Will Internet TV Crash the Internet?

Stony Stevenson writes "Analyst groups and Cisco have come out saying that the internet is heading for a crash unless it increases its bandwidth capabilities which are being strangled by the increased use of Web TV. Stan Schatt, research director at ABI said: "Uploading bandwidth is going to have to increase, and the cable providers are going to get killed on bandwidth as HD programming becomes more commonplace." He added that the solution to the problem is to change to digital switching and move to IPTV. "They will be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century," he said. Cisco weighed into the argument, adding that it had found American video websites currently transmit more data per month than the entire amount of traffic sent over the internet in 2000."

Comments

It's not rocket science

[CarpetShark]

whether they are going to give us what want, and find a way to stay profitable ... or not.

If you ask me, the whole "problem" is a bunch of balony. ISPs oversubscribe their services, because most people just browse websites, and that's low-bandwidth. Now, they're realising they can't do that, because people are using youtube and bittorrent, and that's about to reach critical mass when people like the BBC legitimize it in a consumer-oriented shrink-wrap. Suddenly, ISPs can't claim that people who actually USE their services are doing something immoral or illegal.

So, what's the problem again? You sold a service extra-cheap, because you didn't think you'd have to provide the full service? Tough. Get real, and sell what we're buying. The prices might go up, sure, but either we'll pay, or we won't care about the new service. Your upstream providers might charge too much for bandwidth, but that'll soon change as ISPs start demanding more.

Re:It's not rocket science

[Tango42]

There's no big difference between failing to predict growth and under-predicting it when that growth is (near) exponential. Your prediction is out by a factor of 20% in the first year, and by the fifth year, you are out by (according to the back of my envelope) 150%.

Re:It's not rocket science

[blurryrunner]

What they need to do is instead of caching it locally, they should have set top boxes with large hard drives running bit torrent. Then bit torrent style, distribute the content to the customers. So instead of caching it near your customers, you cache it with your customers.

This works great, because all the customers are near each other. You would also seed the content centrally, but you wouldn't need gobs of bandwidth from the central office to the customer, just between the customers.

Too bad ISPs are starting to throttle Bit Torrent--it really is a solution, not a problem. /br

My alternative...

[Panaflex]

I've spoken with a few engineers in the IPTV business... they're al about multicasting and QOS delivery. I'm going to go out on the limb and say... uhhh.... no. Why?

Because that's NOT what internet TV is all about. Sure, for some content think it's great. Like ABC, Fox, whatever - they can do the multicast. But for the rest of the content providers, it's going to be on-demand. And that solution is really quite simple. And it makes money.

Basically you take an Akamai like model and extend it. Deploy caching servers right to the ISP's - on the customer doorstep. Offer subscriptions to the customers and the ISP gets a chunk of the monthly. Customers get instant access to the content from the caching server. Content people get a chunk from the number of views statistically. ISP's only have to move content over their uplink once for all their customers nearby.

Best part is you could do it securely for the media providers, and give people a reason to use the service (more shows, better quality, faster delivery). Eventually you offer sell-up items like movies, sporting events, etc. In other words it would be better than cable, cheaper than cable, and far cheaper to operate.

There's all kinds of great stuff you could do here - and you could do it on the cheap and make beaucoup bucks. So, ya know... send me a bag of gold hehehe.

Re:Simple partial solution

[ScrewMaster]

I have the feeling it's not so simple as that. I'm on the Comcast 8 meg tier and have also noticed no difference in behavior. But then again, where I live I have lots of broadband options (I didn't plan it that way but there it is.) I doubt Comcast is going to screw with me too much because I could switch to a more congenial provider with a phone call. On the other hand, if you're someplace where Comcast (or any other ISP) is the only game in town, I think it might be a different story. Besides, Comcast is huge and is under no obligation to apply any policies equally across their entire network. You and I could be among the lucky ones (for now.)

Bandwidth is not a limited resource

[symbolset]

Available bandwidth is currently deliberately limited by the major incumbents. This manufactured scarcity drives the price up. There is more than enough dark fiber to meet our needs for decades to come.

The incumbents are about to discover that people will only put up with this for so long before they mandate municipal information infrastructure. Fiber is the bridge to the global economy and building bridges is one of the justifications for government exist. If your state and local governments won't do it, mine will - and your kids will find it that much harder to compete with mine.

Fiber is not made of some rare mineral. It is processed sand.

Re:What happened to all that "Dark Fiber"?

[Randseed]

Dark fiber is still out there, and your question is a very valid one. Here's a FAQ I turned up on it:

Dark Fiber FAQ