John Linton This article points out the bleeding obvious but does illustrate a situation which is not going to be easily dealt with:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/netflix-chews-up-more-bandwidth-than-any-other-website-20110518-1et2h.html
With several similar services (FetchTV as the current obvious example) likely to be offered to Australian users over the remainder of this calendar year the trend of average bandwidth usage per customer is set to accelerate. As an example of trends over time the average customer download usage for Exetel customers has increased from a little over one gigabyte per customer per month in April 2004 to around 5 gigabytes per customer per month in April 2008 accelerating to 13 gigabytes in April 2010 and is now North of of 20 gigabytes in April 2011. This is at a time when over 50% of Exetel customers download less than 5 gigabytes per month.
Those of you that look at our web site on occasions would have noticed the progressive changes in download inclusions over the past few weeks as we consider the implications of the tsunami of video offerings that some percentage of end users will require over the coming months. The most obvious example is FetchTV which while being able to be delivered via multicast from approximately 400 exchanges will not be able to be delivered that way to the other 2,000 plus exchanges used by Exetel (or any one else's) customers....only Telstra will be able to do that. Of course, 400 exchanges cover around 80% of Australia's broad band users so it isn't going to be any sort of real problem in the short term but, even so, the usage patterns of customers will inevitably rise significantly and very quickly.
Depending on just what transpires over the near future it seems inevitable that Exetel will no longer be able to use Telstra as a supplier of ADSL services - unless there really is a true split of Telstra in the relatively near future. While it's true that Telstra Wholesale prices have declined from their stratospheric levels of 12 - 18 months ago they still charge Exetel well above their own retail prices and, possibly much worse, far higher prices than they charge our competitors. We need to see what actually transpires over the next twelve months or so but if 'movies on demand' does become the same devourer of bandwidth here as it is becoming in the USA then Telstra's port and back haul costs will make it impossible to deal with. I suppose this would not be as large a problem if you believe that the 'NBN2' will actually be delivered in enough places to provide a new alternative to Telstra at realistic prices but I am of the opinion that won't happen either at all or in any realistic time frame to obviate the problem.
The costs of re-dimensioning any network to deal with the demands of movies on demand will pose a significant challenge to any network owner. I, of course, have only a vague idea of the actual capabilities of the different networks deployed by the various suppliers but the growth statistics in the cited article are harbingers of significant change and investment requirements. With the 'NBN2' complicating almost every aspect of providing services today the complications of providing services tomorrow that require significant investment today are even more complicated.
As Malcolm Fraser once said........ "where did I put my trousers?"
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