Cisco's Broadband Study

Cisco says that the world's networks aren't ready for the demands of the future, and its director of government affairs has some ideas on how to remedy the problem.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [September 19, 2008]

Last week, Cisco published a study that claims that only Japan is ready to deliver the applications of the future, such as interactive rich media and IPTV.

But the reports did not disclose what speeds the network of the future will require, and I thought you'd be interested in Cisco's estimates. Jeff Campbell, Cisco's senior director of technology and communications policy, says that the statistics of Japan's network are publicly available: and average download speed of greater than 16 Mbps, an average upload speed of greater than 6.8 Mbps, and latency averaging 85 ms (although I'm not sure what latency means in this context).

In contrast, Campbell notes, another high scoring nation, Sweden, has download speeds of 8.8 Mbps and upload speeds of 2.4 Mbps. Cisco considers this close to adequate, but not good enough.

The report notes that network providers have not been advertising quality. "Providers have tended to focus on download speed," says Campbell, "because that's something consumers can easily understand. Latency is a concept that's more difficult to communicate."

He adds that some ISPs are starting to mention uploads speeds, such as Verizon in FiOS advertisements.

Latency, he notes, is not too important if you're browsing the web or downloading e-mail, but it is important for newer applications, such as voice and video.

The study obtained speed data from various sources including speedtest.net.

Broadband availability
Finally, Campbell notes that in Europe and Asia, the ILECs are required to deliver broadband to everyone, which is not the case in the U.S. The study ranked nations on both speed and equality. The U.S. did relatively poorly on equality, and Japan did very well.

Campbell says that a variety of factors contribute to the relative failure of the U.S.:

In Japan, a lot of interoffice fiber was built before the internet age, and the government has always felt it has an interest in the deployment nation has dense cities.

Most of the telecommunications infrastructure in Japan was built after World War II. In contrast, the telephone was invented in the U.S. and the U.S. has some of the oldest copper wires in the world.

The U.S has relatively long loop lengths, compared to the rest of the world. In Europe and Asia, VDSL is viable in many cases, but it offers less to U.S. telcos.

So it's not all the fault of the ILECs, but there's a lot of work to be done here, Campbell says.

Should the government intervene?
Campbell's job in part is to lobby for Cisco, both for the government to intervene in certain areas, and to prevent it from intervening in others.

In most cases, Campbell says, "the best thing the government can do is get out of the way and not regulate."

The U.S., Campbell notes, has a history of privately owned infrastructure that has worked very well.

The FCC has tried to stay out of the market, but, he notes, it recently intervened in the Comcast case and that's troubling. "Some people would like the government to determine the best way to manage traffic on a network or how traffic should be priced. I do not believe that the government is capable of making those decisions—certainly not in a rational time frame."

Every ISP fears that the government will take the cheap way out and try to pass law enforcement costs and responsibilities on to private enterprise. "The recent FCC decision seem to be leaning in the direction that the service provider is guilty until proven innocent. Regulators should not decide how technology should be used."

Of course, this problem is old. It is at least as old as the Industrial Revolution itself. The oldest quote in our Notable Quotes section is from railroad pioneer Islamabard Kingdom Brunel, who complained about regulators' tendency to, ". . . embarrass and shackle the progress of improvement to morrow by recording and registering as law the prejudices or errors of to day. No man, however bold or however high he may stand in his profession can resist the benumbing effect of rules laid down by authority. Devoted as I am to my profession, I see with fear and regret this tendency to legislate and to rule."

Campbell does, however, see a limited role for government intervention. He notes that Cisco worked with the state to deliver a broadband report that was cited as a model for other states to follow (in an article that quotes Campbell talking about the need for faster connections to deliver services like telemedicine).

He says that about four percent of households had no access to broadband, and another two percent had access only to "dead end technology delivering less than 1 Mbps."

In such cases, the government could use the USF to support the build out of faster technologies. Instead, he says, the USF continues to subsidize dialup analog technology. "We're spending billions of dollars to subsidize the wrong infrastructure. The government should only intervene where the market is not working."

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