Monthly Archives: June 2006

Broadband: Need more speed?

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This was being actively discussed in the forums; whether or not should be petition TRAI for revision of definition of Broadband speeds.

Much like the classical “chicken and egg problem”, it is difficult to build up a case for higher speeds than current 256k. The biggest problem is that there is no built up ecosystem that could possibly sustain the need for content; higher speeds are not going to solve any problem.

For the same reason, the latency to access the game servers is horrendous. As I am told, it is timed in hundreds of milliseconds; which only means that local cache or game servers need to be set up within India to host the massive online multi player games.

However, higher speeds have no meaning for the gentle folk whose sole purpose is to check email or talk. Video Chats would be jittery, but those blue button hitting morons (who abound in abundance on the face of this earth) would hardly notice. I have personally seen people signing up for GPRS access just because their mobile supports that! Beyond that, their access is limited to chatting.

What can you do with higher speeds? Watch videos online? Anything else? File sharing? That is akin to shuffing up a chilli laden object up their backsides. Hence, they would only seek to block you actively. VoIP is good enough in 256k.

Hence, there has to be a strong case for MbPs. The demand has to be created by localised content developers. All this boils down to a very small installed computer base which would make it useless to invest money; something that is not guranteed to bring in the revenues in the short/ long term.

We could blame the PR spin and gibberish spouting from the telecom companies when they hold expensive campaigns and press conferences to crow about the ” in thing”. IPTV is an alien concept and has not been tested as yet on a large scale. Or the scale that Reliance has been talking all about.

This brings us to another question. Which is more important? Content or Distribution? Distribution is far more powerful; witness the near monopoly of your local cable operator and you’d know. They cannot be reined in and mafia money is invested heavily. In the tug of war between the content creators and distributors, it is the consumer who is forced to cough up huge sums and pay for the “paid channel” with ads screaming in full glory.

This is the reason why the majors have invested money in distribution. Zee has Dish TV and their Sity Cable; Star has it’s Hathway and to- be- launched DTH. Reliance has invested/ investing in it’s IPTV and DTH- Bluemagic.

Broadband or higher speeds could radically alter the contours of the content. In my opinion, the next progression would be towards the so called triple play. However, the current last mile access hassles means that laying down optic fibre cable would be an expensive proposition.

Unwittingly, we need to depend on BSNL to make any first move. Given it’s sloth that could shame a herniated tortoise, it can’t be expected in the near future.

Hence, I can only foresee being stuck in the 256k gamble with a awful capped upload, to be the order of the day. We could only swallow the insults they heap on whatever little intelligence we have.

A request to readers

Leave a reply

Thanks for the comments. I really appreciate it.

However, I have been getting mails complaining to me about your ISP! What the heck can I do? There are enough morons who are posting their details online. It would be assinine to persist with this.

I am NOT affiliated to any organisation, company, portal, publishing house or any other institution. I just blog, along with the other Techwhack guys, and strive to say the things in black and white. I cannot do anything if you face problems with your data cable or your wiring snaps and you wish to inform me duly about the same. If you are facing any hassles or wish to search for solutions, I suggest an excellent resource in the forums.

Your mails are simply marked as spam which makes it hassle free. If you wish to bitch about your ISP on your blog/ website or anywhere else, you are most welcome to do so. Why do you think that I must be informed about the same?

Thanks for NOT persisting with juvenile behaviour.

Broadband: Net Neutrality 2

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This is a follow up post to the earlier write up. As usual Robert Cringely has hit on the argument right on head.

He writes:

If you look at the amount of overhead TCP needs it’s exponential to how slow each connection is; the slower (the connection) the more overhead because the window sizes are smaller and more control packets are being used for verification. And you know what? BitTorrent is FAR WORSE. Remember that for each file you download on BitTorrent you connect to dozens, possibly even hundreds of people, and the slower each of those connections is the more the overhead increases.

Further,

So what happens when everyone’s VoIP or other preferred packets get preference over my torrent packets? Since I have no knowledge of the other people’s usage in my aggregate network I can’t adjust well for changes in the network. The BitTorrent traffic that is going will have exponentially increased overhead due to the slow downs, increasing overall Internet packet overhead (with BitTorrent already 30+ percent of all Internet traffic). Which means that allowing the telco’s to subsidize the cost of improving their infrastructure by having preferred packets could exponentially increase the cost accrued by the larger internet and backbone providers just to keep costs down at the aggregate level.

In Robert’s words, to recap:

Giving priority to some traffic puts a hurt on other types of traffic and when that other traffic constitutes more than 30 percent of the Internet, the results can be severe for all of us. On the Internet everything is connected, and you can’t easily ignore the impact of one service on another.

It essentially means that it is in ISP’s interests to shape up the traffic, they way they want to; to be able to control the flow of data in their networks. This does bring up interesting conundrums. What if BSNL decides to shape up the traffic or the way I consume content? It is a public network and essentially, the entire network is that of the people. Does it have any right to control access, the way I deem is right?

Since Bit torrent or p2p traffic tends to choke the networks, ISP’s may set up tiered networks. Which means, a right of way on the information superhighway. In real life, this analogy can be extended on to using a superior road to commute; you pay higher tax/ toll to travel at higher speeds on dedicated corridors. The extent or size of the dedicated corridor could well at the cost of the “free” one. Give or take, it is the classical capitalist knee jerk reaction, that one would obviously favour the dedicated corridor users while others languish.

Net neutrality boils down to this concept. ISP’s would seek to limit the p2p networks away from the tiered services and pushing them to the “public networks” which is worse in terms of packet loss and other hassles. However, at present, this can be circumvented easily by encrypting your torrents. Indeed, most of the clients give you this option. Your ISP would be unable to “snoop” on your data usage patterns.

This means that we are back to the status quo and tiered services would make no sense. Net neutrality arguments again would hold no water. Which means that I am as clueless as others are. Which also means that this is the golden time to leech on the p2p networks and download content.