>>I would suggest that the low use of upstream bandwidth "on average"
>>is as much about the fact that applications that need higher
>>upstream DONT WORK and therefore don't get used, leaving only the
>>classic "email and browsing" type applications as usable...
>
>This is probably true in a very small part. Again, the average user
>does not use much outbound traffic. This is a very obvious trend
>across all access networks.

Yes, but once again, is this cause or effect ? You can't say that
with any certainty.

>>If the "average" use of upstream bandwidth without artificial
>>restrictions really is low, then an ISP (and I know its Telecom
>>thats putting the restriction in place here in the case of ADSL)
>>has nothing to lose in providing faster upstream, as the "average"
>>use will remain low, even though a few "power users" would make use
>>of the upstream to do things they can't do now.
>
>Network traffic explosion from uncontained P2P usage is a major
>risk. Why do you think a large number of overseas telcos went from
>symmetrical service (or a much better in:out ratio), anyway?

To protect their Voice/Fibre/Frame services when they cottoned onto
the fact that DSL would undercut them all for a large percentage of
their customers ? Most likely VoIP hadn't been "discovered" by the
masses when the plans were first rolled out, and when businesses
realised they could save a lot of money on voice calls by
implementing VoIP the Telco's retrospectively slashed the upstream
rates to protect their other services.

>The major application that the majority of users would use is a P2P
>client of some description. Most people don't, and won't, use
>VoIP/Video-over-IP/etc. There is limited interest.

There is limited interest partly because people CAN'T do it. Without
the necessary upstream bandwidth VoIP and video stuff etc is just a
pipe dream to most people. You can't make something impossible and
then say "oh, but theres limited interest". Do you think VoIP would
be more commonly used if it was easy to set up and get working and
saved people money ? You betcha. At least for businesses...

>> From a technical point of view, providing faster upstream speeds
>> (and in the case of wireless, symetrical rates) is easy, and as
>> upstream bandwidth tends to be "underutilized" anyway, its
>> effectively free to provide it in most cases. (Unless you also
>> have a lot of webhosting/telehousing traffic to balance your in/out rates)
>
>Again, uncontained P2P traffic growth is a major, major,
>risk. Various people have already commented on what happens with
>bill shock when a P2P client is left sharing a handful of
>files. You start doing that on a large scale across tens of
>thousands of users and you might find yourself in a sudden reversal
>of traffic patterns.

A major risk, how ? Only on so-called "flat rate" plans, which have
always been a bugaboo for ISP's. The answer to that is simple - don't
provide symetrical flat rate plans, reserve symetrical speeds for
plans with excess usage charges. People that want symetrical speeds
pay excess use if they go over their cap.

An ISP usually buys their bandwidth symetrically, and you have to
make use of that upstream somehow to get best dollar value out of it,
whether it be by balancing it out with hosting traffic, or offering
decent upstream speeds or both.

Most ISP's/Telco's charge customers for the sum of both upstream and
downstream MB use, so any additional upstream use on a capped plan
counts towards more MB use (and thus more excess use charge if they
go over their cap) even though in reality it costs the ISP no more to
provide - thus a win situation for the ISP, and also a win situation
for the customer in that they have the CHOICE of choosing a symetric
(or "high" upstream) plan over one with 128Kbit upstream if they so desire.

Is this all just a pipe dream ? Nope, we've been providing symetrical
business wireless plans for a long time now and its a win-win
situation for us and our customers. Customers with large numbers of
client computers off one connection really notice the difference of
the higher upstream (and proper QoS traffic shaping as well) and more
than one has remarked that to their surprise a 512/512 wireless
connection is more usable than their old 2Mbit/128Kbit Jetstream connection.

On ADSL though, we're in the same boat as everyone else, due to
Telecom's restrictions...

Give the market choice, and supply and demand will sort itself out...

Regards,
Simon

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