Fixing the Internet for Games

This was an awesome write up. The most interesting thing for me was learning that bottlenecks are not on the edge, but across the backbone because T1 carriers are optimizing for low cost, not low latency.

Other things that can help:

  * A national policy that actually encourages competition
    > Also one that classifies 'the last mile' as public infrastructure to compete on top of.
  * Fiber to the home/MDU (Ethernet the rest of the way)
  * Where cable Internet must be used, the anti-buffer bloat parts of DOCSIS 3.1 (DOCSIS-PIE).
  * Actually having peer to peer focused ISPs, not content consumption ones.
    Upload should be no less than 25% of download; ideally symmetric.
  * Better visibility in to peering between users
    and actual effort applied to removing the bottlenecks.

Clever concept. I wonder if they'll publish any more information on how their service works. Things like what this 'route shader' is that people can read without having to go through Email-Our-Sales-Team shit.

Ideally competition in all areas, but different areas might require different policy and this is a question that should actually be studied by experts, or at least in academia summarizing the results of policy in different nations (as well as how closely they might match similar housing density for actually lived in areas).

Some places that I think should be at least initially studied / considered for LAST MILE* competition include:

* LAST MILE (connectivity) being the connection between citizen's houses and peering/point-of-presence locations: connecting citizens to a marketplace of different service providers.

  * Remove legal barriers that prevent municipalities and utility entities from providing last mile connectivity
    (often laws lobbied (paid) for by existing monopoly or near monopoly companies).
  * Things similar to "Local Loop Un-bundling"
    > Require the existing providers break out last mile connectivity from their back-haul package.
    > Require they sell access to their private PoP at a cost which they also pay
      at a similar rate (to the PoP on the balance sheet).
  * Things equivalent to 'right of way' grants (poles on public land, trenches, etc) must be owned by the citizens.
    > Also leased at FRAND rates to any entities
    > Serviceable with 'one touch' by any entity licensed with the owners (citizens via the City/County/State/etc that owns it)

Possibly other things I can't think of in a short break.

As someone who works in the games space, I find this to be an interesting proposition. My primary concern revolves around similar 'net neutrality' aspects - more and more of the internet is becoming pay to play, this just further entrenches that theory if you want the best networking for your games as a studio.