“Web2.0 applications like YouTube Videos and P2P (peer-to-peer) application are bringing the Internet down”

That’s what Big Boys Cisco Systems and one of China’s biggest telcos China Netcom seem to be saying at the recent Broadband World Forum Asia (“Carriers struggle under P2P traffic boom“)

But is that the reality?

[audio:http://www.whoisandrewwee.com/podcasts/WhoIsAndrewWee.com-friday-podcast8.mp3]

For session notes, click “more”:

>> Cisco’s service provider group product and solutions marketing senior manager Wayne Cullen, said “broadband operators today now under great network pressure, as “disruptive” applications like P2P and video-oriented services like YouTube were pushing up average user’s traffic to 50-100% per year.”

Wayne continues to note that most of the traffic was “out of control” and that traffic growth was outpacing the decline in equipment cost was putting broadband operators in a dilemma.

On the one hand, he says, they see increased traffic, on the other, they have to deal with the bandwidth problem and need to pay for that bandwidth.

Additionally China Netcom deputy chief engineer Tang Xiongyan, concurs saying: “P2P has brought big challenges to China Netcom. P2P applications now account for 40-60% of our total network traffic, but without creating additional revenues.”

“So we have to take some measures to control the volume of the P2P traffic,” he says.

Globally broadband operators have taken different approaches:

• Some try to ignore it
• Others will block the service
• And the rest simply embrace it.

Rush to lay fiber, some telcos take the lead to hosting next generation voice and video services.

Instead of a reactive approach, telcos should see this as opportunity to scale their revenue.

Fiber to the home a reality?
Nope. (not in Asia at least.)

Fiber to the ISP, last mile copper wiring in most cases to the home in Asia.

Most content is hubbed in US, though number of content providers, especially MMPOG and entertainment content hub in Singapore.

The Telco approach seems very reactive.
Internet moves almost as fast as the speed of light, literally and figurative.
To saying bandwidth needs are “out of control” is like saying electricity consumption is much higher now, compared to the 1980s.

I’d think that a surge in bandwidth requirments means that either:
1) more people are getting onto the internet (a good thing)
2) internet applications are getting more sophisticated.(also a good thing).

In online world, data bandwidth is the petrol of the Internet.
Although bandwidth seems to be in Short supply now, but with the continued laying of underseas communications cables and addition of new terrestrial satelittes and other wireless technologies.

This should not be a major issue.

Telcos need to see web2.0 as more than a “disruptive” technology or going “out of control”

Web 2.0.
It’s a reality.
Telcos should sooner face up to expanding data bandwidth needs, faster able to deal with it.