Re: new to cdn internetworking

[Eric Dean <eric@crystalballinc.com>]

> I'm not sure how it is arguable when one has first hand knowledge 
> of such efforts as it is the case for me and several others around
> the industry.

You gotta be kidding. 

> What evidence do you have that providers are still continue to 
> embrace and grow their footprint in the direction of increasing
> inband proxy based services?  (Leaving aside the whole discussion
> of whether they scale in the first place; let's just assume they
> do).

I'd rather not market other companies...but for starters there's a very
large three-letter ISP that runs ALL traffic through Dulles Virginia. 

> Care to offer a few examples of working (read: fully
> operationalized), financially viable models?

Most all major carrier-based dial networks offer L2TP as a subscriber
aggregation mechanism.  There are a variety of special interest groups
that offer filtered narrowband dial, some companies performed advertising,
others did statistical market research.  I am in no position to evaluate
financial viability.

> I have yet to see anyone whose 'content service and other 
> value-adds' is grounded in reality.  Might you be the first?

I remember working at Sprint in the early 90's and people said the same
thing to us about the Internet. 

> I think the foundation for this math, the assumptions which
> make this model viable, are rapidly changing.  And that is what
> I was trying to point out.  They're changing in favor of not
> having an existing base of proxy caches.

The operative word there is "I think" 

> More specifically the question would be.. Are you saying you can
> make a profit in the real world on the capital expense for
> hardware, software licenses, support costs and operational costs
> by deploying entirely new equipment for the sole purpose of
> content overlays?

Who cares? Who says that customers have to cough up the capital?  You
think any ISPs deploy dial infrastructure?  What about shared hosting?

> This discussion stretches all the way down to individual PPPoX
> termination edge boxes.  And the whole point was directed at 
> any sort of forced inband activity.

There is a world beyond your mind.