Graciella, Bella,
Over the weekend I met with a partner of mine in Connecticut who is using HDSL on a managed network service. He's paying for QoS on his business access line, in other words.
He showed me a link to a server in Ohio that had training videos on it for his staff, and I could hardly believe the quality I was experiencing. Super. Several months ago, a similar test using ISDN came up yukky pooh. When things come up yuk, you don't use them. Whey they are super, you use them all the time, to the point that they become self-accelerating phenomena.
And when they are yuk, they likewise tend to reduce demand, which keeps overall traffic levels low. Save VoD for the Interactive STB channel, don't put it on the internet access link. That's another way to achieve the same end right? And then charge extra for it. Good for stockholders, if the strategy works. Never good for end users, though. As opposed to making it available on the regualar cable modem downlink. These guys know what they are doing.
This is the psychology behind the throughput caps and tiered approaches now being enforced. Make it painful enough (either by allowing sluggishness to be experienced, or by increasing the fees charged for faster speeds <yes, there is more to it, I know>), and the situation will govern itself down to levels where capacity doesn't have to be added. Heck, if bandwidth is near free, why hold it back... when, by holding it back you discourage its use in the first place?
Then again, maybe bandwidth isn't all that free, after all? Or, maybe some operators are just afraid that if they experiment with something that by their standards is radically new, that it will be successful and they will go through a free fall experience and not know how to deal with it?
FAC |
