usage metrics can be tossed out the window... Thomas From: David Farber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Using Venice Project? Better get yourself a non-capping ISP... Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 11:11:46 -0500 Begin forwarded message: From: D.H. van der Woude [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: January 5, 2007 11:06:31 AM EST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Using Venice Project? Better get yourself a non-capping ISP... I am one of Venice' beta testers. Works like a charm, admittedly with a 20/1 Mbs ADSL2+ connection and a unlimited use ISP. Even at sub-DVD quality the data use is staggering... Venice Project would break many users' ISP conditions http://www.out-law.com/page-7604 OUT-LAW News, 03/01/2007 Internet television system The Venice Project could break users' monthly internet bandwith limits in hours, according to the team behind it. It downloads 320 megabytes (MB) per hour from users' computers, meaning that users could reach their monthly download limits in hours and that it could be unusable for bandwidth-capped users. The Venice Project is the new system being developed by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the Scandinavian entrepreneurs behind the revolutionary services Kazaa and Skype. It is currently being used by 6,000 beta testers and is due to be launched next year. The data transfer rate is revealed in the documentation sent to beta testers and the instructions make it very clear what the bandwidth requirements are so that users are not caught out. Under a banner saying 'Important notice for users with limits on their internet usage', the document says: The Venice Project is a streaming video application, and so uses a relatively high amount of bandwidth per hour. One hour of viewing is 320MB downloaded and 105 Megabytes uploaded, which means that it will exhaust a 1 Gigabyte cap in 10 hours. Also, the application continues to run in the background after you close the main window. For this reason, if you pay for your bandwidth usage per megabyte or have your usage capped by your ISP, you should be careful to always exit the Venice Project client completely when you are finished watching it, says the document Many ISPs offer broadband connections which are unlimited to use by time, but have limits on the amount of data that can be transferred over the connection each month. Though limits are 'advisory' and not strict, users who regularly far exceed the limits break the terms of their deals. BT's most basic broadband package BT Total Broadband Package 1, for example, has a 2GB monthly 'usage guideline'. This would be reached after 20 hours of viewing. The software is also likely to transfer data even when not being used. The Venice system is going to run on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which means that users host and send the programmes to other users in an automated system. OUT-LAW has seen screenshots from the system and talked to one of the testers of it, who reports very favourably on its use. This is going to be the one. I've used some of the other software out there and it's fine, but my dad could use this, they've just got it right, he said. It looks great, you fire it up and in two minutes you're live, you're watching television. The source said that claims being made for the system being near high definition in terms of picture quality are wide of the mark. It's not high definition. It's the same as normal television, he said. -- Private where private belongs, public where it's needed, and an admission that circumstances alter cases. Robert A. Heinlein, 1969 -- Thomas Leavitt - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - 831-295-3917 (cell) *** Independent Systems and Network Consultant, Santa Cruz, CA *** thomas.vcf
Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
I may have missed it in previous posts, but I think an important point is being missed in much of this discussion: take rate. An assumption being made is one of widespread long time usage. I would argue consumers have little interest in viewing content for more than a few hundred seconds on their PC. Further, existing solutions for media extension to the television are gaining very little foothold outside of technophiles. They tend to be more complex for the average user than many vendors seemingly realize. While Apple may help in this arena, there are many other obstacles to widespread usage of streaming video outside of media extension. In entertainment, content is king. More specifically, new release content is king. While internet distribution may help breathe life into the long tail market, it is hard to imagine any major shift from existing distribution methods. People simply like the latest TV shows and the latest movies. So, this leaves us with little more than what is already offered by the MSOs: linear TV and VoD. This is where things become complex. The studios will never (not any time soon) allow for a subscription based VoD on new content. They would instantly be sued by Time Warner (HBO). This leaves us with a non-subscription VoD option, which still requires an agreement with the each of the major studios, and would likely cost a fortune to obtain. CinemaNow and MovieLink have done this successfully, and use a PushVoD model to distribute their content. CinemaNow allows DVD burning for some of their content, but both companies are otherwise tied to the PC (without a media extender). Furthermore, the download wait is a pain. Their content is good quality 1200-1500 kbps VC-1 *wince*. It is really hard to say when and if either of these will take off as a service. It is a good service, with a great product, and almost no market at the moment. Get it on the TV and things may change dramatically. This leaves us with linear TV, which is another acquisition nightmare. It is very difficult to acquire pass-through/distribution rights for linear television, especially via IP. Without deep pockets, a company might be spinning their wheels trying to get popular channels onto their lineup. And good luck trying to acquire the rights to push linear TV outside of a closed network. The studios will hear none of it. I guess where I am going with all this is simply it is very hard to make this work from a business and marketing side. The network constraints are, likely, a minor issue for some time to come. Interest is low in the public at large for primary (or even major secondary) video service on the PC. By the time interest in the product swells and content providers ease some of their more stringent rules for content distribution, a better solution for multicasting the content will have presented itself. I would argue streaming video across the Internet to a large audience, direct to subscribers, is probably 4+ years away at best. I am not saying we throw in the towel on this problem, but I do think unicast streaming has a limited scope and short life-span for prime content. IPv6 multicast is the real long term solution for Internet video to a wide audience. Of course, there is the other argument. The ILECs and MSOs will keep it from ever getting beyond a unicast model. Why let the competition in, right? *sniff* I smell lobbyists and legislation. :-) Gian Anthony Constantine Senior Network Design Engineer Earthlink, Inc.
