Observations of an Internet Middleman (Level3)

Thu May 15 19:05:32 UTC 2014

On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Scott Helms <khelms at zcorum.com> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> You're not reading what I said, nor did I make a statement anything like
> one of the silly things you referenced (640k ram etc).  Prioritization isn't

yes I made a joke. (*three of them actually)

> that complex and today we handle the maximum amount of complexity already
> since everything is the same priority right now.

sure... simple networking, no priorities.

> You're trying to make the statement that giving multiple content providers
> priority somehow makes connectivity unworkable for consumers as if we don't
> have this problem already.  Consumers can easily starve themselves of

not unworkable for the consumer, per say. it makes guaranteeing that
'fast-lane' for those folk that do pay for it harder. The cableco/etc
will potentially have to provide the equivalent 'fast-lane' bandwidth
for each consumer, or risk contract breach with some of their paying
'fast-lane' purchasers.

or that's sort of what it looks like to me... of course statistical
multiplexing and 'long tail' and other things probably mean this isn't
a 'happens to all households' problem, but it could happen to a goodly
portion if enough services become popular in an example household.

> bandwidth with video or any other content and almost no connections in the
> US have any sort of intelligent fair usage buffering provided by the service
> provider.  This is true for both cable, telco, and other operators.

sure, but there's no contractual problem with lost bits/streams
today... because 'moviecompany' didn't pay for a 'premium service' (or
priority or...) from 'cableco'.

-chris

>
> Scott Helms
> Vice President of Technology
> ZCorum
> (678) 507-5000
> --------------------------------
> http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
> --------------------------------
>
>
> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Christopher Morrow
> <morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 1:48 PM, Scott Helms <khelms at zcorum.com> wrote:
>> > Its not really that complex, if you think about it having 10000s of
>> > 'movieco' with the same priority is the status quo.  At the end of the
>> > day
>> > the QoS mechanics in DOCSIS are pretty straightforward and rely on
>> > service
>> > flows, while service flows can have equal priority I doubt most
>> > operators
>> > will sell more than a few (perhaps just one) top priority in a given a
>> > category.
>> >
>>
>> yes, there will only ever be 5 computers. or you couldn't possibly
>> need more than 640kb of ram..... or more than 4billion 'ip addresses'.
>>
>> I don't think you have to get to more than 10 or 20 of the stated
>> examples before things get dicey ... Once a set of customers
>> experience (and can measure) the effect, they'll back their complaints
>> up to 'moviecompany' and some set of contract penalties will kick in,
>> I suspect.
>>
>> Sure, if there is only one it's not a problem, but there are already
>> not just one...
>>
>> >
>> > Scott Helms
>> > Vice President of Technology
>> > ZCorum
>> > (678) 507-5000
>> > --------------------------------
>> > http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
>> > --------------------------------
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 1:22 PM, Christopher Morrow
>> > <morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 1:06 PM, Ryan Brooks <ryan at hack.net> wrote:
>> >> > On 5/15/14, 11:58 AM, Joe Greco wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> 2) Netflix purchases 5Mbps "fast lane"
>> >> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > I appreciate Joe's use of quotation marks here.    A lot of the
>> >> > dialog
>> >> > has
>> >> > included this 'fast lane' terminology, yet all of us know there's no
>> >> > 'fast
>> >> > lane' being constructed, rather just varying degrees of _slow_
>> >> > applied
>> >> > to
>> >> > existing traffic.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> please correct me if I'm wrong, but 'fast lane' really is (in this
>> >> example):
>> >>   'cableco' port from 'moviecompany' has 'qos' marking configuration
>> >> to set all 'moviecompany' traffic (from this port!) to some priority
>> >> level.
>> >>
>> >>   customer-port to 'cableco' has 'qos' handling/queuing that will
>> >> ensure '5mbps' of 'moviecompany' is always going to get down the link
>> >> to the customer, regardless of the other traffic the customer is
>> >> requesting.
>> >>
>> >> right? (presume that in the rest of the 'cableco' network is
>> >> protecting 'moviecompany' traffic as well, of course)
>> >>
>> >> So, when there are 1 'moviecompany' things to prioritize and deliver
>> >> that's cool... but what about when there are 10? 100? 1000? doesn't
>> >> the queuing get complicated? what if the 'cableco' customer with
>> >> 10mbps link has 3 people in the location all streaming from 3
>> >> different 'moviecompany' organizations which have paid for 'fastlane'
>> >> services?
>> >>
>> >> 3 x 5 == 15 ... not 10. How will 'cableco' manage this when their
>> >> 100gbps inter-metro links are seeing +100gbps if 'fastlane' traffic
>> >> and 'fastlane' traffic can't make it to the local metro from the
>> >> remote one?
>> >>
>> >> This all seems much, much more complicated and expensive than just
>> >> building out networking, which they will have to do in the end anyway,
>> >> right? Only with 'fastlanes' there's extra capacity management and
>> >> configuration and testing and ... all on top of: "Gosh, does the new
>> >> umnptyfart card from routerco actually work in old routerco routers?"
>> >>
>> >> This looks, to me, like nuttiness... like mutually assured destruction
>> >> that the cableco folk are driving both parties into intentionally.
>> >>
>> >> -chris
>> >>
>> >> BTW: I didn't use a particular 'cable company' name for 'cableco', nor
>> >> did I use a particular streaming media company for 'moviecompany'...
>> >> Also, 'cableco' is short-hand for
>> >> 'lastmile-consumer-provider-network'. Less typing was better, for me,
>> >> I thought.
>> >
>> >
>
>