My contention is simple. The content providers will not allow P2P
video as a legal commercial service anytime in the near future.
Furthermore, most ISPs are going to side with the content providers
on this one. Therefore, discussing it at this point in time is purely
academic, or more so, diversionary.
Personally, I am not one for throttling high use subscribers. Outside
of the fine print, which no one reads, they were sold a service of
Xkbps down and Ykbps up. I could not care less how, when, or how
often they use it. If you paid for it, burn it up.
I have questions as to whether or not P2P video is really a smart
distribution method for service provider who controls the access
medium. Outside of being a service provider, I think the economic
model is weak, when there can be little expectation of a large scale
take rate.
Ultimately, my answer is: we're not there yet. The infrastructure
isn't there. The content providers aren't there. The market isn't
there. The product needs a motivator. This discussion has been
putting the cart before the horse.
A lot of big pictures pieces are completely overlooked. We fail to
question whether or not P2P sharing is a good method in delivering
the product. There are a lot of factors which play into this.
Unfortunately, more interest has been paid to the details of this
delivery method than has been paid to whether or not the method is
even worthwhile.
From a big picture standpoint, I would say P2P distribution is a non-
starter, too many reluctant parties to appease. From a detail
standpoint, I would say P2P distribution faces too many hurdles in
existing network infrastructure to be justified. Simply reference the
discussion of upstream bandwidth caps and you will have a wonderful
example of those hurdles.
Gian Anthony Constantine
Senior Network Design Engineer
Earthlink, Inc.
On Jan 8, 2007, at 9:49 PM, Thomas Leavitt wrote:
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 ***
<thomas.vcf>
