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6 months ago
in http://michaelkral.com/post/66370997 on Michael's Blog
Who is the cute fat guy?
1 reply
mkral
it's actually a woman.
6 months ago
in Edge-Caching vs. Preferential Treatment on The Technology Liberation Front
The trouble is, Akamai will let you serve up a small number of pages very expensively but Google is putting *entire applications* on their servers. This is something that is not practical to do with Akamai. Also, a little guy has to pay Akamai, handsomely, but Google will not have to pay anyone. The ISPs will gladly host their servers for free. So the big guy gets for free what the little guys can barely afford.
1 reply
Wes Felter
I think it's misleading to say that Google won't have to pay for its edge caches. They have to buy the hardware, which could amount to over $1M.
6 months ago
in Edge-Caching vs. Preferential Treatment on The Technology Liberation Front
Google's edge caching *is* preferential treatment. Of the worst kind. To see this, you just have to take off the doctrinaire glasses of the "network neutrality" activists, who are myopically focused on the pipes and on bashing and regulating ISPs (and are also mostly funded by Google).
Think about it. It's obvious that Google will be able to place an edge cache at the site of any ISP it wants, probably for free. Why? Because YouTube and its related services consume SO much bandwidth that the ISP would be crazy to say no. The ISP would surely save big on its backbone connection. Terabytes per month on YouTube alone. That's money in the bank right there. And service would be faster, too.
But would an ISP allow just any content provider to put a cache at its sites, for free or even for money? Doubtful. Caches take up space and power and require access for maintenance. The ISP needs to be strongly motivated, by big bandwidth savings, even to consider it. And only big companies like Google have that to offer. If a small Internet startup were to call your local cable company and ask for "co-location space," the person there would probably say, "That’s not a product we sell to the public." That is, if the person who answered the phone at the cable company even knew what it was.
And of course, would-be competitors of Google won’t be able to buy space on Google’s private edge caches.
So, in what way is this neutral? Google can get its servers into places where CoolNewInternetGarageStartup.com can’t, and can make its services more responsive than the startup's. Therefore, Google is indeed getting preferential access to infrastructure. It’s just that the infrastructure happens to be co-location space instead of pipes. And it has a big advantage there, because co-location is much more difficult to obtain than bandwidth. You can get any Internet carrier to sell you a pipe. But co-location space at ISPs, which is more cost-effective than buying pipes, isn’t necessarily even available to you unless you’re Google. So this is really, really anticompetitive. And how could anyone say it was "neutral?"
Think about it. It's obvious that Google will be able to place an edge cache at the site of any ISP it wants, probably for free. Why? Because YouTube and its related services consume SO much bandwidth that the ISP would be crazy to say no. The ISP would surely save big on its backbone connection. Terabytes per month on YouTube alone. That's money in the bank right there. And service would be faster, too.
But would an ISP allow just any content provider to put a cache at its sites, for free or even for money? Doubtful. Caches take up space and power and require access for maintenance. The ISP needs to be strongly motivated, by big bandwidth savings, even to consider it. And only big companies like Google have that to offer. If a small Internet startup were to call your local cable company and ask for "co-location space," the person there would probably say, "That’s not a product we sell to the public." That is, if the person who answered the phone at the cable company even knew what it was.
And of course, would-be competitors of Google won’t be able to buy space on Google’s private edge caches.
So, in what way is this neutral? Google can get its servers into places where CoolNewInternetGarageStartup.com can’t, and can make its services more responsive than the startup's. Therefore, Google is indeed getting preferential access to infrastructure. It’s just that the infrastructure happens to be co-location space instead of pipes. And it has a big advantage there, because co-location is much more difficult to obtain than bandwidth. You can get any Internet carrier to sell you a pipe. But co-location space at ISPs, which is more cost-effective than buying pipes, isn’t necessarily even available to you unless you’re Google. So this is really, really anticompetitive. And how could anyone say it was "neutral?"
1 reply
Wes Felter
If you're too small to justify owning your own edge caches, you can rent caching service from Akamai. As expensive as Akamai is, it's cheaper than building your own CDN unless you are really large.
6 months ago
in Lessig's Defense on The Jed Report
Lessig talks about "access tiering" but conveniently doesn't talk about "co-location tiering."
Think about this for a second. Google is likely to be able to place an edge cache at the site of any ISP it wants. Probably for free, because Google is big. Google, YouTube, and its related services consume SO much bandwidth that no ISP would say no. The ISP would easily save big -- terabytes per month -- on its backbone connection.
But could the ISP afford to allow just ANYONE to get free hosting by putting a cache at their sites? Doubtful. Caches take up space and power and require access for maintenance. In fact, if the startup were to call your local cable company and ask for "co-location space," the person there would probably say, "That's not a product we sell to the public." That is, if the person who answered the phone even knew what it was.
And of course, would-be competitors won't be able to buy space on Google's private edge caches. So, in what way is this neutral? Google can get its servers into places where CoolNewInternetGarageStartup.com can't.
So, Google is still getting preferential access to infrastructure -- it's just co-location space instead of pipes.
Think about this for a second. Google is likely to be able to place an edge cache at the site of any ISP it wants. Probably for free, because Google is big. Google, YouTube, and its related services consume SO much bandwidth that no ISP would say no. The ISP would easily save big -- terabytes per month -- on its backbone connection.
But could the ISP afford to allow just ANYONE to get free hosting by putting a cache at their sites? Doubtful. Caches take up space and power and require access for maintenance. In fact, if the startup were to call your local cable company and ask for "co-location space," the person there would probably say, "That's not a product we sell to the public." That is, if the person who answered the phone even knew what it was.
And of course, would-be competitors won't be able to buy space on Google's private edge caches. So, in what way is this neutral? Google can get its servers into places where CoolNewInternetGarageStartup.com can't.
So, Google is still getting preferential access to infrastructure -- it's just co-location space instead of pipes.
1 reply
Jed Lewison
well arguably since this uses less backbone it's good for others as well, because it means they don't have to compete with google for traffic.
but it does add a wrinkle into the whole "end-to-end" idea of the internet by placing an important piece of intelligence right there in the middle.
i'm not sure we've thought through the implications of that.
also, i think it's important to treat lessig's role in that article and google's as separate issues.
my basic view is probably close to where lessig is now, and google too. i just really get annoyed at how much moralizing they are doing about it when in the case of google, it's self-serving (and who can blame them).
but it does add a wrinkle into the whole "end-to-end" idea of the internet by placing an important piece of intelligence right there in the middle.
i'm not sure we've thought through the implications of that.
also, i think it's important to treat lessig's role in that article and google's as separate issues.
my basic view is probably close to where lessig is now, and google too. i just really get annoyed at how much moralizing they are doing about it when in the case of google, it's self-serving (and who can blame them).
