Why do China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile limit my internet speed when I pay on time every month?

According to news on January 16, there is a particularly hot topic, that is, some operators impose uplink speed limits on home broadband access users, and even cause local outages, which has caused quite a bit of controversy.

"If I pay my broadband fee on time every month, why should the operator limit my speed?" This is a question asked by many netizens.

In this complete buyer's market, why are operators willing to risk the loss of users and limit the uplink speed for users? Is it reasonable and legal for operators to do this? What should consumers do if they encounter speed limit issues?

It all starts with PCDN.

What is PCDN?

Simply put, PCDN is P2P CDN. It is a content distribution network (CDN) service built based on P2P technology by mining and utilizing massive fragmented idle resources of telecom edge networks. It is suitable for video on demand and live broadcast. , download and other business scenarios.

P2P is easy to understand, and CDN is actually not difficult. The core principle is to place the content as close to the user as possible, so that users can access the content source nearby, thereby obtaining a better user experience. The business model of CDN service providers is B2B2C, which provides a better experience to downstream C-side users and then collects money from the upstream B-side based on different standards of experience.

Therefore, they must have a large number of nodes close to users, most of which are leased. At the same time, they must purchase backbone network bandwidth resources from operators to ensure user experience. The competition in the CDN market is very fierce and it is a typical low-profit market. All the money is used to buy basic resources.

For some new entrants, they must find a way to break the situation, and PCDN appears! PCDN is not difficult from a technical perspective. What is difficult is forming a "workable" business model.

From a technical perspective, PCDN can be implemented using SDK or dedicated intelligent hardware.

Users can embed the SDK in their own routers, but this is not suitable for novice users; players such as Xunlei Netxin Cloud, Wanke Cloud, Money Making Treasure, JD Cloud Wireless Treasure, Dim Sum Cloud, etc., use The relatively low price provides users with a higher-configuration router, and it also uses the slogan "You can make money while sleeping."

For example, Baidu Netdisk will give you points that can be redeemed for membership, JD Cloud Wireless Bao will give you points that can be redeemed for Jingdou and JD E Cards, and Wanke Cloud is more simple and crude, giving money directly.

For example, I learned from the official website of Dianxin Cloud that its revenue is calculated according to the 95 billing rule and is settled according to the contribution value of the traffic. Using a 100M uplink broadband as an example, China Unicom and Telecom can obtain a daily revenue of 6 -8 yuan, and you can earn 3-4 yuan per day through mobile. The larger the bandwidth, the higher the performance and the higher the income.

For ordinary users, they may think this is a good thing. They can use "idle bandwidth" to earn "after-sleep income" and earn a cup of "milk tea money" every week. There may be more and more users. More users join it, forming new CDN nodes. These nodes are not computer rooms but routers/intelligent hardware.

Although the network bandwidth and performance provided by a single node are relatively limited, if the number of nodes is large enough and exceeds a certain threshold, it may enter a positive business cycle.

It is also of great benefit to CDN service providers or OTT service providers. Taking iQiyi as an example, the HCDN developed by it is turned on by default to "free" users' uplink bandwidth to help enterprises control network bandwidth costs.

Playing monopoly and pursuing hegemony? no!

Those who gain will lose, and in this PCDN game, operators are the victims.

Whether it is a mobile network or a fixed network, operators have always been faced with the problem of traffic revenue scissors, and the traffic growth rate far exceeds the revenue growth rate. In order to cope with traffic growth and ensure user experience, operators need to continuously upgrade and transform basic networks, resulting in high CAPEX.

Taking home broadband users as an example, the performance of the main equipment in the existing network is asymmetrical in uplink and downlink, with large downlink and small uplink. If the PCDN uplink traffic is highly concurrent, it will have an impact on other users in the community. ; Moreover, these uplink traffic will eventually converge to the metropolitan area network and backbone network, increasing network operation and maintenance costs and bringing new capacity expansion pressure.

At the same time, the proliferation of PCDN will also affect the government and enterprise businesses of operators. Take the CDN business as an example. The largest capital expenditure for CDN service providers is to purchase backbone network bandwidth resources from operators. PCDN may lead to loss of potential revenue. Taking OTT service providers such as iQiyi as an example, it will also cause a loss of revenue. drain.

Of course, there may be many users who believe that freedom is freedom without prohibition. PCDN has touched the cake of operators, and operators have adopted speed limits and local suspensions to play monopoly and seek hegemony. But this view is not correct.

First of all, operators act in accordance with the rules. When ordinary users apply for home broadband services, the agreement usually clearly stipulates that home broadband cannot be used for commercial purposes, and the existence of PCDN already falls within the scope of commercial purposes.

Secondly, according to the requirements of the "Notice of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Cleaning up and Regulating the Internet Network Access Service Market", enterprises and individuals without corresponding telecommunications business licenses are not allowed to operate IDC, ISP, CDN and other businesses for personal use. Manufacturers operating PCDN services provide video boxes or cloud disk equipment at low prices or free of charge, and aggregate the upstream bandwidth of home broadband for profit, which in fact forms an illegal CDN distribution business.

Third, if the PCDN box used by an individual contains illegal, pornographic, fraud-related videos, games, etc., and these contents are uploaded to others for access by the manufacturer using broadband, they will bring consequences to themselves. Legal risks of spreading illegal content.

At the same time, there is also a view that since PCDN is illegal, why not directly ban the PCDN operating platform? That's because many service providers currently providing PCDN services have CDN operating licenses. They can provide CDN services reasonably and legally, but using the PCDN method is another matter.

Written at the end

In this heated discussion on PCDN management and control, the core contradiction lies in the embarrassing identity of the operator, who is both an athlete and a referee. This resulted in that although it had legal support and was bound by agreements, it was still criticized, which had a negative impact on the corporate image. To solve this problem, clearer rules and standards are needed.

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