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<font face="Calibri">Happily, one of our staff members subscribes to
the WSJ. He copied the article, though the graphics were a bit
trickier. Attached is the article in its entirety (with a little
fudging on a couple graphics).<br>
<br>
The article really focuses on streaming. It does address some of
the points made on the list - as well as the concept that the
cable companies hype bandwidth somewhat unnecessarily. <br>
<br>
I see the desire for speed. In particular, more upload speed would
simplify file transfers and working in the cloud - plus help with
gaming(?). Then again, the article makes the point that we may be
getting more than we can actually use. In two to four years, we'll
all need more speed. Luckily, from the ISP perspective, bandwidth
and the attendant equipment will come down in price to meet the
demand.<br>
<br>
</font>
<div class="moz-signature"><br>
*** Jane ***<br>
<br>
Cyber Mesa Telecom<br>
Santa Fe Headquarters<br>
Tel 505-988-9200<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.cybermesa.com/ContactUs.htm"><i>Local Contact
Numbers</i></a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/28/2019 1:43 PM, Michael Harris
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CABhxMwZO6DCnVkrn++RT93Yq_RYwOaKQxz9Dpypvi0rTaXf+RQ@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">I don't have a WSJ subscription, so I can't RTFA,
but I thought I would chime in a couple of points:
<div><br>
</div>
<div>- I've got ~30Mbps at home (WISP)<br>
- My household streams almost *constantly* youtube, netflix
and twitch (inbound), and bandwidth seems fine</div>
<div>- Online gaming (non-streaming) is also fine</div>
<div>- Twitch streamers are upload-heavy, not necessarily
download</div>
<div>- Cable Co. internet is heavily biased towards "download",
rather than upload. We have 60(d)/10(u) at the office from
Comcast. Download is fine for an office of 7. Upload is on the
edge for the cloud-heavy work we do. In order to get better
upload, we would also have to double our download (and pay for
it). IIRC, the asymetric connection is a technical feature of
DOCIS, so maybe it's not something they cable co. can actually
address...</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-Michael<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 1:32
PM Doug Dawson <<a href="mailto:blackbean2@ccgcomm.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">blackbean2@ccgcomm.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="EN-US">
<div
class="gmail-m_-2412497663085592211gmail-m_3349580201058176488WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal">The big cable companies have
unilaterally raised speeds with no changes in prices. In
the most recent change I noticed one day that Charter
had increased my speeds from 60/6 Mbps to 135/20 Mbps.
The cable companies have done this regularly since back
when the speeds were down in the 6 Mbps speed range.
They may have done it before then since they started
with 1-2 Mbps – I just can’t recall.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Your Michigan situation sucks, and
just means that they haven’t upgraded the network there.
In urban markets they have increased speeds in various
markets from 100 Mbps to 200 Mbps for the same price you
are paying there.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With that said, the days of no rate
increases from cable companies is in the past. Most Wall
Street analysts now expect them to raised rates every
year. For the last year most of them buried the
increases in the cost of modems and other hidden places,
but they need to raise rates to keep up with earnings
expectations now that they aren’t growing by double
digit new broadband customers any more.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Forcing folks off slower, older
packages is certainly a quiet way to implement a rate
increase. I hear they are all quietly killing the old
cheap packages. That’s only going to work for them one
time. Once everybody is onto the base product they’ll
have to raise everybody’s rates.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I think you are massively
underestimating the existing number of gamers. Estimates
are that 25% of all households have at least one serious
gamer. You wouldn’t get that by talking to us old farts
on this web serve. Gamers can use intensive broadband. I
have a friend with two teenage boys who each run 2 – 4
games simultaneously on different streams. He had to
upgrade from his 250 Mbps Verizon FiOS product!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> Doug Orr <<a
href="mailto:doug.orr@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">doug.orr@gmail.com</a>> <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, August 28, 2019 2:58 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Doug Dawson <<a
href="mailto:blackbean2@ccgcomm.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">blackbean2@ccgcomm.com</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b> John Brown <<a
href="mailto:john@citylinkfiber.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">john@citylinkfiber.com</a>>;
1st-Mile-NM <<a
href="mailto:1st-mile-nm@mailman.dcn.org"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">1st-mile-nm@mailman.dcn.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [1st-mile-nm] Is Faster not always
better ?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hey Doug,</p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">(a) Did broadband companies
raise endpoint bandwidth and upgrade all their
other junk with the expectation that there would
be significant uptick in usage...or did they raise
endpoint speeds, meaning they can charge higher
prices, and implement minimal core improvements to
back it up with. </p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have, for example (anecdote
alert!), a house in a podunk Michigan town (3000
population). The only provider is Charter. They
used to have several packages, all of which could
stream Netflix. They switched to where the minimum
package is 40mbps for $80/mo. Way more bandwidth
than I need and way more than I'd prefer to pay.
Does that sound more like forcing everyone into a
higher grade of service because they are totally
going to be better competitors and provide better
service, or updating cheap endpoint gear in order
to justify price increases which offset losses
from cord cutting? (<a
href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/charter-will-spend-less-on-cable-network-in-2019-but-charge-customers-more/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Here's an
articl</a>e reporting Charter is spending less
on its cable network in 2019 and charging its
customers more.
<a
href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/sorry-ajit-comcast-lowered-cable-investment-despite-net-neutrality-repeal/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">
Here's an article</a> saying, roughly, the same
thing about Comcast [Comcast says they're spending
more on infrastructure, but, who'd know if that's
right?])</p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">(b) I agree that school aged
children and young people are bigger bandwidth
users (as, I wouldn't be surprised, are children
of Internet professionals :) And the question
absolutely is, as you say, who are the isps
making the network for? But, again, the
question, fully, is, who are they building the
whole thing out for -- caching, peering,
aggregate bandwidth... Because it's the
end-to-end performance that matters to the
intensive consumers, not the "speed test"
number, and raising end to end performance is
way more expensive than giving people a faster
endpoint. (Cable companies seem to be reporting
getting done with their upgrade to docsys 3.1,
which all fits. And, maybe not coincidentally,
one of the big features in 3.1 is "active queue
management.") Throttling and traffic shaping can
give you a whole lot cheaper implementation than
upgrading line cards. </p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Better numbers sound sexier.
It's a marketing benefit to have higher numbers,
and it makes the bar higher for potential
competitors.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">I'll stick with my baseless
assertion that our isps are advertising and
pricing for gamers and building and provisioning
for 50 year-olds watching Netflix :)</p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt">
Doug</p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 9:32
AM Doug Dawson <<a
href="mailto:blackbean2@ccgcomm.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">blackbean2@ccgcomm.com</a>>
wrote:</p>
</div>
<blockquote
style="border-top:none;border-right:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:1pt
solid rgb(204,204,204);padding:0in 0in 0in
6pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in">
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a topic I've been
giving a lot of thought to lately, because
this seem to be one of the new arguments that
opponents of funding rural broadband are now
using.<br>
<br>
It takes pages to write a full response to the
question (and luckily for me I have a blog
where I can do that), but here are a few ideas
that are part of the response to refute this
concept:<br>
- 2/3 of the broadband customers in the
country are now served by the big cable
companies, and those companies all now have
set the minimum speeds of broadband for new
customers between 100 Mbps and 200 Mbps. They
didn't do this in a vacuum and the big
companies unilaterally increase speeds every
3-5 years as a way to cut down on customer
complaints about speed. I think there is a
strong argument that these companies have
established the 'market' speeds that customers
want. Nobody made the cable companies increase
speeds and this is one of those examples of
the marketplace at work. <br>
- Like with everything in this world, the
users of broadband run the gamut on the
spectrum from homes that barely use it to
homes that will use everything they can get.
It's really easy to talk to folks along the
bottom half of that spectrum and assume that
homes don't need faster speeds. This raises
the really interesting policy question: do you
set speeds based upon the average customer,
upon the 10% biggest users, or something else?
There is no automatic answer to that question,
although I point to the answer above where the
cable companies seem to have decided to cater
to the top half of the spectrum.
<br>
- There is a huge difference in homes with
school-age students and those without. In my
opinion any discussion of the right amount of
bandwidth needs to consider homes with
students - other homes just come along for the
ride.
<br>
- We know that the need for bandwidth and
speed increases every year. If the policy is
to build broadband that takes care of today's
needs, such a network will be inadequate in
five years and obsolete in ten years.
<br>
<br>
Doug Dawson<br>
President<br>
CCG Consulting<br>
202 255-7689 <br>
<br>
Check out my blog at <a
href="http://potsandpansbyccg.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://potsandpansbyccg.com</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: 1st-mile-nm <<a
href="mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces@mailman.dcn.org"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">1st-mile-nm-bounces@mailman.dcn.org</a>>
On Behalf Of John Brown<br>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2019 10:18 PM<br>
To: <a
href="mailto:1st-mile-nm@mailman.dcn.org"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">1st-mile-nm@mailman.dcn.org</a><br>
Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Is Faster not always
better ?<br>
<br>
<a
href="https://www.wsj.com/graphics/faster-internet-not-worth-it/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.wsj.com/graphics/faster-internet-not-worth-it/</a><br>
<br>
--<br>
Respectfully,<br>
<br>
John Brown, CISSP<br>
Managing Member, CityLink Telecommunications
NM, LLC
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</div>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail-m_-2412497663085592211gmail_signature">
<div>Michael Harris</div>
<div>--</div>
<div>President, Visgence Inc.</div>
<div><a href="http://www.visgence.com/" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"><font color="#000000">www.visgence.com</font></a></div>
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