[AusNOG] [Internet Australia - members] Net neutrality

[Paul Wilkins]

Jared,
Here is the 'explain it to a 5 year old' version:

http://www.theopeninter.net/

The adult version is that the existence of CDNs impose barriers to entry,
both cost and technological, to new entrant competitors, and alters cost
models for other services sharing the same bandwidth.

My view is that it's actually very difficult to make a case that CDNs are
anticompetitive to the degree where one would expect regulation. Ziggy
Switkowski is carefully sitting on the fence, recognising this as a debate
we need to have, while not advocating any particular outcome.

Would legislation to ensure that CDNs are an open platform for carrying 3rd
party traffic be worthwhile? I expect this issue will surface during the
debate. Under current arrangements, if Google or Netflix own the platform,
they're under no obligation to carry 3rd party traffic, or offer equivalent
priority of traffic. The antitrust considerations are similar in some ways
to the circumstances that required Microsoft to decouple IE from Windows
back in '98.

Kind regards

Paul Wilkins

On 24 November 2015 at 23:02, <ausftth at mail.com> wrote:

> Paul,
>
> I'm sorry, but I still do not get what CDNs have to do with "consolidation
> of transit by large content providers". Please explain it to me like I'm
> five.
>
> I also do not get why you think CDNs are a problem. Anybody can purchase
> service from third party CDNs and if you have enough traffic ISPs may even
> accept your own cache appliance. There is no great barrier of entry.
> Furthermore CDNs are just a convenience and/or sometimes a cost saving. You
> get the same benefit when buying transit directly from the ISP, minus some
> degree of geographical proximity. Often this is just a single router hop,
> nothing much to be exited about.
>
> CDN traffic does not get any special preferential treatment either on the
> ISP network. It's treated the same as any other traffic source.
>
> Your second problem is also a false dichotomy. CDNs do not decrease the
> amount of transit capacity, it frees up transit capacity for other uses.
>
> Jared
>
> -----Original message-----
> Sent: Tuesday, 24 November 2015 at 12:29:45
> From: "Paul Wilkins" <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com>
> To: "AusNOG Mailing List" <ausnog at ausnog.net>
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] [Internet Australia - members] Net neutrality
> Jared,
> The article mentions NBN Chairman Ziggy Switkowski wanting to contribute to
> discussions around CDNs of content providers deployed into ISPs, notably
> for Google and Netflix.
>
> To the naive eye, they're both providing ISPs "free" bandwidth. There's no
> cost forwarded to the end user. But the consequences of this, for other
> content providers, is that Google and Netflix, can provide a better user
> experience.
>
> Now that's a problem for 2 classes of providers.
> 1 - those competing in the content sphere - for Google, other search
> providers, for Netflix, other VoD providers. If you're an innovator in the
> search engine or VoD space, existing CDNs significantly up the barriers to
> entry.
>
> 2 - those providing a different service, so they're not direct competitors,
> but where their traffic is of higher value to the user, (and consequently
> the service provider would be willing to pay for a better level of
> service), but under net neutrality rules, should receive the same
> treatment. If users can get all the Netflix they need through CDNs, there
> won't be the scale of transit capacity as if there were no CDNs, so higher
> value content, such as voice and video, wouldn't get resourcing to the same
> scale.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Paul Wilkins
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 24 November 2015 at 22:14, <ausftth at mail.com> wrote:
>
> > Paul,
> >
> > Could you please explain what you mean with the below text. Preferrably
> > with some real world examples.
> >
> > > In my opinion, what's being discussed in the political sphere, is where
> > > consolidation of transit by large content providers, results in their
> > > content being treated preferentially.
> >
> > Jared
> >
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