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The Future of Quality of Service (QoS)
Will it will not be the differentiator that service providers are looking
for?
By: Bruce Bahlmann - Contributing Author (your
feedback
is important to us!)
Created: July 15, 2005
This paper is the product of
Broadband Market Research which is available from Birds-Eye Network
Services.
The past couple years there has been a tremendous push for the
widespread adoption of Quality of Service (QoS) as a means for broadband
service providers to differentiate themselves from other services
available out on the Internet. As a result CableLabs and DSL Forum have
actively been incorporating QoS technologies into their specifications.
However as bandwidth has become increasingly cheap and service providers
continue offering larger and larger pipes to residential consumers (in
response from competition), the value proposition of QoS is beginning to
find its foundation unstable. This article discusses the growing (yet
not outwardly spoken) doubts in the ranks of once QoS proponents.
Contention versus No Contention
Ideally, the way QoS becomes a factor on your broadband network is if you
have contention. Contention means that you have more people vying for
bandwidth than you have bandwidth available for them to use – contention is
actually a sign of a fiscally healthy network as it means that you are
squeezing maximum amount of throughput out of your network. However, if
there is no contention (more bandwidth available than you have users vying
for it) than you are likely paying more for your bandwidth than you have
users wanting it. Increasingly broadband service providers are raising the
amount of bandwidth provided to residential customers beyond what consumers
are currently using (see article – the “need” for speed: over delivering
bandwidth) which has altered the previous landscape of contention to the
point where it can nearly be eliminated all together. In this new
marketplace, it becomes very tough to compete with a QoS service as
competing (non-QoS) services don’t experience any contention and therefore
work equally well without effecting quality of content. In fact, if there is
no contention, a non-QoS service will work better than a QoS service just
because QoS service requires that much more complexity to work through to
deliver the same service - as a result many more things can go wrong which
could impact the delivery. Billing for it specifically (as a premium above
and beyond other competing services) may also become difficult if the
perceived value is nullified by the over abundance of available bandwidth.
QoS Ubiquitous
Another warning sign regarding QoS is what happens if QoS becomes
ubiquitous. Meaning, what happens if the Internet adopts it – which could
happen if it proves out to be a great means of guaranteeing quality of
service for critical services like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and
streaming High Definition Television (HDTV). This would place a broadband
service provider in an extremely difficult spot as any service provider out
on the Internet could compete (pound for pound) with any service a broadband
service provider elects to offer to its customers. Building out the last
mile of connectivity with QoS may actually be more costly and challenging
obstacle standing in the way of global QoS ubiquity. Interestingly,
broadband service providers are seriously considering such expensive
build-outs which in the end could seal their fate - become the final piece
of the puzzle required before the Internet considers adopting QoS.
Assuming a broadband service provider already has a great distribution
network and has on-going plans to add capacity, one could argue that it
really doesn't need the additional expense of QoS. In the end, adding QoS to
the last mile benefits over the top service providers more than it benefits
the broadband service provider that spends the money to build out its
network to support QoS. However, only if QoS is able to remain an exclusive
last mile provider technology.
CableLabs and DSL Forum are also hot on the trail of QoS having woven
this technology into increasingly mature specifications including DSL Home,
CableHome, PacketCable, and DOCSIS 1.1 and 3.0. Again, near term QoS is a
technology that could help broadband service providers compete with arguably
better, cheaper, and more feature rich services available from service
providers based on the Internet. However, the near term benefit will have a
short shelf life – especially after QoS blankets the last mile of
connectivity and the Internet considers embracing and deploying this
technology. Only the Internet will move to QoS much faster than it will take
broadband service providers to deploy this technology – so much so that what
ever slim opportunity exists for broadband service providers to leverage and
promote their services that use QoS technology will likely be short lived.
In the end, it could also become a source of heated debate between
broadband service providers delivering unfettered Internet connectivity per
federal mandate and those service providers located on the Internet which
are directly competing with them for customers. In a recent, widely
publicized case, a broadband service provider in the US (fifteenth largest
telephone company) was found to be port blocking a Vonage VoIP customer. The
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) immediately stepped in forcing the
broadband service provider to unblock the Vonage service and fined the
broadband service provider a modest sum of money ($15,000). The whole
incident further emphasized that if you are going to provide Internet access
to customers it must be unfettered (un-manipulated, unfiltered, and
unbiased). If QoS becomes ubiquitous, this will also mean that QoS services
coming inbound from the Internet must be allowed to flow through broadband
service providers’ networks down to their customers. As a result of the
precedence already set by the FCC, blocking, or dropping QoS at the boarder
router will not be an option thus effectively nullifying broadband service
providers’ long term benefits of deploying QoS.
Summary
If all you want to sell is bandwidth, your best bet is to do it as cheap
as you can and provide as reliable a service as you can – this will allow
you to keep data customers happy. Deploying QoS is not cheap, its long term
benefits have yet to be realized, and it could put you at even more odds
with more nimble service providers out on the Internet. While QoS hardware
vendors have a great marketing pitch for you (with the obvious intent to
sell more of their hardware), some times you need to just trust your own
instincts and think long term. I would love be proved wrong that QoS is
indeed the home run hitter that service providers are looking for – however
I’m not buying it.
In the end, the way to sell services to consumers is not to look for some
technology to make your ok product offering better but to offer better
features, higher quality, and rock solid customer service. If you have a
superior product or a good product for a cheaper price people will buy it
and stick with it – QoS is not going to make up for an inadequate or second
rate product just because you can send it over reserved bandwidth. Likewise,
QoS is not going to make a good product into a great product or a superior
product. For example, cell phones have absolutely poor QoS but they are
successful because they cater to consumers and offer the ultimate in
convenience. The promise of QoS as a differentiator is short lived if at
all.
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