Does the Internet Need a Major Capacity Upgrade?

wiggles writes "According to the Chicago Tribune, the recent surge of video sites such as Youtube and Google video are pushing the limits of the Internet's bandwidth, or soon will be. Pieter Poll, chief technology officer at Qwest Communications, says that traffic volumes are growing faster than computing power, meaning that engineers can no longer count on newer, faster computers to keep ahead of their capacity demands. Further, a recent report from Deloitte Consulting raised the possibility that 2007 would see Internet demand exceed capacity. Admittedly, this seems a bit sensationalist, but are we headed for a massive slowdown of the whole internet?"

Comments

A big strike against Net Neutrality

[dada21]

As the article has a quote about it, here's specifically WHY I am against "Net Neutrality" -- the ISP has no control over throttling particular sites or protocols that can have major negative effects on their overall user experience. I've already noticed some network slowdowns, but in the past 60 days I dumped broadband and rely primarily on my EDGE connection from T-Mobile (200kbps). Latency isn't too shabby. When I use my T1 at the office though, I have noticed some slowdowns.

The solution isn't just more bandwidth. We're not talking about more users accessing the same sites, we're talking about more users accessing more sites -- significantly more. The "long tail" of the web is exploding in access; all the blogs, vlogs, MP3 downloads and videos are across a huge incongruent group of sites. The solution is to nix net-neutrality legislation and allow the consumer and the producer to come to terms on need versus price.

At home, I'd be more than happy for a Port80/Port110 prioritized connection, with other ports reduced in speed or performance. Sure, videos come over Port80, but the vast majority of cable users in my neighborhood are downloading torrentz and other similar protocols. I don't see a reason why everyone should pay the same price for different service. Sure, the telecom industry is scared of Net Neutrality because they WANT to ban Skype and VoIP, but that is why the FCC needs to back off on over-regulating the opportunity for competitors to enter the market. There is a huge opportunity for more wireless providers and more people bringing FTTH or other options.

I know, I know, you were promised 160 Mbps and you want every last speck of it. Those ads will change, I think, as more people do get connected. I'd be happy with lower latency than higher data-rates, and I think this article forgets that it is latency that is just as important (if not more so) than just pure bandwidth speed.

The Internet doesn't really have "bandwidth" limitations, because all it takes is more ISPs and more backbones to come into being. If the pro-Net Neutrality parties have their way, though, we may see significant restrictions in investment on both those fronts. The companies who invested in offering new limbs on the internet took great risks -- and some made great rewards. We want to keep that risk/reward ratio uncluttered by excess regulation legislation so others can offer us more options for who we can connect to.

I'm sure if YouTube/Google had it their way, they'd get special consideration for providing more bandwidth -- State-paid consideration maybe? I sure hope not.

When things slow down, it will give new competitors reason for entering the market. 20% more backbone speed interconnecting some Level 2 ISPs and things will be fine, until the next slowdown brings another run of entrants into the game, or gives the old companies reason to expand their network. Envision 2010: "Is your latency too low? Comcast Ultra offers you 50ms or less ping times across the board, guaranteed!" It may sound fishy, but who would have thought 10 years ago that we'd hear about Mbps on basic cable ads?

The last paragraph is the most insightful part of the article:
Any service degradation will be spotty and transient, predicted (John) Ryan (of Level 3), who said that underinvestment by some operators may "drive quality traffic to quality networks."

EXACTLY.

Sidenote: That damned GoogleBot sometimes hits my sites 5000 times a day -- maybe Google is doing a little more to aggravate the problem than they want to admit? Thankfully I use server-side compression and caching, so things aren't hammered too bad by the bot, but there have been times when things on my end were running slow and I had 100 "Guests" all registered at Google's IPs.

Re:A big strike against Net Neutrality

[JimDaGeek]

So the US Postal Service should be responsible for all of Kaczynski's bombs? That's a great idea!

I think you are taking the GP's post to the extreme. I think he meant that "common carrier protection" should be limited. Limited in the sense that if the "common carrier" does not impose _any_ restrictions (within some _sane_ safety limit like no explosives) then that "common carrier" _should_ be protected. However, many ISP's are now NOT acting like "common carriers". They are restricting services and bandwidth based on their perceptions of "importance" or ways to "maximize profits".

Sorry, to me that does not qualify as a "common carrier" to be protected. If my ISP did not block any port, or restrict bandwidth in any way, I would be the first one at their defense to state that they have truly acted as a common carrier. Sadly, that is not the case for most ISP services. They "prioritize" services based on what _they_ think deserves more bandwidth. In other words... what the ISP can gain maximum profit from for the lest bandwidth.

IMO, if an ISP wants to limit bandwidth in _any_ way, they should not have common carrier protection. Period.

Re:A big strike against Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

You show an astounding lack of knowledge regarding network operations. People like you, with strong opinions
one way or the other based upon an imagined understanding of "how things work," are the real problem. You
should seriously consider withholding judgment about these kinds of issues until you can make an informed
decision.

I'd be more than happy for a Port80/Port110 prioritized connection

Seriously now, what do you even think that means? Please get a clue.

Here's one for free: There is nothing preventing lowly "torrentz" or VoIP from using those ports. They are
only numbers in packets man!

Sure, sure, you knew that. You just didn't actually want anyone to take you seriously.

Re:A big strike against Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

You are using an assumption that checking every packet going down a pipe is essentially free. It isn't. The cost of the system required to check each and every packet, decide which ones get priority and then slip them ahead in queues in front of low priority packets is quite expensive. And if you do it too long, the queues get larger and larger. Once they get too big, the unit simply dumps the extras. So the low priority packet has to be retransmitted taking up space on the incoming lines. To get rid of that you need to temporarily boost the priority depending on how many times you dump that packet. That takes even more computing power. And that requires more power to the racks, more racks, more cooling, more technicians to keep them running, etc.

And this assumes that the individual packets have the necessary information in each one to determine its priority. If they don't, you need to collect the stream until you can determine the priority, resplit it into smaller packets wrapping each with a easy to see priority code and then at the other end, unwrapping the packets, putting them back together and split them in their original form. And this has to take into account that the stream may be incomplete with some portions transmitted through a different route where you don't see them. All in all, a huge amount of work. So your $1,000 router now needs to be $10,000 prioritizing router where the information is available in each packet separately and $100,000 repackaging entry/exit filter.

Now instead if spending thousands of dollars on all that power and the infrastructure needed (power cooling, space, etc.) at every node in a network, you spend that money on building bigger pipes (wider and/or faster links) and higher bandwidth routers. Now the pipes transmit twice (or more) as much. There is no waiting for either high priority or low priority packets. Problem solved for less money. Net neutrality actually saves money while fixing the problem. A small network that has 1000 entry/exit points and 1000 nodes would spend $110 million for the nodes and entry/exit points and $10 million for the links themselves in the prioritizing case. The neutral network spends $2 million for twice the routers and $20 million for the links, yet can handle twice the traffic of the first. $120 million versus $22 million is a no brainer. Most choose the second.

The reason why the telcos and network providers want to network to be not neutral is so that they can subsidize their own add on services like video distribution, music distribution and voice. Those are very profitable compared to moving data. The subsidizing can be by cost or by quality. Their video distribution works at 10Mb/s while external groups who don't pay see only 1Mb/s. If I the user pay for a 10Mb each way connection, its their problem to make sure there is enough capacity to allow me to use all of it without getting blocked somewhere in their network.

But Telcos of old really would only keep enough capacity to connect 4% of phones at any given time plus a small margin for surges. That was the old telephone usage of 40 years ago (1960's). With modems and teenagers who can't seem to keep the phone on hook, this lusage has increased to 25% or more. So first they charged by the call. They thought how long can you talk to one person? Then with modems being able to be connected to one place for 4 to 12 hours, they went to charge by the minute. Just so they can sell 25 times more standard entry and exit points than they have capcity for.

This didn't go over well. People want the POTS that they paid for, the infrastructure built up over the years, to be available 24/7. With digital, and compression where feasible, this was available long ago. People feel their internet connection should be the same way. If they pay $30-50 a month for unlimited, they should be able to use all of it 24/7. That's what they hear when someone says unlimited. So telcos and networks should have enough capacity to handle that amount of traff

Re:A big strike against Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Which studies? Do you have any keywords/titles/etc I can google for? I'm interested.

Here's an idea

[killbill!]

Easy fix: systematic caching of bandwidth-intensive content at ISP level.

Disclaimer: I'm currently working on such a project. ;)

Re:Consider the source

[killbill!]

It's pretty obvious the whole purpose of the article is to drum up support for ending the net neutrality rule.

From the article:
Backed by several consumer groups as well as large Internet enterprises such as Google, network neutrality legislation forbids phone companies from managing the network to favor one Internet user's content over another's.

Notice how the article ends on the tired "it'll be good to the consumer" strawman:
underinvestment by some operators may "drive quality traffic to quality networks."

Distribution models, throttle and better last mile

[Twillerror]

The internet will continue to grow in capacity and as it has new products will come out to fill the void.

My biggest issues with youtube are at work in our main office. We have a large application hosted in data center. It is a major hub for internet connectivity for the region. Given that we are so close to some big vendors we can get lots of bandwith for relatively low prices. If my employees where sitting in that facility they could surf youtube.com all day.

Now at home I can also do it. I pay Comcast a big more for the extra bandwidth and I can download over a meg a second from some sites. Verizon is going to be laying fiber directly to houses and businesses soon.

Get into our offices and it is a different story. We have dual t1s coming in and only 60+ employees, but we are constantly saturated. Combine that with the fact that Cisco Pixes have horrible throttling support and you end up with times when I can't even access basic websites very quickly. The issue here is that T1s and DS3s are freakin expensive compared to a simple cable modem. We have been tempted to get Comcast bussines ( which makes me shiver a bit ) because I can get larger down pipes for general internet surfing. We only host a few services such as email here so it isn't like we need megs of up bandwith.

Throttling would go along way to solve this issue. Youtube could buffer people down quite a bit, you would just have to wait for the movie to buffer a bit. For shared internet connections and ISPs this could allow for better QOS.

Distribution models will help a lot. Youtube should have replicated servers in major market. As more players get in the video game I'm sure they will be setting up shop in several areas. Video doesn't change that much so when one person uploads it can be replicated throught out the network. You can still host the main links from a centralized place, but then stream the video from the closest location as it becomes available. This takes all the traffic from the west coast and keeps it there keeping people from the midwest from saturating the big pipes that connect the regions. Less hops also means less latency which is good for everyone.

People have been saying this same thing for ever. Telecom companies are just afraid of admitting that they can't charge up the ying yang for DS3s anymore. They are also going to have to invest in their networks which there shareholders hate. It is also the local telcoms that irritates me. Although dealing with Sprint is no treat, dealing with SBC/ATT/other momma bells is huge pain.

Networks are distributed by nature, so it just means you can't pipe all the data thru centralized routers. You are going to have to setup an infrastrute that can do very basic routing in a spider web. You can route packets very quickly if you just look at the first octect...and forward along to another router. All 1.xxx.xxx.xxx thru 5.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx can be piped to a router that knows about those routes, and even breaks it down further. If you think about it they don't even need to do that they can just take the packet and load balance to many other devices. I think it'll be a while before we can't route faster...it is not like faster switching rates is completely dead.

If anything video is just forcing the issue of increasing the capacity, which will always need to grow. Eventually we will be streaming high end video content, and this article will be a long forgotten joke.

Caching is the answer

[deckert_za]

I live in South Africa. Like Australia we're geographically far away from most of the "internet content", but unlike Australia our bandwidth costs are astronomical (mainly due to a telecoms monopoly) on the thin fibre links that we have.

But because of the bandwidth situation most SA ISPs have invested in massive cascaded caching infrastructure all over the country and at the so-called logical borders where the links exit to the US, Europe and far East. I continually monitor HTTP headers to check the cached status and easily 70% of the regular content I surf comes from one of the local caches.

Even websites within South Africa are reverse-cached, i.e. the ISPs put caches in at the foreign landing points to speed up access (and lower return bandwidth costs) to foreign surfers.

I sometimes think that the rest of the world has forgotten about caching due to the apparent abundance of bandwidth available in those countries. Maybe we'll see a return of caching polularity?

--deckert

Re:Let's be clear about what this means

[Detritus]

Computing power isn't really the issue either. Routers do not have to be designed around general-purpose computers. I've written software for systems based upon 1970s technology that could process multi-megabit data streams. The key was clever design and architecture, with a dose of custom hardware for things that were impractical to do with software.

Re:A big strike against Net Neutrality - BT Own US

[jb.hl.com]

See, people complain about UK ISPs, but as the post above shows things are infinitely better than in the US...not WONDERFUL, but still far better than in the US. I'm with TalkTalk, for christ's sake (for the Yanks, TalkTalk introduced a free broadband offer and were completely and totally unable to satisfy demand), and they haven't given me any trouble whatsoever despite all the bad press, and recently just bumped me up to a consistent 6mbps download (even on torrents). It's quite impressive. Compare with some of the American horror stories...