Vint Cerf Says Fix the Net With More Pipe

CWmike writes "While ISPs may fret about Netflix, Hulu and other streaming media services saturating their bandwidth, Internet forefather Vint Cerf has a simple answer for this potential problem: Increase bandwidth exponentially. With sufficient bandwidth, streaming video services of prerecorded content wouldn't be necessary, said the now-technology evangelist at Google. With sufficient throughput, the entire file of a movie or television show could be downloaded in a fraction of the time that it would take to stream the content. Cerf, speaking at Juniper Network's Nextwork conference, spoke about the company's decision to outfit Kansas City with fiber-optic connections that Google claims will be 100 times faster than today's services. The purpose of the project was 'to demonstrate what happens when you have gigabit speeds available,' Cerf said. 'Some pretty dramatic applications are possible.' One obvious application is greater access to high-definition video, he explained. 'When you are watching video today, streaming is a very common practice. At gigabit speeds, a video file [can be transferred] faster than you can watch it,' he said. 'So rather than [receiving] the bits out in a synchronous way, instead you could download the hour's worth of video in 15 seconds and watch it at your leisure.' He adds: 'It actually puts less stress on the network to have the higher speed of operation.'"

Comments

Makes sense...

[jeffmeden]

'So rather than [receiving] the bits out in a synchronous way, instead you could download the hour's worth of video in 15 seconds and watch it at your leisure.' He adds: 'It actually puts less stress on the network to have the higher speed of operation.'

Sure, it naturally would stand to reason that the operations (like streaming video) that currently require 100% utilization on today's network might only require a fraction of that on tomorrow's much faster network. The problem is, tomorrow we won't be happy with the same old video we used to stream, we are going to want a super high-def version with 8 channel stereo sound and in-line twitter commentary plus it will have to update our facebook status every time we pause it to go to the bathroom... And then we will be back to streaming at 100% capacity again, wondering when the next leap in networking will let us do block downloads again.

Seriously, Vint Cerf? This is the best idea you can muster? This is the same problem/solution cycle the internet has been locked in for its entire existence.

Re:Makes sense...

[Joce640k]

'So rather than [receiving] the bits out in a synchronous way, instead you could download the hour's worth of video in 15 seconds and watch it at your leisure.'

You mean actually have the file stored on your PC? OH, yeah, that'll go down well with the MAFIAA.

Re:Makes sense...

[Rockoon]

The problem is, tomorrow we won't be happy with the same old video we used to stream, we are going to want a super high-def version with 8 channel stereo sound and in-line twitter commentary plus it will have to update our facebook status every time we pause it to go to the bathroom...

Nobody is making "super high def" content, nor can existing display devices do "super high def."

This entire argument is based on the fallacy that bandwidth needs will grow forever. Its simply not true. Prior to double-digit megabit connections, there was always media that couldnt be delivered in real-time.. but now there simply isnt any media that cannot be delivered in real-time on 10+ mbit connections, and that includes 3D HD video.

I realize that in your imaginary world, the bandwidth of content grows exponentially.. but thats just your imagination. The jump from SD to HD was not an exponential growth in the size of content.

As far as "8 channel stereo sound" .. uh, what? stereo is 2 channel sound. Didnt you know that when you start talking about channels, you negate the whole stereo thing? Also, audio hasnt been an issue for years... even the WORST broadband connections can stream UNCOMPRESSED audio in realtime, and a 15:1 LOSSLESS audio compression is a typical reality.

As far as twitter and facebook.. you are further proving that you have absolutely no fucking idea what you are taking about.

The only way current high end bandwidth will be insufficient is if there is a new media paradigm.. holographic (real 3D) media and so forth.. that'll be possible in 10 years, or so they have been saying for the last 60 years.

Re:Makes sense...

[airfoobar]

Believe it or not, he is right on the money (figuratively speaking). What he is suggesting is the correct response to "net neutrality" laws. Myopic and purely profit-driven ISPs won't give their users what the users want, just the absolute minimum to make maximum profit. OTOH, investment in infrastructure makes "net neut" irrelevant, but obviously takes money.

Moreover, I think you are wrong to say better quality video will fill the pipes because 1080p video is more than we'll need for a while, and I bet in time we'll even get better compression algorithms to bring the filesizes down further. What will push the network is increased internet penetration, but we'll have to deal with that anyway...

What about devices w/ insufficient local storage?

[WillAdams]

The Wii won't be able to hold an entire downloaded movie --- unless one makes putting in a blank 8GB SD card before watching --- I don't think that will go over well, nor do I think the copyright holders will like the idea of a single monolithic file being made available.

The problem isn't merely a technical one...

William

Re:But won't that bandwidth just get eaten up too?

[drinkypoo]

We will not get 2k video, let alone 4k, any time soon. Most people don't even need 1080p. (With my set size and seating position I'm right on the line myself.)

Bursting the video rather than streaming it leads to less overhead. Clearly it matters how much less. If you can do it with UDP and don't drop many packets then the difference could be substantial. However, AFAICT most video streaming services utilize HTTP so that they can be accelerated by commodity caching systems.