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[Bowdon]

I was going to write this on the news thread but thought I'd ask more generally here.

How do ISP's or companies that control the networks and backbone create more capacity for more people to use speeds at the same time?

I guess this could become a bigger issue as the technology allows for faster and faster speeds.

What is everyones thoughts?

[Chrysalis]

often the physical stuff is already in place and its just adjustments in software to have higher commit.

[WWWombat]

The simple answer is by either
- buying new physical connections
- activating a chunk of extra capacity on a previous physical connection
- converting a physical connection from an old capacity to a new one (eg a 1Gb fibre link to a 10Gb fibre link, using new optics)
- adding more wavelengths into a fibre

Where is that capacity? Those using BT wholesale must
- Buy more direct interconnection capacity, to connect the ISP to BT
- Buy more capacity across the core, to backhaul your connection to the interconnect point

ISPs must also
- Arrange enough purchased capacity to the internet, and/or enough peered capacity, and/or enough CDN capacity

Some of the (old) information can be gleaned from these:
http://usergroup.plus.net/report_pncapacity.php
http://usergroup.plus.net/pn_buycapacity.php
http://usergroup.plus.net/capacity_calc.php
https://community.plus.net/t5/Plusnet-Blogs/How-UK-ISPs-are-charged-for-broadband-the-cost-of-IPStream/ba-p/1314570

Nowadays, the interconnect is done through 1Gb and 10Gb connections, which are more "ethernet" standards than the older SDH standards (with typical speeds of 155Mbps and 622 Mbps). Some of those old Plusnet pages show their age. Last time I looked at graphs, Plusnet was shifting well over 30Gbps.

Meanwhile, of course, those responsible for the backhaul networks need to upgrade those too.
Sky reported this in 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUoO4Wb7s4
BT built out their Scottish network:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZU5tvBUwZM

BT's upgrades are covered a little in this PDF. Core/transmission in the second half: http://www.huawei.com/minisite/ubbf2014/en/assets/pdf/7.pdf

[Bowdon]

Thanks for the info guys.

A lot of people talk about capacity issues but I don't think many know whats involved. So thought I'd ask

It'll be interesting how much extra capacity will be needed as people upgrade to higher speeds.

I guess there will still be a speed limit as it'll depend where a person is downloading from. Limited to the speed of that host. I guess in an ideal world they need to keep capacity higher than whats actually needed.

[kitz]

Some of the (old) information can be gleaned from these:
http://usergroup.plus.net/report_pncapacity.php
http://usergroup.plus.net/capacity_calc.php

Some of those old Plusnet pages show their age.

Not surprising.   I wrote those over 10 years ago.

It caused quite a stir in its time because it was actually an in depth representation of how much it actually cost the ISP and something no-one had been able to do before.   I was in a unique position to be able to get quite accurate information and data over a period of time and it took a long time (months) to write.   I dont think the ex-CEO was too happy about it initially, but realised if I didnt run it on PUG it would go elsewhere
As it turned out it was actually received favourably by both EUs, other broadband sites and some tech articles & journals (such as Computer Active who covered it) because it helped people understand where their money went.

If it was done today, the pricing would be cheaper:- 
1) At that time MST had  recently been introduced by OFCOM and BT backhaul costs were kept high due to the OFCOM ruling trying to promote LLU.  There were very, very few Market 3 exchanges so predominately everything PN sold was Market 1 and perhaps one fifth Market 2.   Neither of these qualified for deregulated pricing.  By nature of the beast Market 3 exchanges already were automatically those where cable had an excellent footing.
2) Since then, BTw has upgraded to 21CN, which in itself has brought cheaper backhaul costs.   WBC is more efficient to SPs than the old datastream which never really worked.  21CN offered SPs more choice of where they entered the network.
3) DSL has a much larger audience.    The more EU's an SP has, then the more efficient CBC pricing is.

[kitz]

Nowadays, the interconnect is done through 1Gb and 10Gb connections,

One thing Ive not been ever able to find is how much the host links cost compared to the old centrals.   There is info for WBC and MSIL pricing at the interconnects, but pricing for CORE transit is exceedingly difficult to find.

I wrote about the 21CN network in iirc 2009
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/wbc_wbmc.htm
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/21cn_network.htm

[kitz]

It'll be interesting how much extra capacity will be needed as people upgrade to higher speeds.

I guess there will still be a speed limit as it'll depend where a person is downloading from. Limited to the speed of that host. I guess in an ideal world they need to keep capacity higher than whats actually needed.

Tricky question, IMHO its not so much higher speeds but how our usage of the Internet has evolved.   

Things like web browsing, email, social media etc doesnt really need the higher speeds.
Gaming itself doesnt really need it, although download patches etc for gaming does.   
We do a lot more large updates.  We have things like ipads/iphones/tablets/android and other apps that now seem to update on practically a weekly basis.  More updates (including O/s) are done online and again are larger (or at least appear to be) than 10yrs ago.

Streaming and VoD I should imagine is where one of the largest increases has come from.    When I wrote the capacity report there were 3 heavish users in this household who used the Internet to the full.    I think if I rolled back the clock I would be horrified at the amount of bandwidth that I alone manage to consume by streaming alone these days. 

[ejs]

From when guessing the URL worked, which no longer works for more recent documents.

Code: [Select]

https://www.btwholesale.com/shared/document/Products/Broadband/Wholesale_Broadband_Managed_Connect/Pricing_and_Contracts/ WBMC_Shared_Service_Schedule_4_Pricing_V24_20150301.pdf(remove the space).

It's a vaguely recent WBMC Shared price list, including the host link prices. I'd forgotten about the per metre cost. I think ISPs have to pay for both the host link itself, and the per Mb/s per month price for the amount of bandwidth they want to carry over the host link.

[Chrysalis]

Also another reason the BT backhaul was so expensive is that BT had to be compensated for not been allowed to charge a premium for burst speed on adsl ports.

Originally 1mbit adsl ports cost more than 512kbit and 2mbit cost even more than 1mbit.  Natural pricing for internet has burst speed costing a premium, ofcom convinced BT to remove the price premium but for BT to accept they had to be allowed to shift that lost revenue onto something else which was the BT centrals.  This had a bad affect of course making backhaul cost way over the standard cost expected and fooling people into thinking that burst speed has no inherent cost.

[WWWombat]

It's a vaguely recent WBMC Shared price list, including the host link prices.

There are some more recent figures for the installation costs and annual costs for "in building handover" in the recent ISP forum slides. IIRC, the most recent meeting had some prices for IBH in some core node locations, while the one before had the price for IBH within one of the Telehouse locations.

[WWWombat]

Not surprising.   I wrote those over 10 years ago.

  I didn't realise who wrote them. I just remember coming across them a good few years ago, around the time that iPlayer traffic was starting to dominate.

[Weaver]

A thought on the physics of link upgrades. One nice thing about optical links is that they are upgradable without laying new fibre. If you replace the hardware at the two ends with posher hardware that supports transmission on more frequencies in parallel down the one fibre, then you get a big instant link throughput improvement. See -
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength-division_multiplexing

As other posters have pointed out, you have to upgrade everything along an entire path, otherwise you are just moving a bottleneck to a different point. Also faster links may well mean more traffic and higher capacity associated routes which both have to be be bought from partners / peers and this is a continuing cost.