Developer Forum

I had an idea the other day and am wondering what others think about
it:

Since cable modem networks are nothing more than WANs, content can in
theory be placed on ISP servers and delivered to customers at a much
higher speed than over the Internet.

With that in mind, wouldn't it be much more efficient to have some
sort of "Windows Update Appliance" (example) download every update at
ISP off-peak hours, then distribute them to customers when requested.
I know such a thing would involve restructuring how Windows Update
works... and Microsoft's strategy on collecting private information.
But this seems like something much more effective (for the ISP at
least) than say, an Akamai box.

Just a thought...

Greg Liebowitz

Money, that'll cost.

--
-- James Fenimore Cooper
The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes,
knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.

In article < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >,



Been there tried that. (below)


Microsoft already offers exactly this, for Enterprise users. It would
be easily doable to make it available for private users.

But...

There are no off-peak hours anymore. Moot anyway, given the available
bandwidth of the bigger backbones.

Due to the litigious nature of end-users and Microsloth... An ISP-run
"mirror" would be a major liability target.

To give you an idea of how twitchy end-users are... Comcast installed
Akamai caching servers a few years back. Before they even had them
tuned up, people nailed them with lawsuits, newspaper articles, and
legislator "investigation". So Comcast turned them off. We broadband
users don't want that much speed, apparently.

- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus
- South Jersey, USA, Earth