The scale of streaming video on the Internet.

Leo Bicknell bicknell at ufp.org
Fri Dec 3 17:35:02 UTC 2010


In a message written on Fri, Dec 03, 2010 at 11:39:32AM -0500, Christopher Morrow wrote:
> right, that was the point(s) I was trying to make... sadly I didn't
> make them I guess.

Well, I wasn't 100% sure, so best to confirm.

But it all goes to the heart of Network Neutrality.  It's easy to set up
the extreme straw men on both sides:

- If Netflix had a single data center in Seattle it is unreasonable for
  them to expect Comcast to settlment free peer with them and then haul
  the traffic to every local market.

- If Netflix pays Akamai (or similar) to place the content in all local 
  markets saving Comcast all of the backbone costs it is unreasonable for
  Comcast to then charge them.

The question is, what in the middle of those two is fair?  That
seems to be what the FCC is trying to figure out.  It's an extremely
hard question, I've pondered many business and technical ideas
proposed by a lot of great thinkers, and all of them have significant
problems.

At a high level, I think peering needs to evolve in two very important
ways:

- Ratio needs to be dropped from all peering policies.  It made sense
  back when the traffic was two people e-mailing each other.  It was
  a measure of "equal value".  However the net has evolved.  In the
  face of streaming audio and video, or rich multimedia web sites
  Content->User will always be wildly out of ratio.  It has moved from
  a useful measure, to an excuse to make Content pay in all
  circumstances.

- Peering policies need to look closer at where traffic is being dropped
  off.  Hot potato was never a good idea, it placed the burden on the
  receiver and "propped up" ratio as a valid excuse.  We need more 
  cold potato routing, more peering only with regional ASN's/routes.
  Those connecting to the eyeball networks have a responbility to get
  the content at least in the same general areas as the end user, and
  not drop it off across the country.

If large ISP's really wanted to get the FCC off their back they would
look at writing 21st century peering policies, rather than trying to
keep shoehoring 20th century ones into working with a 21st century
traffic profile.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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