Title: "Warum in die Ferne schweifen ... " - Internet for the region


Topics: Expanding and Enhancing Internet Access
Transforming Internet Commerce and Reshaping the Market Place
Author: Klaus Birkenbihl
Affiliation: GMD, Germany
Address: Birlinghoven Schloss, 53757 Sankt Augustin
Phone :+49 2241 14 2910
Fax : +49 2241 14 2071
E-mail: Birkenbihl@gmd.de

Abstract:

The attraction and charm of Internet come from its global extent. From every where it gives access to information where ever in the world it is provided. So it might be quite surprising that for a number of reasons many regional structures of Internet have urgently to be improved. This is necessary to maintain the ability of Internet to grow and scale. Overloaded international or nation wide links often carry traffic that has source and destination in the same city. This is a consequence of an arrangement that is rather provider oriented than structured by region. Metropolitan area networks (MANs) qualify to be used as local and regional Internet traffic exchanges (LIXs). Many information services, the business of many small and medium size enterprises (not only the pizza service) and much of private use will require a good regional connectivity. As another consequence MANs and regional internetworking will open up the market for new business and new applications based on Internet.

In 8 seconds around the world ... just to reach your neighbor

"In 8 seconds around the world" is the title of a popular book on Internet. Have you ever wondered why you only get less than 100 Bytes per second during file transfer while your Internet connectivity is 64kb/sec via ISDN - even though the server is located in your own town? If you are from Europe: did you ever experience that WWW servers in the US respond much faster than a server in the neighbor town? An indiscreet Internet utility named "traceroute" might discover the following reason: your traffic to the US goes through some 10 nodes or routers to its destination. Your traffic to the neighborhood might go through some nodes more and some of them might likely be located in the US. It is easy to imagine that every trunk and every router on the way of your packets are potential bottlenecks. Your packets share resources with other users who are on the same link. So they reduce the individual performance for all. This would not happen if they could find a local or regional route. But why does Internet do such silly things why routes it your packets to the neighborhood through half the world?

Trapped in global structures

The reason for this is in the history of Internet. Some few years ago there was only a sparse population of Internet nodes. There were only a few service providers in the world and the main concern was to interconnect these providers in such a way that there was some kind of "global connectivity". Later on policy issues like "prevent commercial users from using publicly funded lines" lead to the idea of a controlled traffic exchange between networks: the global Internet exchange (GIX). The underlying idea of all these approaches was that Internet is basically an infrastructure that carries traffic mainly in a global scope. Meanwhile you find here and there national exchanges or bilateral exchanges between two providers. This does not solve the problem.
Different from other on-line services like CompuServe or AOL Internet has no hierarchical structure, no center and no ultimate authority. Beside the fact that all Internet service providers use the same technology for their services they are competitors to each other.

The Region is the future

Regional traffic is still not common in the Internet. Its image, its charm is the virtual implementation of the global village. Of course this will continue. But the more Internet becomes a mass communication and information infrastructure the more there is a need to regionalise its traffic. There are a lot of reasons why this will happen: here are only a few of them:

Also information that is not regional by origin will be provided on local mirrors or proxies given the access rate justifies it. For example this will be the case with phone books, train and airline schedules, home shopping offers, yellow pages, "on demand" servers and a lot of data bases and FTP servers. So information that has a global scope by nature might well mainly contribute to regional traffic when it turns out to be heavily demanded.

Basically this all means that despite the fact that Internet comprises a global information system and that there is no Internet without global connectivity most Internet traffic of the future will be regional. Very likely Internet services will have nearly the availability as phone services within the next five years. As with the phone though the global
services are indispensable most communications will be on a local or regional base.

The Service providers won't see

I have talked to quite a number of service providers on this subject during the last months. Most of them tell me as long as they provide me an acceptable service for an acceptable price it is not my business - as a user - to worry. But how do I know what is "acceptable service for an acceptable price"? Of course I would appreciate lower prices. Of course I would like to get better performance. Whose money is used to send my packets with destination "neighborhood" through half the world?
The truth is that service providers are very hesitant to agree on Internet traffic exchanges. Germany still does not even have (1 February 1996) a national Internet exchange that serves all providers in the country. Global providers often are still more reluctant to connect to such facilities.

The impact of MANs on Internet

In many cities there are fiber-based metropolitan area networks (MANs) in place or under construction. These MANs provide multimedia communications to their citizens. Sometimes people wonder what the applications on such a MAN will be. Looking at all the younger Internet developments around the World Wide Web, MIME and MBONE you clearly can see: Internet has the applications! Many times Internet suffers from lack of bandwidth and overload but bandwidth is what MANs provide. New multi media applications like previews of cinema programs, real time traffic jam information, video conferencing, video on demand services or virtual reality applications that require a lot of bandwidth might be exercised and implemented with a good quality in such an environment. So MANs are a beautiful opportunity to extend quality and technical scope of Internet applications and to demonstrate their technological superiority over other offers.

New business opportunities

How can you as an Internet user profit from MANs? Of course you will only see a benefit if your service provider connects you directly to the MAN. This can avoid bottlenecks and world wide packet trips. Next prerequisite is that the computers that take part in your Internet applications also have good connectivity to the MAN. Last not least if different providers serve these computers these providers have to exchange their traffic over the MAN. The MAN has to be a local Internet exchange in order to promote Internet. So beside the improvements in service quality MANs have impact on the structure of Internet. Internet traffic exchange - today more or less only available on global or maybe national scope - will be a regional instance. So if there is a MAN on the physical layer the LIX (local Internet exchange) is the consequence on the Internet layer.

There is even more a MAN can do for Internet business. Given that many applications and much of the traffic have only a regional scope it might be a good strategy for service providers to focus on the regional business rather than aiming at global connectivity on their own force. Especially new providers will have much less initial investments and fewer risks if they buy connectivity from other providers. This will make it easier to start new business with Internet services and will foster market growth.

Today many established Internet providers are reluctant to sell their connectivity to resellers. They - the pioneers of Internet business - appear to be scared by the rapid changes on the communications market. They still compete with others on the base of "my global connectivity is better than yours". This approach - successful for the first years of Internet commercialization - will be lethal in the future. Many of these providers - mostly small or medium enterprises - will only have the choice between Also global connectivity will be improved by MANs - acting as LIX for Internet. Providers do not have to care so much for their own connectivity by balancing the load and the bandwidth of their lines. Very often you can see providers connecting some 30 ISDN 64Kb channels with a single 128Kb connection to the rest of the world. Of course they could continue to do so. But especially for the small providers it might be easier to buy from a national or global provider who is directly connected to the MAN. This provider easily can multiplex the traffic quite a number of providers on a broadband line. Statistical distribution of load and economy of scale guarantee that this linesharing improves the service quality for all while simultaneously reducing the costs.

Conclusion

Regional traffic will become more and more important for Internet. This is because of its growth, metropolitan infrastructures, economy of bandwidth and more regional usage and applications in business, culture, heath care, community information education and information. Beside changes in the structure and the management of Internet this will foster new business opportunities as well as fast changes in present business. A lot of future revenue will be earned by providing regional services for a regional customer base on base of high speed regional networks.
So the message for internet service providers is: participate in local Internet exchanges. Use the capabilities of MANs. If there is no MAN set up a LIX on base of a LAN. Give a good regional connectivity to your customers. The message for the user is: say good bye to the service provider that only connects you to his customers. Don't accept bad connectivity just because your service provider has not learned that Internet is communication and it is not isolation.

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