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Dad vs. Adrian at the memory game.

Facebook Takes the Lead in HD Video

What are the implications of highly...

Alan: so, I'm puzzled about something
Alan: what do you think happens as more and more people get connected to the Internet on connections with massively asymmetric up/down speeds
Alan: e.g. in my area
Alan: broadstripe (cable): 6M down / 384k up
Alan: clearwire (wimax): 2M down / 256k up
Jeff: uploads get hosed first?
Alan: only DSL is moderately balanced: 1.5M down / 896k up
Alan: well, yes - but I mean more generally. it seems like UGC suffers over time
Jeff: oh, I see
Alan: and it slowly kills P2P
Jeff: makes sense
Alan: and it becomes no better than a broadcast network
Alan: like the old satellite boxes where you had to plug into a phone line for the control channel
Jeff: heh
Alan: I mean, you really can't transmit anything interesting at 384k up
Jeff: no
Alan: a half-decent video stream is 3M
Jeff: what's the solution?
Alan: I don't know ... I'm just trying to sort through the implications
Alan: it's sort of like when DSL first appeared
Alan: everyone talked about the speed difference from 56k modems
Alan: but the real value of DSL was never speed - it was "always on" that was the real breakthrough
Jeff: yeah, both
Alan: 10 years on, it seems like what's really happening isn't about faster internet connections in a real sense
Alan: it's about a transformation to a broadcast network
Alan: it implies that one should buy stock in akamai, for example.....
Jeff: right. hmmm