On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Rettke, Brian <Brian.Rettke@cableone.biz>wrote:
Content providers (e.g. Netflix, Hulu, YouTube) will always try to get their content serviced for little to no cost. The low cost, web-only plan isn't sustainable, and the amount of Netflix traffic around the globe is a good example; There's a lot of traffic that they aren't paying for. The free market only works if entities self-police. But as has been expertly stated, there's no money in that.
I had an idea, I'm sure it's been said before:
If we actually had solid "Tier 1 vs Tier 2 vs Tier 3" thresholds, and we could come up with an agreeable metric, we might be able to minimize the impact of bandwidth hogs (sorry Netflix, pointing at you).
First - I don't work for Netflix! I'm a consumer of their product and a network engineer who mostly gets stuff. So I'd like to offer a point of distinction that's kinda bugged me whenever these conversations pop up here: Netflix the company doesn't consume bandwidth nor are *they* a bandwidth hog. The consumer is the bandwidth hog. And the consumer pays their ISP for that bandwidth. ISP's over provision in the hopes that most folks won't use what they are paying for and to help keep costs down (very valid). Companies like Netflix and even Google (I don't know this for a fact - just making logical assumptions) are not going to rely on peering arrangements of ISPs to deliver 100% of their traffic. If they did they'd place their business model in the hands of network operators who don't have Netflix's best interests in mind. They are going to use caching like products or services to bring their content closer to the consumer, develop them to be bandwidth and latency aware, or even make peering arrangements on their own (to your point). These peering arrangements and products they purchase / pay for are most likely located within Tier 1 networks in the USA. So technically, if my assumptions are correct, Netflix probably is paying for their bandwidth that exits their network. And the consumer is paying for their bandwidth. Now - Netflix like content providers may cause some of the ISP's to rethink their over provisioning strategies, but that's not my problem. I'm paying for my bandwidth, therefore, I want to use it for what I want when I want. It's my ISP's job to deliver what I'm paying for. This is just my .02 and that tangent is over for now! To the original poster - I think it'd be technically impossible to have every ISP plugged into every ISP, physically ($$ issues aside). How many ISPs are there and how many routers / ports would you need? And I'm pretty sure that most Tier 1 ISP's peer with each other - but that's an assumption not made of fact. Maybe someday when there really are no bandwidth or latency limitations an overlay routing model could abstract the physical issues we all deal with and everyone can logically peer with everyone (although I'm not sure even that would make sense) but until then a hierarchical model (Tier 1 vs Tier2 etc..) seems to me to make the most sense. Anyway, the implementation of that hierarchical Internet is driven by $$ of course. Kenny