The Hindu Business Line : Trends in the making

Chris Schoettle has worked at AT&T’s Next Generation IP Services division and was President of Broadband Access at Lucent Technologies. As Executive Vice-President, Technology and Networks, Akamai Technologies, he is now responsible for software development, architecture, information security, network infrastructure and service operations for all Akamai services on the global network of 20,000 servers in 1,000 networks in 71 countries. eWorld caught up with him d uring his recent visit to Bangalore. Excerpts from the chat:

What are the trends in the Internet scene? What has changed over the past five years?

Short videos have captured the imagination of Net users. Now there’s an entirely new phenomenon of people wanting to watch a lot of five-minute videos. These are messages that deliver Internet advertising. Advertising dollars have flowed from the print to the Internet at an increasingly fast pace, due to how interactive and targeted online ads can be.

What is the next big thing on the Net?

TV being broadcast over the Net. Usage of desktops and laptops to watch TV online will go mainstream. Already, we watch small videos online. Soon, we will be watching two-hour movies being streamed. Video content on the Internet will be distributed using the Open Approach.

Are you talking of IPTV?

There are two types of IPTV, which is delivering TV content across a network to a TV device, like a computer. One type is going over the Internet itself — what we call the Open Approach. The Internet will support the delivery of television. Examples of this are already here: TV channels now simultaneously stream their broadcasts online. Two-hour long, full-length videos are being streamed over the Net. Most popular are the live sports matches. Whether a cricket game or baseball game, most are being shared and streamed over the Internet.

It’s the same experience as watching it on TV. During the workday, we will see the dynamic of a burst of traffic on the Net — people catching TV on the Internet, while in the evening, they will switch to regular TV — because they are home and are used to watching it on their larger screens. It’s the same content, but on two different vehicles.

The other type of IPTV is the telcos’ and cable companies. They plan to move their proprietary cable architecture to an IP (digital) architecture and will deliver the content in their own environment. It’s the same technology, but what we call the Walled Garden Approach. Where you keep the content inside your own garden, only for your own end users to view.

Which do you think will be stronger?

Given that the Internet is evolving, and the fast user adoption, the Open Approach has more potential to have videos reach a vast number of users. The only question is whether the Internet can support the capacity.

What other changes will occur in usage of the Net in the near future?

As ISPs deliver more broadband here, more companies will move into India. Any major bricks ‘n’ mortar shop across the world is also setting up an online presence, either to sustain existing buyers who are used to the shop and want to extend the experience online, or to attract new types of buyers. Retail is exploding on the Net. Five years ago, buying a car on the Net was unheard of. People usually do research for their next car on the Net, and then physically go and buy it. But now, more complete the entire transaction on the Internet. The car is actually bought without moving out of the home!

With the evolution of buying culture and the increasing trust in portals, India too will see such a situation where people will buy a car online.

Recently there was an article on hauling up the Internet and rebuilding it. What do you think of it?

It is an interesting theoretical discussion. Technically, it could work. But the Internet is made up of 15,000 ISPs, on different types of networks. To change the Net, you will need to get them all to agree to go to a different technology. Much of the technology on the Internet is actually quite old.

The router technology that the Internet is based on, called Border Gateway Protocol, is 20 years old. This routes how packets flow across the Internet, and makes the decisions. Technically it could be made better — higher quality, higher security. However, the ISPs must upgrade together. But as they don’t view it in their advantage to upgrade, they are stuck in 20-year-old history. And that is why Akamai is needed. We can improve the way it works.

How?

We are trying to make the Internet go faster for the user. It’s all about Web sites, different types of information on them and how to reach them. One product is trying to get the content to the user faster, while the other product goes the other way — trying to get the user to reach up the central server faster. It’s the same network and same service. If you click on a Web site, then we try to send the content from the nearest Akamai edge server. If we can’t, then we speed the access from the end user to the server.

End users today expect a page to load faster. Average user satisfaction for a page to download is now four seconds. If it takes longer than that, they will typically go to another site. People do not have the patience to wait for pages to load. A couple of years ago, it was seven seconds. And soon, it will be no more than three seconds. Users will expect the Internet to be like the TV — on, no problems, no waiting. And that’s what the Internet will become. We offer services to portals that ensure their readers will reach the server faster. Most ISPs have faster downstream connections. But we are increasingly seeing that people want to upload more, and faster. So we have made it so that both upload and download are faster. These are new technologies that we have improved upon.

preethi@thehindu.co.in

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