On Sep 19, 2013, at 14:11, Warren Bailey <wbailey@satelliteintelligencegroup.com> wrote:
I don't see how operators could tolerate this, honestly. I can't think of a single provider who does not oversubscribe their access platform... Which leads me to this question :
Over-subscription is a business decision that every network has to make, it's a fact of life for any operator. When you are oversubscribing, you also need to take into consideration on how much you're getting yourself overleveraged in such a configuration for sudden events like this. Oversubscription is a routine process in capacity planning, which is not something you just set it and forget it, then get pissed off at Apple or any other content provider during a sudden upsurge of traffic.
Why does apple feel it is okay to send every mobile device an update on a single day?
Your customers/consumers have purchased a product (internet access) from you based on what you've offered. Whether you've oversubscribed or undersubscribed your network in delivering that service is your problem as a network operator, and your problem to deal with. Why should Apple care? Let's turn this question around: why should your customers think it's ok for network operators to irresponsibly increase their profit margins through egregious over-subscriptions and idiotic capacity planning? How is it Apple, content provider or your consumer's problem that your network can't deliver the bits at times when it needs to? As a network providing service, it's your problem to deal with capacity issues -- you've sold a product with specified speed levels to your subscribers, and you've made a bet on oversubscribing. Suddenly the subscriber wants to use what he previously paid for and now it's a problem?
Never mind the fact that we are we ones on the last mile responsible for getting it to their customers, 1gb per sub is pretty serious.. Why are they not caching at their head ends, dslams, etc?
Apple delivers their content through Akamai. As a last mile provider responsible for delivering content to your customers, you should check: http://www.akamai.com/html/partners/network_program.html james