[AusNOG] Transit over Megaport/Equinix

[Matt Palmer]

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 04:22:47PM +1000, Skeeve Stevens wrote:
> A couple said they were offering 1:1... which to be honest, seems pointless
> to me.  If you can control your network contention properly, then most
> networks can handle 5:1 (or much more) without any issues... which means I
> know the cost metrics... don't try to convince me that you can't sell it
> less than you buy it - because that doesn't fly, contention works the same
> for pricing.  I think it is time for a vlog about this.

I think that's a rather overly-simplistic view of the situation.  It's a
very big "if" to expect everyone to be able to "control [their] network
contention properly" (I'm not even sure what "properly" would mean, here). 
What if transit provider in the chain overcontended their networks at 5:1
(or much more)?  By the time it got down to the end user, you could very
easily be looking at a contention ratio of 625:1 between you and the core.

I agree that many leaf networks can live with a contended connection, but
it's nice to be able to have the choice of at least some measure of full
upstream speed -- the important thing is that the vendor makes it clear what
contention ratio you're getting for your money, so you can make the
appropriate cost/benefit analysis for yourself.  You need more than just the
contention ratio, though -- what sort of customers you're contending with
(and how many there are) is important, too.  Sharing a link with 100,000
lynx users is a bit different to sharing it with 4 streaming video
junkies...

Of course, even with uncontended links, the question still remains how
*much* of the Internet you can access uncontended -- it isn't much benefit
that *your* upstream is uncontended if the rest of the tubes are clogged
(which is, ultimately, what Netflix was presumably trying to say with
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/05/verizon_threatens_netflix_in_video_lag_blame_game/).

- Matt