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What Are Google and Verizon Up To?
pickens writes "Robert X. Cringley has an op-ed in the NY Times in which he contends that Google has found a way to get special treatment from Verizon without actually compromising net neutrality, by beginning to co-locate some of their portable data centers with Verizon network hubs. 'With servers so close to users, Google could not only send its data faster but also avoid sending it over the Internet backbone that connects service providers and for which they all pay,' writes Cringley. 'This would save space for other traffic — and money for both Verizon and Google, as their backbone bills decline (wishful thinking, but theoretically possible). Net neutrality would be not only intact, but enhanced.' So why won't Google and Verizon admit what they're up to? 'If my guess is right, then I would think they're silent because it's a secret. They'd rather their competitors not know until a few hundred shipping containers are in place — and suddenly YouTube looks more like HBO.'"
We can ditch the cableco and finally get ala carte programming.
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None of this would surprise me. Akamai has been placing gear in ISP's premises (for free!) for over a decade now.
Here is a 2.4 Mbyte pdf on Google's approach to data centers, and a video tour.
So why won't Google and Verizon admit what they're up to?
Question is: Do they have to? I doubt they do.
I would like to be the first to point out that google is not getting special treatment, google is simply locating their data near the users of said data (electronically and physically). Google has been doing this for a long time, no news here.
I have Fios, and I used to have to get up and go make a sandwich every time I wanted to watch a youtube video. It was painful enough that I have given up on youtube altogether and don't bother...
The other factor that makes youtube too frustrating to deal with anyway is that they only seem to allow videos taken during major earthquakes...
Seriously folks, learn to hold a camera steady... sheesh..
The largest bottleneck is from Verizon to the customer. This means that putting google's servers at Verizon will not increase speed so much. It may reduce latency a little, but that is not so important.
Without affecting net-neutrality, Google could easily put bigger cables towards Verizon centers and accomplish exactly the same thing, namely, not so much.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Verizon would have been better served all along by approaching this from a positive angle along the lines of "how we can get your content to our users, faster" than "you are screwing us by not paying us." Everyone likes a company that says "what can we do for you" a lot better than one that stamps its feet like a brat.
Has Cringely ever been right with one of his predictions/theories? I like the guy a lot, and his ideas are always pretty interesting, but somehow I never hear a follow up where someone says "Yep, he was right!"
Seems to me that Google isn't "avoiding sending its data over the backbone", but is only doing it once per colocated datacenter instead of many times. Still a big win, but the article is a bit misleading on that score.
This is the entire Akamai business model: It saves money for BOTH google AND Verizon, and improves latency for Google.
And unless the user is actually transferring data at full line rate (saturating buffers), does not penalize anyone else. (During full rate transfers, TCP dynamics cause short RTT flows to be favored).
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Odies pretty much nails it ... although one subtle difference is that presumably Akamai and the other CDN providers are available for all to use ... whereas Google's co-located servers may be primarily for its data/apps.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
A big secret deal with Verizon involving thousands of servers...
Evil.
Why does the opening sentence imply that this compromises net neutrality in spirit? It has nothing to do with net neutrality, which is about ARTIFICIALLY restricting speeds based merely on who the data is coming from. In this case, putting your equipment closer to the end-user is less costly, due to physics.
Discussions and business relationships with regard to peering arrangements are nearly always "NDA" material. All networks engage in such arrangements, and it both lowers costs and delivers stuff that consumers use (peering & engineering of such connections are always done in conjunction with "bulk" usage data/transit amounts between any two networks). I'd say this is much ado about nothing, but a normal activity that goes on all the time between networks (content, eyeballs, mixed networks) and isn't something sneaky to go behind anyone's back.
The info on traffic/transit amounts is only the business of the two parties involved. Given the amount of traffic google and verizon have, they likely have ongoing discussions about how to make things work well in a cost effective manner just about all the time. Most of the US based networks have private interconnects at many locations so I'd call this pretty much a "no-op" in terms of the net neutrality discussions happening these days.
Engadget already looked into it about 2-days ago and Google commented by saying that they have no plans to share any bandwidth with verizon, and that they still support net neutrality. If there's anything going on, perhaps they want a piece of that frequency band that is going on and off of auction. Just speculation
I'm sorry, but how is this fundamentally different from the sort of tiered service that net-neutrality advocates worry about? Google pays Verizon a substantial sum of money, and in return Google gets preferential access to the network in the form of local datacenters. This gives Google an advantage over competing providers /provided that the bottleneck is in the peering or backbone connections/. Given that Verizon FIOS seems to have substantial excess fiber capacity within its network, that seems like a likely scenario. (Wireless less so.)
There's a finite amount of room at Verizon's data centers, so I imagine they'll be able to charge plenty of money for this, and that smaller providers will be locked out (or will have to pay fractionally, e.g., through an already-colocated service like Akamai). Verizon gets a new profit center and Verizon users pay for it invisibly through advertising and the cost of any services that Google eventually offers for pay. Which is the truly worrisome aspect of net non-neutrality.
Obviously this is only one step on the road to ISP-controlled, for-profit, tiered service. But it's in the same spirit, and it may be that Google has made it clear they're willing to pay for access to those networks.
I can’t understand why ppl are so blind to love and praise anything Google does? They have an agenda, like all big corporations do. Pity ppl are so easily misled.
Why the heck is the backbone even an issue? I used to work for a (now-defunct) company that made fiber optic equipment and I know first hand how much dark fiber is out there and how much optic equipment going for pennies on the dollar. This is just the owners of the buried fiber trying to work up the case against net-neutrality and squeeze as much mon.....987(^&^ [connection lost]
'With servers so close to users, Google could not only send its data faster but also avoid sending it over the Internet backbone that connects service providers and for which they all pay,'
I think that seems like a great idea. It at least pays token respect to net neutrality and is a win for both companies.
It's also not a stretch they'd want to keep this quiet. The move would vault Google/Verizon out ahead of the competition and put Google at an advantage for content delivery. You could almost hear the giant sucking sound from AT&T.
Could also be a move to stave off potential regulation. Or acceptance that, sooner or later, the FCC will be in a position to enforce net neutrality. Google is still in a good position either way.
Sounds like good business to me.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
So Google is basically creating their own subnet? I'm sure Comcast et. al. is sure to follow.
Google buys Verizon, spins off what they don't want.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
All Verizon has to do now is not invest in external network capacity. Google is local to them now, screw the small guys.
it won't ever happen: a p2p video service with better availability and better quality.
This has nothing to do with being anothe akamai. This has everything to do with Google getting more detailed information on exactly who you are. I'm not a Google hater, but when Google and Verizon partner, they will know almost everything that was in your credit report, where you are right now, where you've been walking with your cell phone, which computer at home you're using (assuming you use their router), what you're watching on TV right now, and what type of porn you like on PPV.
Net neutrality remains, but your privacy most certainly does not.
Am I the only one who doesn't know what HBO and shipping containers have to do with anything?
Cringley is a columnist, like many others, and he makes predictions based on the facts he has and his extensive experience in IT. He also makes annual predictions for the coming year in technology and then follows them up the following year with an article about how many he got right and how many he got wrong. So the first person to say he's wrong is himself and he is humble about it. He even has rough statistics on his percentage year to year. Someone who's willing to dissect his own hits a misses deserves your attention simply as a columnist with very interesting ideas that more than a few times are right. Compare that to asses like Dvorak who are 95%+ of the time wrong.
At the same time there are a bunch of monday morning quarterbacks on Slashdot...
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I don't know that I necessarily agree about net neutrality, but I don't think this should be downmodded to flamebait.
And just last night I saw a Verizon commercial that insisted "Air doesn't discriminate, it carries my words, my ideas the same as anyone else's." &$@!ing liars.
I don't think you understand the concept of neutrality. Either you're neutral or you're not, there is no neutral scale, so you cannot "enhance" net neutrality.
If google is getting premium internet service because they're paying more money, that's not neutral, period.
MABASPLOOM!
google might just be covering their bases in case the net-neutrality stuff doesn't happen.
So, what about all the users on systems other than Verizon? Is their throughput going to suffer?
In related news, Verizon is dumping quite a bit of their infrastructure (they pulled out of my neighborhood, selling their POTS and FiOS to Frontier). What happens to their mobile network customers when they become 'orphans' in a region?
Have gnu, will travel.
I have FIOS (35/35) and get instantaneous play on even high-def videos.
Perhaps I'm located to a good POP on the FIOS network.
I'm not sure why this is news, this is and has been common practice for at least the last 15 years that I've been involved with Internet infrastructure and it wasn't really new then either.
Regardless of 'net neutrality' issues, this is just common sense and good network design. If you're going to need a new datacenter putting it as close to the users as possible has always been 'good design' practices. The traffic not only gets to its destination faster, it also unloads links that previously carried the traffic. Its a win for everyone involved.
This is no different than mutual peering agreements or the Akamia and iTunes hosting that pretty much every major ISP does already anyway. I haven't ever downloaded a song from iTunes or an app or movie that didn't come from the TWC datacenter a few miles down the road. Surprising this is the first we've heard of Google doing it actually. Its a safe bet this isn't actually new for them either.
The only downside is that Verizon may not put as much effort into their backbone connections so external sites end up suffering, and thats a problem, but you can only legislate so much, shitty businesses will always figure out a way to rip you off unless they have competition.
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No one here has suggested that Google might be thinking of buying Verizon. Would such a buyout make sense?
So basically Verizon has decided it's sensible to peer directly with google?
..implementing this.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
While a google co-location may put a "smaller website owner" at some sort of absolute disadvantage, it also could make the smaller website load faster, simply because not as many google requests need to go over the link...
With servers so close to users, Google could not only send its data faster but also avoid sending it over the Internet backbone that connects service providers and for which they all pay
Does anyone seriously believe Google is sending data to Verizon over the backbones? There's a little thing called peering. ISPs go over their traffic records, find the data centers they're paying the backbones the most to ship traffic to, and run direct lines instead when that would save them money in the long term. IIRC, even Wikipedia only pays for about half of its bandwidth – the rest is peering. Google must use orders of magnitude more bandwidth, so I can't believe it's paying for practically any of it. It wouldn't be worth it for any significant ISP not to peer with Google.
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
Indeed!
Google's server farms, i.e. "The Cloud" hold the internet their hands.
Meaning, when someone in Germany retrieves a web-page and data from "www.amazon.com" they are actually retrieving web-page and data from a server farm in Germany. When someone in the United States of America, retrieves a web-page and data from a site, they thick is in Japan, they are actually retrieving a web-page and data from a server farm in the U.S.A.
Google wants to sell their indexing service, as a service to a customer, this customer being Verison.
This has nothing to do with creating Ghettos on the internet, i.e. internet neutrality.
Creating Ghettos on the internet is what ICANN and Barak Hussain Obama are all about.
Agreed. Another example of mods using points to mod down what they disagree with.
There is no -1 disagree