[Here is an excellent report on IXPs recently released by the OECD.
One of the newsworthy highlights is the dramatic reduction in
telecommunication costs due to an open competitive market in the
Internet versus the still largely monopolistic telco/cableco markets.
It is interesting to note that Internet costs continue to drop while the
monopolistic last mile broadband market rises. Competition works – and
this is ample evidence why governments and regulators need to break
open last mile market to competition through structural separation or
investing in the underlying infrastructure as in Australia or Singapore.
It
is good to see the OECD recognize the importance of IXPs as one of the
linchpins of the Internet economy. I have long argued that IXPs are
going to play an increasing important role in the future of the
Internet. See my paper on this subject
(http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/2010/02/personal-perspective-on-evolving.html).
On some networks 90% of the Internet traffic is sourced across IXPs
via settlement free content peering. IXPs deep into the community will
be critically more important with 4G and 5G networks , as proximity to
an IXP significantly affects Internet performance and throughput on
wireless networks. See article below on how content networks face
‘hyperconnected’ world of devices.
I believe that R&E
networks and other organizations such as registries can play a critical
role in ensuring the deeper deployment of IXPs especially in communities
where there is little business case for a commercial operation. IXPs
quickly become a nucleus point for small business and other commercial
activities within a community, and this is how R&E networks can play
such an important role. R&E networks in New Zealand, Norway and
British Columbia are good examples in this regard by building transit or
internet exchange points in communities through the regions they serve.
The Brazil IXP community, as discussed in the OECD paper is also
another good example to look at.
Some excerpts from the OECD paper – BSA]
INTERNET TRAFFIC EXCHANGE: MARKET DEVELOPMENTS AND POLICY CHALLENGES
http://www.internetac.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/DSTI_ICCP_CISP20112_REV1.pdf
The
reasons behind the very good performance of the Internet market model
of traffic exchange are explored in the section entitled “Why Has the
Internet Market Performed So Well?” in the Annex to
this Report.
The contrast between the results observed in the Internet market and
comparable markets for exchange of traditional circuit-switched voice
(time-domain multiplexed, or TDM) traffic is striking. For example,
Internet transit service provides what is effectively, in TDM terms,
global transport and termination. The price of USD 2 to USD 3 per
megabit per month therefore includes a traffic-weighted average of
transport costs to all the possible destinations in the world, as well
as the costs of terminating on
local access networks in each
country. Stated in terms of an equivalent per-minute price for delivery
of voice traffic, this is less than USD 0.0000008, five orders of
magnitude less than wholesale rates for services providing comparable
functions in TDM markets. The reasons for this performance include the
efficiency of packet-switched technology, competition in Internet
markets, and the flexibility of routing arrangements among IP networks.
The market has also benefitted from the policy environment, in which
governments have refrained, in most OECD countries, from regulation of the market for IP traffic exchange.
A
survey of 142,000 peering agreements conducted for this report shows
that the terms and conditions of the Internet interconnection model are
so generally agreed upon that 99.5% of interconnection agreements are
concluded without a written contract. That these “rules of the game” are
so ubiquitous and serviceable indicates a degree of public unanimity
that an external regulator would be hardpressed to create. The parties
to these agreements include not only Internet backbone, access, and
content distribution networks, but also universities, NGOs, branches of
government, individuals, businesses and enterprises of all sorts—a
universality of the constituents of the Internet that extends far beyond
the reach
of any regulatory body’s influence.
New categories
of participants have invested to improve quality and create new
alternatives to transit. These include self-supply by online service and
content providers such as Google, as well
as intermediary content
delivery network (CDN) service providers such as Akamai and Limelight.
CDN services have supported, and have grown in parallel with, the
growing demand for applications such as video streaming and download.
Taken together, many of the structural changes summarized here —
reduced reliance on transit, local availability of IXPs, direct delivery
of traffic by CDNs, and caching of content closer to the user — have
all contributed to make routing more direct, reduce latency, and improve
quality.
These developments have made the structure of the
Internet flatter and broader, and reduced its dependence on any one
player or group. Today, only a small percentage of the traffic on the
Internet ever touches any of the old backbone networks. Google is now
ranked third among networks in global traffic carried, behind only Level
3 and Global Crossing, and it’s notable that each of these largest
networks are born of the Internet era, rather than evolved from
incumbent TDM predecessors. In general, the growth of the Internet over
the past five years has increased the effectiveness of competition in
the market for Internet traffic exchange.
The growth of
the Internet market in Latin America in the past five years has been
dramatic, led by the success of a long-term program of new exchange
point development by “Comitê Gestor da Internet
no Brasil” (CGI),
the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, a public-private partnership
funded in large measure by revenue from domain name registrations within
the .BR country-code top-level domain.
Between 2006 and 2011,
Brazil has grown from four IXPs to nineteen, maintaining their position
of leadership in the region; in addition to having the region’s largest
exchange, in São Paulo, Brazil has hosted more than half of Latin
America’s IXPs for most of the history of the Internet’s expansion in
the region. Brazil’s success has been a product of several factors
coinciding: the CGI takes the long view, with a consistent program of
economic development, rather than short-term one-off projects. Their
IXPs are among only a handful in the world that are the product of a
considered and intentional economic model. Before beginning, they made a
careful investigation of CityLink, the New Zealand IXP system, and of
the
SeattleIX, including site visits, observation of the annual
governance meeting, and interviews with the founders, board of
directors, and Internet exchange participants. This feedback loop has
continued to the present day, with CGI management staff and board
members actively investigating the successes and
failure of other IXPs and participating in the international IXP operations community.
Akamai, CDNs face ‘hyperconnected’ world of devices
http://gigaom.com/cloud/akamai-cdns-face-hyperconnected-world-of-devices/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=gigaom
[…]
Device
proliferation will only continue. In an era of “hyperconnected devices,
any device that can be connected is connected,” said Akamai chief
scientist Tom Leighton. Five years ago, Akamai delivered 3TB of mobile
data per day, that number rose to 520TB per day this year, and is
projected to hit 91,000TB (or 91 petabytes) per day by 2016.
Akamai
and smaller CDN competitors like Limelight and Edgecast are scrambling
to meet the demand for a great mobile computing experience. The scary
thing is that smartphones and tablets are just the beginning. More
non-PC devices including household appliances,even garments, will be
part of the data scrum going forward. That means more data flowing from
more types of devices with all sorts of form factors.
“These devices
may be on Ethernet or WiFi or 3G or 4G. [They will be] Refrigerators
other appliances. That’s a new challenge for [network] performance,”
said Ravi Maira,VP of site acceleration for Akamai.
[..]
——
Green
Internet Consultant. Practical solutions to reducing GHG emissions such
as free broadband and electric highways.
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/
email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
twitter: BillStArnaud
blog: http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/
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