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Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?
- From: Thomas Leavitt
- Date: Mon Jan 08 21:55:04 2007
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: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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.
--
Thomas Leavitt - [email protected] - 831-295-3917 (cell)
*** Independent Systems and Network Consultant, Santa Cruz, CA ***
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