Let the Free Market Do Network Managment
The big news today is the deal announced between Comcast and BitTorrent. According to the article in the Wall Street Journal:
The companies are in talks to collaborate on ways to run BitTorrent’s technology more smoothly on Comcast’s broadband network, and allow Comcast to transport video files more effectively over its own network in the future, said Tony Warner, Comcast’s chief technology officer.
In a nice piece of timing, NCTA pretty much argued for exactly this approach on Thursday of last week, during a media briefing to address the topic of broadband network management. CNET’s Anne Broache provided coverage:
Kyle McSlarrow, president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said he’s “amused” that in all the coverage of the Comcast-BitTorrent spat, no one’s talking about the cable industry’s role in getting high-speed Internet service to millions of American households and, by extension, enabling online applications and services to take off.
“One of the ironies is that most of these applications depended on cable’s rollout of residential broadband and our ongoing efforts to optimize the network to deliver the experience our customers expect,” McSlarrow said…
Kyle argued we should encourage experimentation in the issue of network management and then the marketplace and the Internet community can judge which solutions work best. You can hear the whole briefing by downloading this MP3.
…Mr. McSlarrow added color and line to a vision of the future that is hazy shades of gray for most of us. As he pointed out, the broadband market is yet in its infancy. It is the offspring of diverse experimentation, and it shall grow only through more, and varied, experimentation. Like Walt Whitman putting the chuff of one hand on our hip and gesturing with the other to the vast unknown landscapes before us, Mr. McSlarrow rightly cautioned against taking our ease with what we know today – today’s technologies, today’s protocols, today’s data sharing applications, today’s networks or services.
For tomorrow will turn upon technologies, networks, applications, and protocols that, in 2008, are nothing more than mysterious phantoms of ideas. And the speed of innovation is, if anything, increasing. We may well, in very short order, and assuming the government doesn’t freeze technology into place with misguided regulations or unnecessary limits on innovative new business models, all interact with technologies in ways that would seem completely foreign now.
And therein lives the magic of ingenious engineering, creative marketing, and courageous entrepreneurship. The vast, unknowable landscape of tomorrow can only be discovered by leaving the market free to explore where it will. “Here are bisquits to eat and here is milk to drink, but as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.”
For more information, you can read Declan McCullagh’s Q&A with Comcast’s Joe Waz about the BitTorrent deal.
Tags: BitTorrent, Comcast, Kyle McSlarrow, net neutrality, network managment
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April 9th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Comcast’s throttling the traffic is a downer for me and that’s why I’m jumping ship to FIOS when it arrives. I watch a lot of sports I cannot see in the US like Cricket and Rugby. Unfortunately a lot of legitimate sources like Media Zone won’t let me watch certain matches because I’m located in the US and not the UK or Australia. Bittorrent is the only way I can watch these games. With them throttling traffic I cannot download them anymore. The cable industry says let the market work it out, fine I have no problem with that, but where I live, and I live in a major city, they are the market. If I had a choice I would have been gone long ago, and not only for bittorrent reason. Direct TV last time I checked has more HD stations and is considerable cheaper than what I’m paying, but once again it’s not an option for me.
While I don’t agree with government interference with the market on most levels, the cable industry certainly shouldn’t be patting itself on the back for a job well done. Their service is OK at best, and their customer service (I’ve had missed appointments and rude CSR’s on the phone) is abysmal.
April 9th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
‘The companies are in talks to collaborate on ways to run BitTorrent’s technology more smoothly on Comcast’s broadband network, and allow Comcast to transport video files more effectively over its own network in the future, said Tony Warner, Comcast’s chief technology officer.’
In other words, Comcast is cutting a deal with a *particular* content provider to stop putting roadblocks in the way of its accessing customers on Comcast’s network, in exchange for that provider possibly licensing its tech to Comcast for its benefit in providing its own (for-profit) video services somewhere down the road?
Sounds like nothing more or less than Comcast using its ability to act as a gatekeeper to shake down a content provider to me. Good for Comcast–they get an advantage on their own network against other providing video content providers. Not bad for BT–they get continued access to 40% or so of the US broadband market, and thus probably get to stay in business a little while longer.
But really, really bad as a precedent for me, the consumer.
Who are they going to shake down next?
Am I going to wake up tomorrow and find that all of a sudden FTP is the next ‘problem protocol’ requiring ‘creative network management solutions?’ No, that probably won’t happen: not enough money in the FTP business, and so Comcast doesn’t really have an interest in it.
‘Kyle McSlarrow, president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said he’s “amused” that in all the coverage of the Comcast-BitTorrent spat, no one’s talking about the cable industry’s role in getting high-speed Internet service to millions of American households….’
Is Mr. McSlarrow suggesting that there is something particularly noteworthy or noble about an industry actually providing the services it set itself up to provide, partly on the backs of taxpayers, making billions of dollars and in the process?
I don’t hear anyone talking about the fast-food industry’s role in getting hamburgers to millions of American stomachs, or the porn industry’s role in getting…well…you get my point.
‘Kyle argued we should encourage experimentation in the issue of network management and then the marketplace and the Internet community can judge which solutions work best.’
This might actually be a workable solution if there were anything resembling a competitive marketplace anywhere in the American broadband industry.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I can’t speak for Comcast, so let me address this one point:
Holy cow, I’m sick of hearing this one.
The phone company is a public utility. Broadcasters use the public airwaves. Cable operators built their plant, pay for the programming, pay for upgrades… There is no taxpayer support. We keep talking over and over about the investment of “more than $110 billion over the last 10 years to develop the hybrid fiber-coaxial infrastructure that provides the backbone for high-speed access to the Internet.” Private capital. No taxes.
Where was DSL penetration before cable modems came out?
Is cable no better than the fast food industry? After all, perhaps you’re grateful to your favorite Internet company for raising money and investing in building your favorite application? Or do you think this stuff just grows on trees?