Re: [p2pi] One more proposed definition of fairness...

["Stas Khirman" <stas at khirman.com>]

> From: p2pi-bounces at ietf.org [mailto:p2pi-bounces at ietf.org] On Behalf Of
> 
> It does not make economic sense to up capacity to serve just 5-10%
> heavy-tail of the users, as those 5-10% of the users aren't paying any
> more than the 90%.
> 
> If this is the case, ISPs need to either prevent the heavy-tailed
> users from affecting the rest (fairness, app-discrimination, usage
> caps) or charge the heavy users more (usage-based pricing) to justify
> the cost of an expansion which only benefits these users.
> 
[Stas Khirman] 

As matter of fact, ANY flat rate resource sharing system will have 5% of
"heavy" users consuming 50% of shared resource - it is just a special case
of famous 20/80 Pareto observation. It is observed in any kinds of
flat-rate/free services - from broadband ISP, dial-up , local phone service,
NetFlix down to local library or "all-you-can-eat" buffet.

Serving those 5% of "heavy users" is a part of economical sense of flat-rate
- their overuse of shared resource is well sponsored by the monthly fee of
the 95% "light users". And certainly, it is not "fair" - flat-rate can't be
fair on any level as charges are not reflecting your specific use of the
service. BTW, I do not see ISP are suggesting to give back some discounts to
80% of "light users" who use less then 20% of total resources - it will
certainly make no economical sense to ISP despite obvious fairness . 

As long as service providers use flat-rate pricing model they have to plan
servicing 5% of "heavy" users - they ALWAYS have this group in population
mix. Another question, what will be maximum resource consumption by this
group. In case of buffet or library, maximum consumption is limited by
natural constrains - you can "eat" and "read" only limited amount of
service. And what is more important - maximum consumed service is fixed per
user and not changed significantly over time. So whatever resources you
provisioned for given population today , it will be enough for tomorrow
service as well.

In case of flat-rate ISP dynamics is different - similarly to
"all-you-can-eat" buffet, "heavy" user can download/watch so much movies per
day, but... 
	(a) ISPs are not provisioned for those kind of content - like
"all-you-eat" buffet plan to serve a light breakfast, but serving lunch for
a football team
	(b) Video quality demand increased rapidly - and so traffic per
movie download. 

As result - 5%+95% of users are consuming more resources then provisioned or
make economical sense. And it is not because of those 5% - it is result of
changes in ALL user trends that probably break current technological or
economical assumptions.

And, btw - let's not "blame" this on P2P only. P2P just accelerated the
common trend - availability of the high-quality video content. Non-P2P video
downloads (mostly HTTP based) are accounted for about 20% of broadband ISP
traffic - second place after 40% associated with P2P. As more professional
content providers are coming into the play with legal content downloads,
proportion on non-P2P video expected to grow as well. And, btw, if P2P
traffic consumption can be shifted in time and space using some sort of BW
throttling and P4P routing, HTTP-based streaming do not provide such
flexibility as content has to be delivered NOW and from a single source. So
even if we remove P2P from equations, ISPs will face the same problems in
just 1-3 years due other forms of OTT video delivery.

Bottom line:
1.) flat-rate is not fair at any speed
2.) Any flat rate/free service have 5% of users consuming 50% of resources.
3.) As long as consumer Internet is a "dumb-pipe" with no ability to
differentiate on protocol/content, ISPs have to plan to over-provision up to
satisfy top 5% of users or , alternatively move to usage-based pricing (
which has its own economical and technological problems - separate
discussion)

IMHO, considering cost and problems of usage-based billing, I do not believe
that ISPs will move in mass to this new/old model. Probably, the better bet
is in direction of the making network more "smart" - and it is where IETF is
major driving force.
 

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