S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge

Fri Oct 1 14:45:25 UTC 2021

On 10/1/21 16:19, Blake Hudson wrote:

>
> I'll never understand over how ISPs see content providers as the enemy 
> (or a rival). The content is why ISPs have customers. Don't get upset 
> when your customer uses the service that you sold them (in a way that 
> is precisely in accordance with the expected usage)!

It's because infrastructure (that's us, the network operators), still 
don't get it.

We are no longer front & centre in the eyes of our users. They see us as 
an impediment... providers they must buy costly megabytes of mobile data 
from, providers they must call to fix broken fibre, providers they must 
shout at when a single CGN IPv4 address they sit behind breaks their 
Netflix, and so on and so on.

Users only care about the service they use their mobile phone, tablet, 
console or laptop for. They don't care how many customers their ISP has, 
whether the ISP is a small mom & pop or some global behemoth, or whether 
the ISP's CEO is was on the cover of TIME magazine last week.

As my American friend used to say, "They just want their MTV".

In the late 90's and early 2000's, when content folk wanted to work with 
us, infrastructure folk, to grow their businesses, we just saw easy, 
free money to tax toward our shiny new Lamborghinis and beach side 
holiday villas. Well, guess whom we are now begging for seats on their 
submarine cable build projects, community funding programs, and caches 
to be installed in our not-so-huge data centres, all for free?

The reason Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, e.t.c., all built their 
own global backbones is because of this nonsense that SK Broadband is 
trying to pull with Netflix. At some point, the content folk will get 
fed up, and go build it themselves. What an opportunity infrastructure 
cost itself!

Akamai have also quietly been building their own backbone. Wonder why.

No doubt Netflix have someone either thinking about the same, or putting 
a plan into motion.

The bad news now, is, there are plenty of many, small, local and 
regional ISP's who are willing to do whatever it takes to work with the 
content providers. All that's required is some network, a half-decent 
data centre and an exchange point. Gone are the days where customers 
clamored to sign up with Big Telco.

If anyone wonders why "infrastructure is dead", well, this is why.

21 years later, and we still don't get it! No wonder the mobile 
companies are watching their slow death, from the rosy days of billions 
from basic SMS, to the perils of 5G investments for diddly return.

Wake me up when all this is over. I'll be in my wine stupor until then.

Mark.