Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

Note that video caching systems like P2P networks can
potentially serve video to extremely large numbers of
users while consuming reasonably low levels of upstream
bandwidth.

The total bandwidth used is the same though, no escaping
that, someone pays.

Then local users
use local bandwidth to get copies of that broadcast over
the next few days.

If it was only redistributed locally. Even in that case it's not
helping much as it still consumes the most expensive bandwidth (for UK
ADSL). Transit is way cheaper than BT ADSL wholesale, you're saving
something that's cheap.

For this to work, you need P2P software whose algorithms
are geared to conserving upstream bandwidth

Or the caches that are being sold to fudge the protocols to
keep it local but if you're buying them we could have just
as easily done http download and let it be cached by existing
appliances.

brandon

2

> Note that video caching systems like P2P networks can
> potentially serve video to extremely large numbers of
> users while consuming reasonably low levels of upstream
> bandwidth.

The total bandwidth used is the same though, no escaping
that, someone pays.

This is not true. Increased bandwidth consumption does
not necessarily cost money on most ISP infrastructure.
At my home I have a fairly typical ISP service using
BT's DSL. If I use a P2P network to download files from
other BT DSL users, then it doesn't cost me a penny
more than the basic DSL service. It also doesn't cost
BT any more and it doesn't cost those users any more.
The only time that costs increase is when I download
data from outside of BT's network because the increased
traffic reaquires larger circuits or more circuits, etc.

The real problem with P2P networks is that they don't
generally make download decisions based on network
architecture. This is not inherent in the concept of
P2P which means that it can be changed. It is perfectly
possible to use existing P2P protocols in a way that is
kind to an ISP's costs.

If it was only redistributed locally. Even in that case it's not
helping much as it still consumes the most expensive bandwidth (for UK
ADSL). Transit is way cheaper than BT ADSL wholesale, you're saving
something that's cheap.

I have to admit that I have no idea how BT charges
ISPs for wholesale ADSL. If there is indeed some kind
of metered charging then Internet video will be a big
problem for the business model.

Or the caches that are being sold to fudge the protocols to
keep it local but if you're buying them we could have just
as easily done http download and let it be cached by existing
appliances.

The difference with P2P is that caching is built-in to
the model, therefore 100% of users participate in
caching. With HTTP, caches are far from universal,
especially to non-business users.

--Michael Dillon

3

They vary, it depends on what pricing model has been selected.

http://tinyurl.com/yjgsum has BT Central pipe pricing. Note those are
prices, not telephone numbers. :wink:

If you convert into per-megabit charges - at least an order of magnitude
greater than the cost of transit, and at least a couple of orders of
magnitude more than peering/partial transit.

p2p is no panacea to get around these charges; in the worst case p2p
traffic will just transit your central pipe twice, which means the
situation is worse with p2p not better.

For a smaller UK ISP, I do not know if there is a credible wholesale LLU
alternative to BT.

Note this information is of course completely UK-centric. A more
regionalised model (21CN?!) would change the situation.

Will

4

Will Hargrave wrote:

I have to admit that I have no idea how BT charges
ISPs for wholesale ADSL. If there is indeed some kind
of metered charging then Internet video will be a big
problem for the business model.
    

They vary, it depends on what pricing model has been selected.

http://tinyurl.com/yjgsum has BT Central pipe pricing. Note those are
prices, not telephone numbers. :wink:

If you convert into per-megabit charges - at least an order of magnitude
greater than the cost of transit, and at least a couple of orders of
magnitude more than peering/partial transit.
  

A cursory look at the document doesn't seem to show any prices above 622Mbps, but for that you're looking at about �160,000 a year or �21/Mbps/month.

2GB per day, equates to 190Kbps (assuming a perfectly even distribution pattern, which of course would never happen), which would be �3.98 a month per user. In reality I imagine that you could see usage peaking at about 3 times the average, or considerably greater if large flash crowd events occur.

I would say that in the UK market today, those sorts of figures are enough to destroy current margins, but certainly not high enough that the costs couldn't be passed onto the end user as part of an "Internet TV" package.

p2p is no panacea to get around these charges; in the worst case p2p
traffic will just transit your central pipe twice, which means the
situation is worse with p2p not better.

For a smaller UK ISP, I do not know if there is a credible wholesale LLU
alternative to BT.
  

Both Bulldog (C&W) and Easynet sell wholesale LLU via an L2TP handoff. It's been a while since I was in that game so any prices I have will be out of date by now, but IIRC both had the option to pay them per line _or_ for a central pipe style model. The per line prices were just about low enough to remain competitve, with the central pipe being cheaper for volume (but of course, only because you'd currently need to buy far less bandwidth than the total of all the lines in use; most ASDL users consume a surprisingly small amount of bandwidth and they aggregate very well).

Note this information is of course completely UK-centric. A more
regionalised model (21CN?!) would change the situation.

Will

S