The Bandwidth Crisis: User Communities to the Rescue

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The Bandwidth CrisisUser Communities to the
Rescue

• 15.351 Presentation
• Kyle Vogt

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The Problem

• Popularity of streaming video content and large
  file downloads
• High transfer volumes are bringing the internet
  to its knees
• 100 million streaming video users per month
• Providing this level of service is expensive!

CNN Homepage 250KB
RocketBoom 50MB 200x
Mission Impossible III 4.7GB 18800x
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Consequences

• Excess server loading
• Limited simultaneous viewers
• High cost of operation
• Low quality feeds
• ESPN Final Four stream
• 150,000 users waiting
• Users may not come back
• Revenue comes from ads
• Major loss in profit!

• Podcasts
• 10,000 subscribers
• Bandwidth is 3,600 / yr
• Very little revenue
• 40,000 podcasts

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Scope

• US Internet penetration is still on the rise

In 2006, there will be nearly 220 million
internet users 73 of the US will be online
Source Internet World Stats
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Scope

• Broadband subscriptions increasing

Number of Americans with broadband internet
connections 69,431,802 And still growing!
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How bad is it?

• YouTube
• Streaming video community site
• 12 Million hits per month
• 200TB per day in transfers
• Very little revenue so far (some ads)
• VC Funding totaling 11.7 Million
• Bandwidth costs?
• 1,000,000 per month!

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Solution Use the People

• Offload work to user communities
• User generated content
• Emphasis on sharing (loyal customers)
• P2P technology
• Results
• Faster service
• Fewer adds?
• ISP complaints?

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The Bleeding Edge

• Three main P2P community approaches
• Email companion service (Pando)
• Send large email attachments
• Ad revenue or charge customers for usage
• Paid content distribution (PeerImpact)
• Reward for sharing content
• Content is games, movies, audio
• Distributed Streaming (NFT, Grid Networks)
• Relatively new, unproven technology
• Low-cost, low participation incentive

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Tried and True

• Bandwidth Providers
• Grid-based (Amazon S3)
• Solid service, proven technology
• Expensive due to operating overhead
• Used internally by Amazon to host their site
• Server-based (GoDaddy)
• Traditional, scalable, reliable
• Same operating overhead expenses
• Competition keeps prices reasonable
• Online storage (StreamLoad, Omnidrive)
• Distributed file system architecture
• Revenue from corporate accounts

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Conclusions

• Use Community Groups
• Lower distribution costs
• Willing to support the sites they love
• Power in numbers
• Comments?