[133737] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Nathan Eisenberg)
Thu Dec 16 14:24:56 2010
From: Nathan Eisenberg <nathan@atlasnetworks.us>
To: NANOG Operators' Group <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:24:34 +0000
In-Reply-To: <8224CA72-D111-4EF6-AD94-F52B0A7EFA4B@puck.nether.net>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
> All that said, the whole issue of 'local content' is going to continue to=
rage on
> for years to come. Getting the content closer to the end user is going t=
o be a
> key to reducing costs for the long-tail providers to homes and businesses=
.
> Should it be incumbent on the CDNs to pay for colo at the headend? That'=
s a
> business decision that will entirely be driven by these ongoing disputes.
What I still don't understand is this (and please pardon my ignorance):
If the issue is the costs that long-tail providers must bear to transit con=
tent across their own network, and the solution is to move the content clos=
er to the providers' customers, (why) is the content provider obligated to =
subsidize that?
If collocating equipment to the headend is truly the correct response (if i=
t truly reduces the ISP's costs to provide access to that content, and trul=
y results in a better customer experience), then surely the savings would c=
over the ISP's cost of collocating equipment at that ISP's own headends? I=
t seems reasonable to expect that a content provider come up with the equip=
ment to be collocated, as well as bear the cost-burden of supporting that e=
quipment, so there can't be a significant capex for the ISP...
The idea of buying colocation from a last-mile ISP to reduce that last-mile=
ISP's costs seems (at first glance) to be a hysterically unfair propositio=
n - though it seems that incumbent ISPs may have great enough leverage to e=
xtract this revenue if they really want to. Or am I off my rocker?
What is in the best interests of the customer?
=20
Nathan
