[17206] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: The Great Exchange
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perry E. Metzger)
Wed May 27 17:18:49 1998
To: "Tom Walton" <twalton@dimension.net>
cc: perry@piermont.com, nanog@merit.edu
In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 27 May 1998 15:30:46 EDT."
<00b101bd89a5$f4efb040$3f8014ac@rpenland.dimension.net>
Reply-To: perry@piermont.com
Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 17:01:32 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
"Tom Walton" writes:
> You're assuming that the internet will persist in its current form,
> and just "scale up". I'd argue that, as network technology becomes
> useful for non-nerds, consumers will pay for packaged data services
> and not just for "access" to an expanded version of today's
> web-morass. These information services, e.g., entertainment, news,
> etc., will be big bandwidth burners. Simple economics will drive
> the providers of these high-bandwidth services to the edges of the
> network, and hence to a regional model for content distribution.
Simple economics would drive content providers NOT to get into the
distribution business.
> Thus, the majority of bits, if not the majority of net "accesses"
> (one ten minute video stream will likely dominate a residential
> consumer's daily consumption) reaching consumers will be delivered
> regionally.
Lets say we have a residential bandwidth on the order of several
megabits -- not unreasonable in another five or ten years, especially
given that current technology could provide it. Why would a short
video dominate consumption, especially given that people watch a whole
lot more than small amounts of video, and the net is likely to replace
all other distribution media in the long run?
I find your arguments fairly unpersuasive.
Perry
