[opendtv] Re: The video here explains net neutrality perfectly
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 09:35:56 -0400
On May 12, 2014, at 8:46 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> The "last mile" is what the layman sees changing, so the assumption is that
> this is all there is to it. Simply not true. The bottlenecks in these
> networks keep changing.
Yes Bert, we all know that the Internet has many components and that
bottlenecks can exist in multiple locations.
Many of us still remember the days when some unexpected event swamped the
servers originating a stream. Scale is very important.
Competition is also important. The article I linked to yesterday went to great
lengths to discuss these issues, pointing out that the success of the Internet
can, at least in part, be attributed to the fact that ANYONE can set up a
server and reach everyone, with few exceptions. It also noted that there is
intense competition in “the middle,” between companies that provision the ISPs,
between CDNs, and in private networks that attach to the Internet. The only
area where we have an oligopoly is the ISP n networks that cover the
metropolitan areas and the last mile.
It is incumbent on Netflix to scale up their server operations to meet the
demand from subscribers; likewise, it is important to eliminate the bottlenecks
that may occur at the points where Netflix bits transition from the wide area
to the ISP. Unfortunately, there is nothing Netflix can do to deal with last
mile congestion that slows traffic to everyone on an ISP network node.
> The F aspect of cable company HFC plants has been creeping closer and closer
> to homes. Used to be no fiber, then fiber to subdivisions, then fiber to
> neighborhoods, then to groups of homes, and eventually FTTH.
FTTH is rare and largely unnecessary. The cable guys don’t do this and likely
never will, as their coax to the home is more than adequate - Comcast has
already upgraded their networks to handle 100 Mbps over coax. But this does not
mean that everyone on a node can EXPECT 100 Mbps service - that is dependent on
the number of homes on the node and the number of streams being delivered. You
are correct, that the cable industry is deploying more fiber to the
neighborhood, and risers to connect to the local coax loop. This is a phased
investment, based one demand; and that investment is FAR from being finished.
> Verizon jumped from voice grade twisted pairs directly to FTTH, but that
> experience was enough for them to give up deploying the FiOS system any
> further. That was very expensive, and it's FAR from being just "last mile."
> Perhaps Verizon would have fared better if they had gone to higher and higher
> rates of xDSL, as they moved fiber closer and closer to homes, using a
> gradual approach like the cable companies have done.
They are doing exactly the same thing, however they are at a severe
disadvantage to cable because of the limitations of the twisted pair
infrastructure they are trying to leverage to compete. We have AT&T Uverse
trucks rolling all over town - these are not local trucks, they are teams sent
into our market to support the media campaign they have been running for the
past two months. Like cable, they are installing risers to handle the
transition from fiber to copper.But the throughput is a fraction of what the
cable guys can deliver.
I talked to the AT&T technicians when we switched to Cox broadband. They told
me that at my distance to the CO - I’m close enough for a direct run rather
than connecting to a riser - I would probably get 8 - 9 Mbps; in theory the
technology they are deploying can support about 14 Mbps.
> Example: Basic ADSLv1, no plus or anything, is good for up to 6.1 Mb/s
> downstream. And it can provide this for 4 Km from the CO, i.e. 2.5 miles. So
> many neighborhoods could stream simultaneous H.264 HD today, *if* edge
> servers could be located at these ADSL head-ends.
Your math is good for the basic ADSL infrastructure. But for the link to the
edge servers, co-location is probably overkill. In a market the size of
Gainesville, a single server site distributed over the telco or cable MAN is
sufficient. Akamai has been doing this for years in Gainesville. As demand
increases they are able to scale their servers to meet the demand.
There is a very large - unoccupied - building adjacent to the CO that serves
the western area of Gainesville. I suspect it is owned by AT&T and was built to
support a full UVERSE MVPD service here in Gainesville. Perhaps some day it
will be filled with servers…
> We did the numbers some time ago. If you don't deploy many edge video
> servers, no matter what the "last mile" connection speed is, no way can you
> stream HD to everyone anyway! And how you deploy those servers will usually
> involve a lot more than just "last mile" bottlenecks.
There are many ways to deal with this traffic load. You can increase the number
of edge server sites to get closer to the customers, or you can scale
metropolitan or regional server farms and use MANs and WANs to deliver the
streams to the ISPs.
The fact remains, that the most expensive upgrades are those related to the
last mile.
I wrote:
>> This is the funniest thing I have read in a long time. Comparing the
>> disaster that the ATSC standard has been,
>
> That's because you've never had to design a system that had to be reliable,
> Craig. Why do you think that corporate enterprise nets make such a big stink
> about what versions of every piece of software people are allowed to use in
> the net? Answer me that, really.
Because that is the nature of the products that they are using; and it is the
nature of the companies that are providing these products. Most IT departments
enjoy the position they are in to dictate technology - it is job security. But
the solutions are all over the board. One company may elect to use the most
recent server and client software available, while another hangs onto a legacy
product that they are comfortable with. Despite their most ardent efforts,
Microsoft cannot kill Window XP. They issued another security patch last week,
despite having told everyone that the product has reached EOL.
It is also worth noting that many companies implement policies that are driving
employees crazy. I can’t tell you the number of times my wife has complained
about having to use Exchange server and outlook to deal with the departments
she works for at UF/Shands. The entire BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) revolution
has been driven by corporations that are no longer willing to put up with an IT
department that is unwilling to let go of legacy systems, based on the claim
that new devices and software will compromise reliability.
>
> I had exactly ONE coding compatibility problem with ATSC. It was a software
> upgrade the NBC O&Os introduced, which turned out to be incompatible with the
> old Accurian STBs. That's it. And it was fixed in a few days. Must have been
> 2006 or so, and *none* since then.
Even funnier that the original/…
Where shall we start?
You represent a market that is noise level - the number of ATSC STBs is so
small as to be meaningless, in a world where there are now more smartphones
than PCs and hundreds of millions of tablets. The ATSC standard is not
supported in its entirety by ANY device, and I am not talking about Data
broadcasting or MHP. Many basic audio functions were never implemented, and
many desired updates have never been implemented because of concerns that this
might break existing receivers. The fact that you have not needed a software
update since 2006 should tell you someone very important:
NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE 2006. Actually nothing significant has changed since
the standard was finalized in 1995.
Can you imagine what OTT Video would be like if we were still using 1995
Internet technology?
> On the other hand, I've had a series of compatibility problems crop up with
> Internet TV. The worst of it was, IIRC, transitioning from IE8 to IE9. It
> lasted for many WEEKS, not days, during which time only Hulu was usable. And
> I'm now still having occasional issues with the cbs.com plug-in, which
> started when they put those thumbnail images on the player's time thing.
> Stuff you'd never expect to happen with ATSC. Why? Lack of discipline.
Thank You for identifying the source of your problems - All roads lead to
Redmond.
Nobody ever said that our digital world would evolve without a few glitches.
But it has evolved dramatically, and everyone has benefitted. We would not be
having these discussions about IPTV replacing cable, DBS, and yes, ATSC, if the
technology did not work.
Netflix now has more than 46 million subscribers.
How many homes use the FOTA ATSC service?
Regards
Craig
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at
FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
