Hundreds of Columns Sorted by Topic
Point of Disconnect: Internet Traffic and the U.S. Communications Infrastructure
by Professor Michael Kleeman, Senior Fellow
9/11/2007
The public communications infrastructure in the United States is largely invisible to all but a few engineers and operations personnel. Were it visible as a road system it would appear to be excellent in some places, but showing wear with potholes in places, heavily congested at many times and locations, and in need of massive investment and redesign to support new vehicle types. It is as if most of the drivers in the country rushed out and traded in their cars for massive 20-wheeled trucks, blocking and slowing traffic everywhere they went.
We have reached a point of disconnect between the traditional voice, Internet and broadcast video network architectures and the needs of today's customers. This disconnect is driven largely by emerging multimedia and multimodal Internet-based traffic and our infrastructures and their underlying economics are struggling to catch up.
Internet Traffic Trends
The Internet was initially designed to help transfer files from one computer to another and for simple messaging. People used little bandwidth at home because it was largely unavailable. People used a little more at work. Delay was acceptable because one or two seconds of jitter, delay, or latency has virtually no impact on how a consumer experiences an email or file transfer. And, the infrastructure we have — and the economic arrangements underlying that infrastructure — were more than capable of handling this sort of demand.
Then the demand started growing. It is easy to see why. There have also been changes in the types of traffic and the quality of service (QoS) that this traffic requires, and where the traffic is originating and going to — each contributing to the disconnect.
Users want to do more with their connection independent of location. In under ten years, we went from email and simple services to full blown high quality video, music sharing, real time chat and voice and video conferencing, often all at the same time both at home and on the road. And as users became more sophisticated with their computers and cameras do it yourself (DIY) media emerged, which is what has made it possible for 52 million people to download "Evolution of Dance" on places like YouTube.
Big files move from computer-to-computer instead of originating on central servers. The technology commonly used for audio and video file transfers (applications like Limewire and BitTorrent, for example) that now make up the largest volume of traffic on the Internet breaks up large files and stores parts of them on participating users' computers. Then it uses these computers to deliver the file to the next user. It would be as if truckers started using surface streets instead of the highway system, stressing parts of the network not designed to carry such traffic.
Latency, jitters, and low quality-of-service became unacceptable. The Internet has gone from a complement to everyday activities to a principal platform for business and personal activities. In the event of a major network outage people have trouble getting their news and chats, but more importantly doctors cannot view medical charts and x-rays remotely and increasingly many businesses effectively shut down their sales and marketing activities.
What This Means for the Network
These changes in user demand have resulted in corresponding changes in network requirements. Contrasting this customer driven demand for service with voice provides a good comparison. Voice traffic was virtually all point-to-point and utilized a dedicated network resource for its duration which no other users could access, and all calls used the same protocol (which was 64,000 bits/second without any compression to reduce the capacity required — about the speed of a basic dialup connection).
Contrast this with the Internet. The Internet is a packet-based network, where multiple traffic streams share the connection, and if one user uses increased network capacity it can degrade the quality of the service for other users. In order to meet demand, the communications infrastructure must do each of the following:
Deliver more traffic. The speed needed to deliver traffic is increasing. Sending a video, even a small picture on YouTube, uses five to six times more capacity than a traditional voice call. Expanding that to high-quality full screen video, even with high compression ratios requires ten to twenty times as much capacity.
Deliver traffic quicker — upstream and downstream. Now, traffic goes upstream and downstream (e.g., you used to download web sites, now you also make VoIP calls) and is extremely time–sensitive — when you're using the Internet for voice a 2 second delay is maddening. The traffic is also more likely to be running at higher speeds for longer periods as we listen to radio or watch TV over our connection or act as a remote music server for Limewire.
Deliver traffic anytime and anywhere. Planning a network where the high speed content servers are in known locations (and connected to the backbone network via high quality, premium priced connections) was a relatively straightforward process. Now, any user (connected to a low cost residential broadband connection) might be sending out video streams, using mobile devices, and running applications that will keep their network connection running at a high load for hours vastly complicating the design and investment decisions.
Deliver traffic around "moving chokepoints". For example, as the networks connecting businesses and homes increase in speed and quality this will put greater stress on the main backbone networks. When mobile networks are utilized more heavily, then these will begin to slow and the wireless users' experience may suffer.
Manage interdependencies. Complicating all of this is the reality of the Internet. That it is not one network but a "network of networks" where traffic often terminates on a different network, run by a different operator, than where it began. While one carrier might maintain the highest quality service on their network, the peered network where the traffic needs to terminate or the peering point might be congested.
What Does This Mean?
Network operators now need to undertake integrated planning, incorporating all expected applications as well as wireless and wired networks into their forecasts. And they need to plan for much higher speeds in all areas of the network — a challenge when most residential network connections were designed for voice only and require electronic equipment at each end to carry some degree of high speed data. In planning the network consideration needs to be made for residential demand for services that exceed that of a major business location less than five years ago. The network of the future will need to be flexible, expandable and support high traffic loads at multiple locations to ensure that the high activity of one user does not degrade the service to others.
What Happens If Communications Infrastructure Doesn't Keep Up?
It is a complex undertaking, expensive, and carries with it technical and commercial risks. But, clearly, the risks of not managing these issues are greater. Technologically, the price of not keeping up is slower access to web sites and greater risk of dropped packets.
The typical user will not know what the problem is, only that their video will not download quickly or their phone call sounds noisy or drops. That, in turn, will affect consumer behavior, which impacts businesses. Unless we ensure an adequate supply of quality bandwidth at reasonable prices, many current and future business models will be stranded, which will have serious implications for economic growth and national competitiveness in the Internet sector.
Earlier this month, the author released a report on the growing disconnect between Internet infrastructure and the rapid growth of multimedia and mobile Internet-based traffic. The full text of the report is available on the CPE web site. The report is based on a larger study underwritten by AT&T, which will be completed later in the year.
About the Author
Michael Kleeman is a senior fellow at IGCC and involved in several projects involving homeland security and critical infrastructure protection, including "Training and Exercises in California Homeland Security." He has also worked with the California Institute of Telecommunications and Internet Technology at UC San Diego on complex modeling, wireless technology applications, and complex visualization systems.
Kleeman is a technology industry strategist whose particular skill is in bridging technical and business issues. For more than 30 years he has been involved in the technology industry in engineering, planning, management, and advisory roles. Formerly a vice president at the Boston Consulting Group, director at Arthur D. Little, and executive at Sprint, Kleeman has been involved with numerous technology companies in North America as advisor and executive.
He has most recently served as the co-founder, vice president, and chief technical officer of Cometa Networks, a nationwide 802.11 firm. Kleeman serves as the national chair of Strategy for the American Red Cross as science advisor for the University of California Center in Sacramento, and on the boards of Equal Access, a not-for-profit providing digital satellite radio services to developing nations and the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito. He is also on the advisory council for the San Diego Technology Council. He holds an undergraduate degree from Syracuse University and an M.A. from the Claremont Graduate School.About IR/PS
Established in 1986, UCSD's Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) is the premiere and only U.S. professional school offering business-savvy training with a focus on policy, economics and technology in the Pacific Rim. IR/PS is shaping the Pacific Century by training its leaders, creating ideas and supporting networks to build a Pacific community.
Send us your response to this article.
Learn How to Get Your Column Published on this Site
