Tiered Internet

I'm not against a tiered internet!

That might be a surprising statement for some of you to read, but let me explain.

If the premise behind tiering the internet is to improve the customer experience by optimising the routing of the bits to popular destinations (e.g. Google), then fine. So long as the actions are constructive as opposed to destructive, i.e. not hindering the flow of traffic to specific places.

I have long thought about why it can take upwards of 15 hops for me to get to Google:

C:\Documents and Settings\pj>tracert www.google.com

Tracing route to www.l.google.com [66.249.89.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 20 ms 19 ms 20 ms adsl-bkkct1.csloxinfo.net [210.1.48.??]
2 23 ms 22 ms 19 ms adsl-bkkct1.csloxinfo.net [210.1.48.??]
3 24 ms 23 ms 23 ms 203.170.???.???
4 22 ms 23 ms 23 ms 210.1.???.???
5 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms 202.47.254.???
6 23 ms 22 ms 23 ms 202.47.253.???
7 222 ms 221 ms 223 ms 202.47.253.???
8 227 ms 223 ms 223 ms if-1-0.bb3.LAA-LosAngeles.Teleglobe.net [209.58.
85.17]
9 238 ms 236 ms 238 ms if-6-0.core2.LAA-LosAngeles.Teleglobe.net [209.5
8.85.14]
10 229 ms 230 ms 228 ms if-1-1.mcore4.LAA-LosAngeles.teleglobe.net [66.1
98.112.30]
11 232 ms 234 ms 233 ms if-6-0.core1.SQN-SanJose.teleglobe.net [216.6.85
.22]
12 232 ms 242 ms 230 ms so-1-2-0.e1.SanJose1.Level3.net [65.59.88.201]
13 232 ms 231 ms 235 ms so-1-2-0.bbr1.SanJose1.Level3.net [209.244.3.137
]
14 232 ms 232 ms 234 ms ae-14-53.car4.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.68.123.78]

15 367 ms 384 ms 388 ms unknown.Level3.net [64.152.102.62]
16 401 ms 425 ms 425 ms po1-0.cr2.nrt1.asianetcom.net [202.147.0.194]
17 422 ms 442 ms 415 ms gi1-0.gw1.nrt4.asianetcom.net [202.147.1.117]
18 235 ms * 235 ms GoogleInc.gw1.nrt4.asianetcom.net [203.192.131.7
0]
19 237 ms 249 ms 236 ms 216.239.47.54
20 233 ms 240 ms 234 ms 66.249.89.99

[N.B. I will accept pity for the abysmal routing from Thailand! ]

This is why using applications such as Google VPN can speed some things up! In effect it creates a tiered web specifically for Google and anything else that Google decides to efficiently route to. So, perhaps Google could create backbone and efficiently route from it's customers to it's servers. If you have a big customer base, why not connect directly to Google's backbone. Maybe Google would pay for it!

That's not the way the telcos envisage things working though. They have heard that content is where the money is, they have assumed they were going to get a cut of it. But they sat back and did nothing, waiting for the money to roll in. Divine Right!?
They are beginning to realise that in the new world, the global corporation rules, the days of kingdoms are over.