It is nice to know that we at LIRNEasia have been ahead of the curve on Broadband QoSE, including on understanding it as more than simply download speed. Professor Gonsalves’s paper on the subject is here. The NYT today carried a story that says many of the things we have been talking about for the past two years. Tracking the speed of Internet service is becoming more and more important as everyone asks the Internet to do more than handle e-mail messages and Web pages. A few lines of text can take its time arriving, but applications sending voice calls or streaming video become unusable if there is too much delay in delivery.
In all networks, there is a perpetual debate about the growth of whatever flows across it (data, voice telephony, traffic. electricity) and what levels of investment are most appropriate for carrying the future load without deterioration of quality. This debate is going on now, about the Internet and the load likely to be placed on it by proliferating video, the so called exaflood. But then, profits are essential for investment. The quote below is about a data drought that could drive down profits and cause all kinds of bad things to happen.