On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 at 19:53, Jared Brown <nanog-isp@mail.com> wrote:
“When the rules were created 25 years ago I don’t think anyone would have envisioned four or five companies would be driving 80% of the traffic on the world’s internet. They aren’t making a contribution to the services they are being carried on; that doesn’t feel right.”
In the UK, for regular residential geographic telephone numbers, only one side pays for the call -- the calling party, the one that dials the number. The user initiates the connection to the CDN. The user is paying for a level of access to the internet via the BT network, with varying tiers of speed at particular costs. They are advertised as "Unlimited broadband: With no data caps or download limits, you can do as much as you like online." on their website. Many CDNs bring the data closer to the customer, either embedded within their network, or meeting at various PoPs/IXPs around the country. Seems pretty disingenuous to now say the called party has to pay as well, in stark contrast to decades of precedent with their telephone product, just because their customers are actually using what they were sold. All in all, this raises an interesting question. Is British Telecom running
their networks so hot, that just keeping the lights on requires capacity upgrades or are they just looking for freebies?
Taking advantage of a situation and jumping on the bandwagon, some would say. After decades of chronic underinvestment in UK broadband, they're finally starting to offer competitive products, and aren't used to having to pay for it -- though as it happens, it would appear the public purse is picking up the costs anyway: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/08/govs-1bn-helps-493600-uk-premi... M