... fit to print?

In my days of working for a Rabobank affiliate, a subscription to local business newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad was thrown into the secondary payment package. Frankly, I cancelled my subscription many years ago. The paper recently adopted the salmony color that so easily distinguishes the Financial Times, but let me reassure you: you don't want to waste your time and money on this pale imitation.

A valued reader in the heart of Amsterdam's Fiber Heaven pointed me to another inferior story (in Dutch, translated here) that was printed today. The writer manages to take some of the Telecoms Reform package currently in the European Parliament and Council of Telecoms Ministers, adds some broadband penetration numbers, throws in Bret Swanson's exaflood debate and rounds off with a touch of net neutrality and FTTH. The thing is titled 'Internet Under Pressure' and suggests it may come to a screaching hault because of traffic overflow.

And what do you get? Exactly, a lot of BS. Sorry Mr. Livestro, things can get quite complicated.

It's a shame, because just one day earlier some interesting statistics were released by Telegeography: international internet traffic grew 53% (a year ago: +61%), but capacity grew even faster. The result is that the utilisation rate averaged just 29% (from 31% a year ago). We're talking backbones here, dear Mr. Livestro, not last miles. And for some extra info, do read Rudolf's piece from a day before over here.

To round off, my reader adds (in my translation):

The real bottleneck is the backhaul between Central Office and the Internet Exchange. It uses expensive ATM technology and is practically a monopoly. Hence, it is not in the interest of the operator to switch to cheaper ethernet technology, since the regulator has set tariffs based on that relatively expensive ATM technology.

Solving the internet's problems

Three very diverse articles, with one communality: how to solve internet related trouble.

• Bob Lefsetz on Zappos and the relevance (to the music industry) of it's $1,000 bonus for employees who quit.
• Geoff Daily on the exaflood, the broadband incentive problem, 'field of dreams' and South Korea.
• A press release from Zeugma Systems for its new router "... giving broadband service providers (BSPs) a platform that is truly limitless in its potential to support new services." (...) "The future relevance and competitiveness of broadband providers is dependent on their ability to quickly develop and deploy new services—today's value creation and value add is largely in services, and not in the capacity and pipes to deliver such services. The ZSN is the first of a new breed of service delivery routers and could be a game changer."