Executive Summary
This is a case of Akamai Technologies, a company that is concerned with making improvements in the current internet technologies and infrastructures. The main problem in the case was the fact that the current internet infrastructures offer limited services to a lot of bandwidth hungry users and so there are fears that in about the next succeeding years, the bandwidth demand may well surpass the bandwidth supply, which would definitely be a bad thing especially for heavy users and businessmen that are dependent on the internet for e-commerce purposes. Possible solutions include improving the capacity of the internet infrastructures from time to time—the goal is to increase it by a hundred percent annually, and to optimize the use of social media, e-mails, blogs, websites, search engines and other things on the internet for e-commerce purposes.
Identification of the Problem
The main problem in the paper was not the use of e-commerce but rather the way how the loopholes in internet technology and infrastructure affect the ability of the millions if not billions of internet users to use the various things in the internet such as social media, electronic mails, blogs, etc., either for personal and corporate purposes. Analysts suggest that by the next few years, the demand for internet bandwidth would eventually surpass the supply. On the other hand, some analysts from the other side of the story suggest that the worldwide capacity provided by internet infrastructures grow at a rate of two folds every year. And so as long as the growth of internet demand does not double every year, and as long as the capacity the internet technology and infrastructures collectively provide gets doubled every year, internet bandwidth demands would be met. But then again, the situation as of this moment is filled with a lot of what ifs which only shows how disorganized and fragile the current situation of the internet is.
Solutions to the Issues
One of the suggested solutions to the issue is the introduction of a new generation of internet infrastructures that some information technology experts would call the Internet 2. This new generation of internet would make use of more advanced technologies and infrastructures such as fiber optics, more codes optimized towards a higher rate of transmission between a server and a user who is requesting for a certain information, and lower rates of latency. This way, the internet could be improved and things would be a lot easier and smoother for those who host and use e-commerce services. Some recommended ways how users and hosts can use the internet in boosting their e-commerce efforts include but are not limited to the use of electronic mails, instant messaging and social media platforms, search engines—through search engine optimization, online forums and message boards, media streaming platforms—such as YouTube and Hulu, and blogs.
- Why does Akamai need to geographically disperse its servers to deliver its customers’ Web Content?
Akamai needs geographical repositioning of its servers because it is basically the backbone of its high speed internet provisioning services. It localizes the data to a specific geographical location through its servers so that users or subscribers there would be able to access the web pages they usually browse faster than normal. Unfortunately, without geographical repositioning or having servers within the geographical vicinity of say a cluster of clients in North America, their services would be useless.
- If you wanted to deliver software content over the internet, would you sign up for Akamai’s service? What alternatives exist?
- What advantages does an advertiser derive from using Akamai’s Service? What kinds of products might benefit from this kind of service?
Some of the advantages include the advertisers’ faster access to the market and the market’s faster access to the ads which of course would lead to increased client base, which is basically the goal of advertising. Any line of products can benefit a lot from advertising, but in this case, locally made products would turn out to benefit the most.
- Why don’t major business firms distribute their videos using P2P networks like Bit Torrent?
There are a lot of copyright and other legal and also ethical issues that are associated with the use of P2P networks. It goes to say that the flow of information and intellectual properties there are not entirely moderated and so it would not really be advisable for any credible company or even one that wants to establish credibility to use it as their e-commerce backbone.
- Do you think internet users should be charged based on the amount of bandwidth they consume or on a tiered plan where users would pay in rough proportion to their usage?
I would go with the latter. This is because this is the only way to establish fairness with regards to internet bandwidth usage. Because of the activities of heavy users on the internet, moderate and light users eventually become affected because of the limited bandwidth delivery capabilities of the currently available internet infrastructures. Having the heavy users pay would really help because it brings justice to the sluggishness and lagging of the connection of other moderate to light users. Furthermore, their larger contribution to the internet services rendered for the sake of their heavy requirements may be used more meaningfully to upgrade the ISP’s internet capabilities.
Critique, Recommendations and Conclusions
The ideas that were presented in the paper were all valid and logical. The recommended ways that were just presented in the solutions section of this paper also directly address the problem brought about by the limitations on internet technologies and infrastructures. In fact, the issue was so detailed and brilliantly covered that there would be nothing to add up anymore. In conclusion, the main problem in the paper is not the way how people and businesses use e-commerce for whatever purposes there may be, but rather on the way how internet technology and infrastructure loopholes contribute to the former. There are fortunately a lot of direct and indirect ways to handle, prevent, and mitigate the issue.
