[AusNOG] iCloud - Is it going to hurt access providers?

[Bevan Slattery]

Good thinking Skeeve.  From my view:

- Wireless/Mobile networks will strain much the same way they did when the iPhone first came out
- Increase in complaints to TIO due to network congestion issues
- Increase in complaints to TIO for excess data usage particularly on wireless networks (as punters don't realise how much they're pushing to the cloud)
- Fixed line data will increase due to people realising it's best to upload using home broadband via wifi
- Corporate fixed line may also increase as people bring in devices to the office to "upload" and sync (initially)

There have been few "large" incidents of recent years in which net access slowed to a crawl due to congestion.  I remember watching PIPE IX during the afternoon of Steve Irwin's death as it being something that created some issues for a few networks.  Networks are more resilient and scalable and at least there is more competition in bandwidth.

But I agree Skeeve -  I feel this will be different.  There are probably 2 million (wild guess) iDevices out there.  If 10% sync in the first few days and assuming each one had 3GB to upload that's 600TB's or 20,000Mb/s of demand for those 3 days.  Fortunately everyone buys bandwidth on a symmetrical basis.  So the upload should not generally be an issue from an external bandwidth network dimensioning perspective.  But the access will be a little more challenging.

This is where the NBN will have their first "real" opportunity to show a real example of its benefits.  If I worked in the NBN marketing department, I'd just get two (2) real people sync their iPhones to the cloud with a timer and record the demonstration.  Obviously there are two (2) issues with this with the first being the commercial hobbling of the new network so you only get 1Mbps upstream on the base product and the second is that you only get to use your NBN connection when you're at home.

This is where the mobile networks will fill the gap.  A gap that maybe a little too far in the early days at least until they can again re-dimension their networks to handle the new paradigm.

Cheers

[b]

PS:  Have heard some really interesting thinking from a major telco and the deployment of alternative wireless solutions to help with this type of event and future ones.




-----Original Message-----
From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Skeeve Stevens
Sent: Saturday, 3 September 2011 8:44 PM
To: 'ausnog at ausnog.net'
Subject: [AusNOG] iCloud - Is it going to hurt access providers?

Hey all,

I've been thinking about the impact that iCloud (by Apple) will have on the Internet.  

My guess is that 99% of consumer internet access is Asymmetrical (DSL, Cable, wireless, etc) and iCloud when launched will 'upload' obscene amounts of gigs of music, tv, backups, email, photos, documents/data and so on to their data centres.  

Now, don't misunderstand me, I love the concept of iCloud, as I do DropBox, but from an Access Providers perspective, I'm thinking this might be a 'bad thing'.


>From what I can see there are some key issues:

*	Users with plans that count upload and download together.
*	The speed of Asymmetric tail technology such as DSL
*	The design of access provider backhaul (from DSLAM to core) metrics
*	The design of some transit metrics

So basically the potential issue is that a large residential provider could have thousands of users connect to iCloud, their connections slowed because of uploading data, burning their included bandwidth caps, slowing down the backhaul segment of the network, and as residential providers are mostly download, some purchase transit from their upstreams in an symmetric fashion.

This post is really just to prompt discussion if people think there is anything to actually worry about, or there are other implications that I've not really thought of yet.


...Skeeve

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Skeeve Stevens, CEO - eintellego Pty Ltd - The Networking Specialists

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