Trends in Satellite Internet 2006...
As 2006 draws to a close, many in the satellite internet world will describe it as the year of consolidation by major satellite owners. It had to happen. There had to be a day of financial reckoning for this industry and reductions in overheads which will occur as a result of these buyouts. It will help give companies like Intelsat a chance to reach sustained profitability. The intermingling of stock ownership that goes on in this industry is downright incestuous!
Some others will call it the year that Satellite ISP's finally implemented effective curbs to what they have described as the runaway usage of bandwidth by a minority of very heavy users on most satellite networks.
There seems to be a collision of needs in the making between users and satellite internet providers during the next few years. Website owners want to push cool, trendy and bandwidth hungry "stuff" to the consumers out there. Consumers want to see and do all of the cool new stuff as soon as they hear about it....now the rub.... Satellite ISP's who want to make money, have to squeeze as much as they can out of as little bandwidth as possible. With expensive space segment bandwidth, the collision occurs.....now, crank up the blame game!
The effort to curtail usage is popularly referred to as "Traffic Shaping", which is a Network Operations Center routing effort to prioritize the types of packets ISP's are willing to allow to go at the fastest speeds, slower speeds or not allowed at all....in a nutshell, that's shaping. The decisions of what traffic will be given the green light, yellow light or red light are made by the folks paying the bandwidth bills to the satellite owners each month.
During 2006 the "hot button" traffic shaping issues revolved around peer to peer file sharing (like music and movies), Voice Over Internet Protocol (voip) usage and streaming video or audio devices or websites. Early in the year Internet Providers denied the use of traffic shaping, and some still do, but a very savvy group of consumers and business users have found ways to analyze the packet traffic and determine how a provider treats various types of packets and the ports they utilize....and the evidence is crystal clear! No longer a mystery.....your voip or movie sharing doesn't work because the Internet Provider doesn't want it to work!... especially during "Prime Time"...from 4 PM to midnight each day.
Common knowledge among providers is that shaping will be a big part of the future of most bandwidth offerings and pricing schemes. I've even suggested to some providers that taking on new customers should be a interview process much like dating services use (like "It's Just Lunch") and both parties must tell the truth about what they will do, what time zone they are in, how much bandwidth they will use and what time of day they will use it....and if they don't tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth...so help them....well, you get it......there will be consequences! By dealing with the difficult stuff up front, both users and providers can find some ways to allow folks to do what they want to do........even if it means doing it at non-standard times of the day.
This "collision of needs" will continue as a huge problem over the next 2-4 years mainly in the satellite internet world, but also a problem for terrestrial & EVDO providers, until new data/packet compression techniques will hopefully "ease the squeeze".
Some others will call it the year that Satellite ISP's finally implemented effective curbs to what they have described as the runaway usage of bandwidth by a minority of very heavy users on most satellite networks.
There seems to be a collision of needs in the making between users and satellite internet providers during the next few years. Website owners want to push cool, trendy and bandwidth hungry "stuff" to the consumers out there. Consumers want to see and do all of the cool new stuff as soon as they hear about it....now the rub.... Satellite ISP's who want to make money, have to squeeze as much as they can out of as little bandwidth as possible. With expensive space segment bandwidth, the collision occurs.....now, crank up the blame game!
The effort to curtail usage is popularly referred to as "Traffic Shaping", which is a Network Operations Center routing effort to prioritize the types of packets ISP's are willing to allow to go at the fastest speeds, slower speeds or not allowed at all....in a nutshell, that's shaping. The decisions of what traffic will be given the green light, yellow light or red light are made by the folks paying the bandwidth bills to the satellite owners each month.
During 2006 the "hot button" traffic shaping issues revolved around peer to peer file sharing (like music and movies), Voice Over Internet Protocol (voip) usage and streaming video or audio devices or websites. Early in the year Internet Providers denied the use of traffic shaping, and some still do, but a very savvy group of consumers and business users have found ways to analyze the packet traffic and determine how a provider treats various types of packets and the ports they utilize....and the evidence is crystal clear! No longer a mystery.....your voip or movie sharing doesn't work because the Internet Provider doesn't want it to work!... especially during "Prime Time"...from 4 PM to midnight each day.
Common knowledge among providers is that shaping will be a big part of the future of most bandwidth offerings and pricing schemes. I've even suggested to some providers that taking on new customers should be a interview process much like dating services use (like "It's Just Lunch") and both parties must tell the truth about what they will do, what time zone they are in, how much bandwidth they will use and what time of day they will use it....and if they don't tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth...so help them....well, you get it......there will be consequences! By dealing with the difficult stuff up front, both users and providers can find some ways to allow folks to do what they want to do........even if it means doing it at non-standard times of the day.
This "collision of needs" will continue as a huge problem over the next 2-4 years mainly in the satellite internet world, but also a problem for terrestrial & EVDO providers, until new data/packet compression techniques will hopefully "ease the squeeze".
posted by Randy Scott at 7:03 AM
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