ISP Rise Against P2P Users 574
bananaendian writes "Spencer Kelly from BBC's Click program writes about the emerging backslash against high bandwidth P2P users. Apparently it has been estimates that up to one third of internet's traffic is caused by BitTorrent file-sharing program. Especially ISPs who are leasing their bandwidth by the megabyte are more inclined to resort to 'shaping your traffic' by throttling ports, setting bandwidth limits or even classifying accounts according services used. What is your ISPs policy regarding P2P and is it fair for them to put restrictions and conditions on its use."
did anyone honestly fail to see this coming? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:did anyone honestly fail to see this coming? (Score:5, Funny)
P2P: Forward slash. Riposte.
ISP: Touche. QOS Packet Filtering!
P2P. Lunge. Encryption!
ISP: En guard. Subpoena compliance.
P2P: Aahaaah! Ubiquitous Mesh Networks.
ISP: Arrrgh! [dies].
Where is BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?
Re:did anyone honestly fail to see this coming? (Score:2)
On your scenario... I think there's a bit more between Encryption and Subpoena Compliance.... Mostly because *no one* wants Subpoena Compliance.
Honestly all the ISP's need to get out of the unlimited business, because we all know it isn't unlimited. This business model in the US is just plain stupid.
I have metered access during the day and un-metered at night this is exactly what paid for and my ISP & I don't have a problem with each other. Grant it I proba
Re:did anyone honestly fail to see this coming? (Score:5, Funny)
I think I've made my point-by-car-analogy quite clear.
Re:did anyone honestly fail to see this coming? (Score:3, Interesting)
they can't ever filter this out, even if they
Re:did anyone honestly fail to see this coming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Limiting a users use of bandwidth is not about legal or illegal, it is about giving users the bandwidth they have paid for. If you pay for dedicated bandwidth, then there is no reason to filter or shape your traffic except to l
That's nothing (Score:4, Informative)
However, I am not a grammar or spelling nazi. I love Slashdot just as it is, warts and all. I make spelling and grammar mistakes all the time [slashdot.org]. I just wanted to play at being an anal dickhead for a moment, just to see how it felt.
Just so I understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, seriously, why did they think customers wanted 5Mb/s? So they could download movie previews from the QT website?
Seriously, somebody explain their business plan to me.
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm, yes? Most high speed users are burst high-speed users, who get on their PC and browse around YouTube and other high bandwidth sites, and then "log off" and go about their life. They don't sit sucking 100% of the capacity around the clock, but when they do the high bandwidth is very beneficial.
The reality is that it is grossly economically unsustainable for someone to max out their connection perpetually, which is why many high speed providers have had max throughputs per time period since their inception (cue someone complaining about some provider that never did, yet a lot did. Up here in Canada, the major cable providers that operated under the @Home banner always listed a max throughput, beyond which they can assess additional charges, or disconnect you, or force you to upgrade to a much more expensive service if you want to continue).
My car might have 255HP, and while that helps me pass trucks and merge onto highways better, it doesn't mean that I drive around the clock with the pedal pushed to the floor.
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your car's maximum power output not being used all the time (i.e. a mechanical device, that suffers wear and tear, used in a transport system that's controlled by a bunch of independant and variously-skilled drivers) has absolutely nothing to do with not using networking connections full time at 100% data rate. The latter is because of business economic reasons, since networks have:
a) no loss incurred by running at 100% over 10% capacity (assuming reasonably decent routers, and ignoring the pretty-much-spurious congestion hassles at the routers) - compared to the car analogy, at least, and...
b) no such things as "poor drivers". "Poor drivers" could only be broken routers, which would be removed from the network and replaced as soon as they're found. On the other hand, you have to live with "poor drivers" in the car system regardless of the fact that *they* should arguably be removed from the system.
Death to the car analogy!!!
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:5, Interesting)
On an ISP scale, you _never_ want to get to the point where you are using 100% of your bandwidth, because the network will slow down to a crawl. All of your customers who play online games, have Vonage, or just browse the web will immediately start complaining, because those services simply aren't usable when the network is congested. Neither car engines nor networks are designed to run at 100% load, all the time. The exact reasons may be different, but the analogy itself is spot-on.
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:3)
OK how about the toilet analogy then? If everybody in town flushes their toilet at the same time, the water pressure drops and some firefighters might not have enough water pressure to save your house from burning down. Public works services, are sized for some average usage level. If every user starts downloading gigabytes of data, the network becomes overloaded like the LA freeways during rush hour. Building both
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Come to think of it, banks work that way, too; they lend out most of what they take in so they actually have relatively little cash on hand. If a run starts on the bank, then they run out of cash very quickly.
It's a highly efficient way of maximizing use of resources when it is not expected that everyone will want to use those resources to capacity at once--but it only works when there isn't a reason to use them to capacity.
The irony is that until BitTorrent, broadband was having a hell of a time getting people to sign up--because, after all, what would they need it for? And now that there's actually a "killer app," people are signing up so fast and using so much that it's causing a "backslash" (heh heh). Either feast or famine, nothing in-between.
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is true that they shouldn't expect their users to suck all of their capacity around the clock, but I don't think that gives them the right to enforce measures for them not to do it. They offered a service that allowed their users a certain bandwidth, usually around the clock, and the (note: paying) subscribers have the right to use as much as they want from that service.
I agree that it is not feasible to maintain such a service under the assumption that many subscribers will be sucking the life out of it 24 hours a day, but that is a problem of the ISP. If they want to offer a more restrictive service, then they should inform their subscribers of what they are receiving for their money. As far as I know, they offer a fixed bandwidth which is available throughout the day. If that is so, then subscribers should get exactly that and they shouldn't be blocked or filtered because of their activities.
If they want to change the rules of the game, they should put them on paper.
Re:Two Solutions to the 'problem' (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a legitimate use (Score:2)
if people started really pimping out video conferencing with set top boxes for your tv using a wireless lan connection or something not only would you have a legitimate use but youd have isps scared sh%tless that people would beg for more bandwidth.
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:2)
Now, I understand the point of your argument that it's stupid to offer unlimited if you don't want pe
Re:Just so I understand... (Score:2)
The way I see it... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm on a residential connection, I can expect to not get full speed during peak times due to overselling, but if I can download HTTP at the full 8mbit but only 2mbit from a torrent, something is wrong.
Hopefully users of the ISPs that do this will choose to switch, though I'd imagine that the choices are limited in many areas.
Re:The way I see it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just curious, have you ever read the service contract with your ISP? I know I haven't. My guess would be that they include a paragraph to the tune of, "If the user is doing something we don't like, we can do whatever we want about it."
Re:The way I see it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The way I see it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The way I see it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The way I see it... (Score:2)
If you are willing to do so, then be my guest. Otherwise, realize that it is their network, they can do whatever they want with it.
Re:The way I see it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, no, actually. That claim is easily proven to be false: they can't use their network to sell child porn, therefore they can't do whatever they want with it.
They can do whatever they want within the limits of the law and the constraints of the contract they have signed with you.
If you have agreed in your contract that they can throttle your usage or restrict certain types of traffic, then they can do that. On the other hand, if they have foolishly agreed to supply you with a certain level of connectivity regardless of what you are using it for, then they cannot simply turn around and say "oops, we've changed our minds" -- they took your money, and that means they are obliged to give you what you paid for.
I suspect most, if not all, of the contracts people have agreed to do permit the ISP to change the terms of service and do permit the ISP to restrict traffic based on what the ISP decides is reasonable. In which case, yes, they can do that. But please don't spread the dangerous myth that ownership of property allows you ultimate power over that property. It doesn't. Every right has responsibilities attached.
Re:The way I see it... (Score:2)
Maybe if you pay an assload for Speakeasy or small business DSL, that's the case. But with most ISPs, they consider that you are paying for the privilege of using a part of their bandwidth. It isn't even analogous to renting--it's more like paying someone money so they le
Re:The way I see it... (Score:2)
I currently live in an apartment where all of my utilities are part of my rent and do take advantage of that benefit in using a fair amount of power and water... thing is though I could use more, but I know that there is some... line that if crossed to frequently that the land lord will see fit to raise my rent.
It hasn't happened yet, but I still expect it one day that could happen so I avoid overly excessive use and getting noticed, the same thing most ISP users should be doing unle
Re:The way I see it... (Score:2)
Re:The way I see it... (Score:2)
No, you are most likely not guaranteed anything. At least if you are getting your standard, residential, consumer-oriented connection.
Even if you are willing to pay up for guarantees (ie. get a connection with a Service Level Agreement that has
Re:The way I see it... (Score:2)
Arguing that some providers doing crap like this will actually spur competition, in the end making the net better off for the end users. Not sure if I agree, though hearing about the amount of bittorrent traffic there is gives hope to idea that those using it will switch to more open providers, thus giving those providers a market edge.
Re:The way I see it... (Score:3, Insightful)
I totally agree. Unless there's something prespecified before you sign up, any sort of service-throttling should be grounds for a lawsuit! Nevermind the fact that there are terabytes of legitimate files on P2P services (let's start with every linux distro in existance) - it's not all pirated stuff. Mayb
No problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No problem (Score:2)
And they are completely happy with that. If you are soaking their bandwidth 24/7, you are costing them money, and so if you leave, they *make* more money.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out!
Re:No problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe it or not, this is what many service providers would like you to do. If you're the kind of person who wants to eat $200 of steak all week long at the $5.95 buffet, we'd gladly help you go patronize someone else.
I'm the senior network engineer for a regional broadband operator. We were first to activate service in our region and had many heavy-use customers sign up along with the rest. Because we rate-limit P2P (as clearly explained in the service agreement and website FAQ), we saw about 8% to 10% of our customer base leave when the incumbant local exchange provider (ILEC) finally activated DSL.
I always found it amusing to see the ILEC do their dog and pony show when they had zero customers on the local DSL network. They'd feed the community with either a fractional T1 or at best, two T1's bonded. The speeds in their little demo trailer were impressive at first.
Then the P2P abusers would switch. Three months later, you'd see peak hour speeds of around 60 to 110 kbps - instant ISDN! Then we'd start getting calls from the abusers telling us we could have their business back ($35-$40 a month), but ONLY if we opened up P2P. The reality was our rate-limited P2P was ultimately faster than the unpoliced nasty DSL network that died when a handful of P2P servers lit up and consumed most of the bandwidth.
I've seen some pretty hilarious emails passed on from customer service, from the threats to file a class action lawsuit because we wouldn't permit unrestricted P2P (from people that had left us to go to a DSL network that was a disaster), to explanations that a customer's request should never be ignored if we are a good company. We'll even get the occasional Better Business Bureau complaint because we rate-limit. I've even seen explanations that we should charge everyone more money to subsidize the few abusers - apparently nobody wants to use their own money to pay for their P2P habit.
The funny thing is that we have a standard response that provides these customers with a connection that doesn't have the rate-limiting for about $200 per Mbps, with a guaranteed SLA. When you're delivering this to rural communities, $200/Mbps is pretty incredible and it's darn near our cost to get it there. Yet we never have takers on it - P2P hogs expect to dine for close to free.
Ultimately you have a choice: you can please 85% of your customers with well engineered traffic, and send the 10% abusers and 5% financial deadbeats to the competition, or you can please the losers and send away the good customers. If you want to stay in business, you know what the right decision is.
Re:No problem (Score:5, Funny)
Gee, I'd never expect that people too cheap to buy their own CDs and DVDs wouldn't want to pay more to get them for free.
I am SHOCKED, SHOCKED to learn (Score:4, Funny)
Fair? (Score:3, Insightful)
My ISP doesn't have an anti-p2p policy although, that said, I'm not aware of any in the UK that do. On the other hand most impose a download cap, which can amount to the same thing.
Re:Fair? (Score:2)
There are only two broadband pipes going into my house: coax and twisted pair ; cable and dsl. My feet and wallet don't have much of a choice in the matter.
Plusnet traffic shape (Score:2)
What really annoys me is they have three levels of service [plus.net], and their own VoIp traffic gets higher priority than competitors. That is an abuse of power.
-steve
My ISP (Score:2, Funny)
This can be fixed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This can be fixed (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes it can, and here's a paper on it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This can be fixed (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't ISPs support multicast, and remove the need for bittorrent? Oh, yes, because they want us to need (and, so, pay for) the bandwidth, not to use it.
Re:This can be fixed (Score:4, Informative)
To the best of my knowledge Azureus doesn't yet, but intends to. You can read about their Vivaldi system [aelitis.com] on their wiki. (Version as of the time I posted [aelitis.com].) It's designed to compute nodes that are close to each other so that Azureus can pick closer peers.
However, they don't actually use it yet, according to that page. But there is work towards it.
Inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
Bandwidth isn't free, and while you always have the chance to move to a different ISP if you don't agree with traffic shaping, ultimately there won't be any ISPs left who either a) traffic shape or b) have gone bankrupt.
Broadband is a contended service and a lot of people seem to forget that. Sure, you can get an uncontended connection to do what you want with, but be prepared to spend £1000+ per month for it.
Thinking it's reasonable to max out your connection 24x7 is about as reasonable as walking into an all-you-can-eat restaurant with a spade and wheelbarrow. You could hardly complain about being thrown out.
Re:Inevitable (Score:2)
Re:Inevitable (Score:5, Funny)
I mean that would be the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film, ``The Never-Ending Story''.
Re:Inevitable (Score:2)
No. They can refuse service. I worked at a pizza place where some folks were asked to not return... family of 4, ate about 7-8 pizzas off the buffet if I remember right.
Re:Inevitable (Score:2)
Re:Inevitable (Score:2)
All I'm asking is for you to try and explain to us non-ISP chaps
Re:Inevitable (Score:3, Informative)
Ever wonder why business DSL costs so much more? That's because they only oversell those connections about 2:1.
Re:Inevitable (Score:4, Informative)
"All you can eat" does not mean "all you can take home". "Unlimited use high-speed connection" DOES mean "unlimited use".
Re:Inevitable (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry... but that's not the way it should be. (Score:5, Insightful)
I myself am I high usage person. But I know this, and I'm okay with it. If an ISP doesn't like me using so much bandwidth they call me up and complain and I respond with "Sure no problem, I've got more money, take some of it, because I want to use more bandwidth." Traditionally in the past they've told me "UUUhhh we can't do that, you have to use less bandwidth!"
WHAT?!
Fortunately things are starting to change. I'm not paying my service provider extra fees for extra bandwidth and we're both happy.
I personally see the future going with zero restrictions, but people paying for the usage. This is the only way it will go, with companies that have attitudes like yours going bankrupt.
You're forgetting that people actually WANT to use these services. It's not your companies right to refuse them. It IS however your companies duty to its shareholders to come up with a way to satisfy market demands... and unthrottled P2P is one of them!
Quit thinking like a mindless zombie and get with the times!
Re:Inevitable (Score:2)
1. Agree to terms.
2. Stick to terms.
Now, bandwidth-shaping, artificial limits etc are here to stay? Fine, then include it in the deal. Don't advertise Unlimited Internet Access, when you're providing crippled, mangled occasional Internet Access.
Anything less is dishonest, sleezy and, depending on the specific contract and the specific country, downright illegal.
In fact, I place the 'oohh, but we'd die without it so we
Re:Inevitable (Score:2)
Mine, Mine, Mine (Score:2)
NTL (Score:2, Informative)
They don't bother me at all. I've uploaded an awful lot of gigabytes and downloaded several too, but they don't seem to care. My service is not degraded in any way.
Some of my friends use different providers though, which pull stunts like "classifying" you - ie, if you download much at certain times, you will be bunched into a group that downloads at the same kind of frequency as yourself. Thus slowing you down.
My opin
Re:NTL (Score:2)
The basis being that a larger vehicle causes more wear on the road. Are high bandwith downloads wearing out routers? I think not. ISPs may be charged by their upstreams but
Re:NTL (Score:2)
That would more closely reflect the bandwidth costs that the ISP sees if you maxed out that 5 Mbps link 24/7. You should be happy that ISP don't charge you the true costs since they realize that most folks don't max their links 24/7
Also traffic shaping isn't only about limiting bandwidth it is o
Here's what we do: (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, yes, we shape traffic. VOIP traffic gets top priority, ssh second, http third, and bittorrent, or any other p2p app get the lowest priority.
These prioritizations are shared across our client base. That way, if anyone is doing ANYTHING that isn't p2p, it gets priority over p2p traffic. We think this is fair. If you want to run your p2p app overnight when no one else is on, then have fun. If you're doing it during the day, don't expect to get priority over everyone else. Note that we DO offer to sell dedicated services, and we do note up front to our customers that what we sell them is BURSTABLE throughput and that they are buying something like 256k symmetrical dedicated, and the 1.5MB/768k is burst. they aren't buying that in dedicated chunks. If they want dedicated, we can sell them that, but they have to pay for it.
It just doesn't make sense to pay for 1.5Mbit symmetrical dedicated unless you're going to saturate that pipe ALL THE TIME.
So far, no complaints.
traffic shaping (Score:2)
Are the ISPs really doing traffic shaping or are they doing something more primitive? Are they really just doing port throttling? Detecting P2P traffic and artifically limiting its bandwidth? If so, that's stupid. done right, shaping s
Nope (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at it like this. I pay ISP for BW. I use BW. Because I use paid for BW, ISP lowers it. I can't honestly give my money to anyone ISP that does that.
I live in an apartment complex and we are allotted 500mb/24 hours otherwise traffic to our computer is put on a "lower priority" flag. I assume their logic is to prevent downloading of movies and what not. The problem is 500mb of legal data is totally feasable. Today I downloaded the EVE client, 564 MB. Now I have to suffer slower speeds because of it? Fuck that. Since my ISP is provided with my rent it's a one package deal and I don't have much of a choice, but once I purchase a home, hell will freeze over before I pay an ISP to throttle my bandwidth. My
-T
Re:Nope (Score:2)
you will still get the 1.5Mbit/sec, it is just the bulk/non-realtime traffic gets a lower priority. which, to me..makes sense. I can't think of any P2P or BitTorrent downloads that can be considered real-time, or interactive. So whether that download takes 30 minutes, or 90 minutes to download..big deal. The priority should go to interactive applications/protocols like HTTP/SSH/IM(s).
as patch deployment via BitTorrent bec
Re:Nope (Score:2)
When I moved in, I was told there was a problem and they had set up some sort of replacement while they fixed it. A few months la
Use NNTP Please (Score:3, Informative)
You will help out your ISP by only using downstream bandwidth. You can also usually max-out your connection speed. A CD can take only 15-20 minutes to download.
Further, your troubles with the RIAA/MPAA/Homeland Security are likely to be limited to when you, say, post on a heavily visited site about your activity but forget to post anonymously.
For the best binary newsreader (to download files) from USENET, I reccomend Power Grab [snu.ac.kr] -- small, fast, free, and doesn't fiddle around with your registry.
You will probably need to subscribe to a USENET service as well; I reccomend easynews [easynews.com] or if you plan to download more than 20 GB per month than Giganews [giganews.com].
Re:Use NNTP Please (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Contract (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Contract (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're buying 2mbit of dedicated bandwidth, then yes you're entitled to it no matter what you do with it. But most people buying broadband connections aren't buying dedicated bandwidth. They're buying shared bandwidth burstable to (for example) 2mbit. In that case, using 2mbit continuously is trying to use something you didn't buy.
It's like my old dial-up ISP. They sold two kinds of accounts: standard dial-up, and dedicated modem lines. With a dedicated line, you bought modems for both ends and a dedicated phone line from your house to the ISP and you were entitled to exclusive use of that connection all the time. A standard dial-up account was not a dedicated line, and the assumption was that you weren't going to be dialed in continuously. So when people bought a standard dial-up account and tried to stay dialed in 24x7, after a bit the ISP sent them a nasty-gram: "Either buy a dedicated line, stop trying to stay dialed in 24 hours a day, or find your account terminated. If you haven't chosen in 10 days, we'll choose #3 for you.". I'd note that a standard dial-up account was $20/month, while a dedicated line started at $120/month and went up depending on distance ($20 for the account, $100 and up for phone company charges for the pair).
Argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
It went along the lines of this:
Him: You can't just download massive amounts of data from bittorrent etc.
Me: Why not? All the ISP's talk about "unlimited" broadband, by that very definition they aren't limiting it.
Him: But they have to pay for that bandwidth.
Me: Yeah? And I pay for them to provide me a service that is unlimited as advertised, if they're complaining now about how people are using more bandwidth than they expected then that's too bad. They advertised it as unlimited (something a LOT of UK ISP's do), and now they're complaining? They've only got themselves to blame.
Long story short, all these ISPs who are whinging only have themselves to blame. They hark on about "SUPER FAST BROADBAND1!!1!! WITH NO LIMITS!!!11!!" and then they discover that people actually use it?
Idiots.
Rogers (Score:5, Informative)
It's just a matter of time before they find a way around this to filter all multiple-connection downloads though, and that scares me, considering that we really only have two high-speed ISPs here, Rogers and Sympatico DSL. Everyone else uses their lines, and thus their filtering. Hopefully we'll have more effective header encryption by then.
Re:Rogers (Score:2)
The funny thing is, I'm actually downloading less now that I'm on this connection. I don't know why, but my guess goes something like this:
a) I'm downloading something, taking a while
b) Log in to torrent server, looking at stats and to see if there's any new, faster, torrents with the same stuff in it
c) Find other stuff I think I might want, so
Re:Rogers (Score:5, Informative)
I'm on Rogers, I use Azureus, and I am now, after a bit of research, getting good Torrent traffic rates after getting crummy experiences with BitComet.
Here's what I do with my Azureus client:
I find that by using these settings and plugins, Roger's datashaping devices (that they won't publicly admit to) haven't kill my fullspeed torrent traffic yet. I'll wait for the next countermeasure, but I might just maneuver my port onto the VoIP port since their Home Phone service is too expensive.
Re:Rogers (Score:4, Informative)
DIfferent services for different people (Score:2, Insightful)
the cheapest cable has a monthly limit of 1gig up and 1gig down and a speed around 256kbit down, which is very low but acceptable if you only do light browsing and email. The next level of broadband cable is 10gig up/ 20gig down at 6mbit down, 900kbit up, which is fine if you are a casual bittorent user who doesn't leave the application open overnight every night (fine for the occasional linux iso or tv show). The most expensive c
My ISP is rediculous (Score:2, Interesting)
Bandwidth vs. data volume (Score:2)
Bandwidth is how fast you can send or receive data. Data volume is how much data you send or receive. The ISPs are concerned about the data volume you use, not the bandwidth.
turning the tables (Score:3, Insightful)
When most of the big ISPs hit the scenes, they were all about promises. The provider that promised the most had the best shot at getting the new customers in what was a bit of a feeding frenzy as people rushed to get onto the "information superhighway". So naturally they promised no limits. If you will remember back ~10 years ago, there WERE limits. I very clearly remember my university had a large bank of dial-in modems at 2400bps, and a small bank of "fast" 9600's, and we were limited to 24 hrs per month on the fast ones. Anyone under such limits would gladly go with another ISP that had no limits on traffic.
Five years ago this was not a big deal for the ISPs. Very few users were even achieving 1/4 of their cap. An ISP could easily place customers on their network that could, if they capped out, consume 4x the available bandwidth that the ISPs were leasing. Since the average user wouldn't go above 25% usage even at peak hours (8-10pm) this was fine. The typical ratio of dial-up customers to dial-in lines was between 7:1 and 11:1 depending on your ISP, so they were figuring that at peak times, only 1/7th of their customers would be online.
Now, with things like BitTorrent and always-on internet like DSL and cable, it's entirely possible for a customer to max their line out, even for weeks at a time. As more and more customers go with things like BT, the average bandwidth usage of a customer skyrockets, and ISPs have to scramble to handle complaints of "the internet didn't used to be this slow!" from customers, and have to pay for more bandwidth from their upstreams to keep customers happy.
It takes about a quarter second to realize this makes the ISPs unhappy. They have lowered their prices in response to competition, and now their costs are going up. Now, should we have pity for them? I tried to think of a single ISP in my area that went out of business, and I can't think of one. Not a single one. I don't care how much of a hit they're taking to their bottom line, they must still be plenty proffitable. So instead of having a 10mil quarter, now they're having to "suffer" a 7mil quarter. Waaaah.
The ISPs are looking for ways to protect their pocketbook. The ISP industry is still proffitable, it's just not as lucritive as it used to be. Customers are willing to pay less, and are demanding more. That is how a free market economy works. Unlike some markets today, (gas stations come immediately to mind...) there are still going to always be a few providers willing to offer a little lower price for the same service, or the same service you used to get from your old ISP at the same price. Lower my cap or "shape" my bandwidth so my services go slower and I'll change providers tomorrow. Just watch me.
Re:turning the tables (Score:2)
The ISPs are looking for ways to protect their pocketbook. The ISP industry is still proffitable, it's just not as lucritive as it used to be.
Maybe. It's possible that it's getting to the point where it may not be sustainable.
This whole issue makes a lot of people mad, but only because they haven't thought it through. It's all rather obvious:
It all depends (Score:2)
I on the other hand absolutely loath those ISP's who claim "unlimited" bandwidth wich in reality is "fair use" wich in reality is a few gigabyte.
Hell a few even in the year 2006 sell accounts with a 1 gig datalimit and charge a mint for going over it. Without offcourse CLEARLY spelling this out to the consumer.
Who then buys WoW or some other MMO game and then is suprised that the initial patch alone exceeds his
I use Plusnet in the UK and... (Score:2, Informative)
Since then they've introduced throttling, traffic shaping, removed their binaries, and the latency for games screws up more than it used to.
It's annoying when a company changes the contract every few months to screw you, and you can't reject it to keep your old one. The only option is to leave, which is by no means hassle free.
I've posted on their forums to get some kind of explanation but all I heard was that all the limi
The Trouble wih Bandwidth Shaping (Score:4, Insightful)
Bandwidth shaping deceived the actual speeds when troubleshooting user complaints. While the ISP can have the user "test" the throughput with a FTP-protocol transfer to a local server, the ISP allows full bandwidth for that particular service to that particular server. The ISP is using technical smoke-and-mirrors to rip off their customers.
Lowering user speeds based on usage is clearly unfair, if not illegal. I have seen first-hand how a tel-com DSL provider lowered the bandwidth, yet continued charging for the higher level of service. After my DSL provider performed a "speed check" without my knowledge, my maximum download speed was throttled to 650 Kbps down from 1.5 Mbps, but my monthly charge was never modified since my 512 Kbps upstream was not changed. It took a day of diagnostics and harassing their technical and customer support before I found out those details. (The only resolution they would provide is lowering it further to 512 Kbps up / 256 Kbps down and charging $9.99 less.) This happened after two years using the service at the 1.5 Mbps faster speed, and I believe it was because I was an active consumer of their bandwidth.
Internet Service Providers have one customer mold in their mind: Their perfect user checks email (through the ISP's SMTP server) and browses web pages. They are trying to sell high-speed access for low-response time for these activities, however, as users become more aware of high-speed services (P2P, Streaming movies, Vontage, Online video game entertainment) that customer mold changes. ISPs are having trouble adjusting to these users, and they are throttling their access in hopes they get frustrated and go away or stop using these high-speed services.
Someone who knows how the regulatory system works should pursue a complaint with the FCC when they encounter the bandwidth throttling on a specific application. This would bring light to the unscrupulous practice. The difficulty they would have is trying to determine how much actual throttling was done and how much of the latency was application specific or caused by problems outside the ISP.
Less and less ISPs provide free use of the bandwidth you purchase. Users pay for the entire spectrum of bandwidth, but ISPs will slow down your traffic if you are not using that bandwidth in the way they want. This is slowing down adoption of new technologies (problems with Vontage?) and eliminating business ideas that would require dedicated bandwidth.
Amount of Net Traffic (Score:5, Funny)
That means that only 2/3 of net traffic is spam?
Cox's policies (Score:3, Informative)
My ISP is Cox HSI. Where I live their policy is to apply transit caps, but enforcement is mainly limited to habitual high-volume offenders. If you go over the cap occasionally, you won't see anything happen. If you go over by a large amount for an extended period of time, though, you'll find your connection throttled back and possibly face termination of your account for ToS violation. They've had to wield this club quite rarely, as only about 2-3% of customers are problem cases. That small percentage is responsible for about 50% of traffic, so shutting down or throttling even a few of the worst offenders has a significant effect.
Try studying abroad with a 3 GB cap.. (Score:2)
I have a fiance' and several close friends back home. We realized that our own parents, even our older siblings (Gen X), didn't have the communication tools that we are graced with. Calls overseas are kind of expensive, about $0.10 a minute if they call me using a calling card and $0.30 a minute if I use a ring-back service here. Its unaffordable if we call directly.
I was ha
How UK broadband actually works. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't like the service that you are getting from your ISP or Cable Company you can always switch to another ISP who offers a better service though maybe at a higher price.
Given that DSL subscribers in the UK have recently been given the choice to upgrade to an 8Mbit service at no extra cost, an all you can eat service model is not going to be sustainable as the few bandwidth hogs will saturate their connections and leech all the bandwidth. There has to be some sort of fair use policy and this differs between the ISP's
PlusNet has taken to use traffic shaping to effectively block all p2p traffic once a user had gone over a rather small usage limit. This has resulted in a large migration of users away from PlusNet and onto my ISP Nildram. Nildram do not traffic shape and they give a generous 50gig per month download limit which only applied during peak times. After 12am to 8am it's all you can eat. They also role your previous months unused allowance over to the next month.
It remains to be seen if my ISP can cope with the extra demand but the point is this is a good example of the free market and capitalism. If a provider gives bad service or poor value for money their customers will simply migrate to another provider.
It's unfortunate the people in the U.S don't have such a free market for broadband.
It's the business model... (Score:2, Insightful)
A simple way around this (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a good idea (Score:3, Informative)
BitTorrent actually uses ToS flags specifically to make it easier to prioritize bandwidth and differentiate it from interactive (ssh, Quake) or semi-interactive traffic (www). Same as mldonkey.
The reason why? Your ISP is not stupid. They can limit available bandwidth specifically to you, and they will happily do so. They don't need to (nor would they want to, for the reason you mentioned, among other things) limit it based only on port and ignore the user. Otherwise, yes, every
For people who have never been behind the scenes.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Pretty much any ISP that's ever had to face a legal problem has somewhere in their contract/TOS/AUP that the service is a "best effort", regardless of anything else you may have heard. It's kind of like the "NO WARANTEE WHATSOEVER" clause in the GPL; it's designed to keep ISPs from getting sued in t
You Pay For This and They Give You That (Score:4, Insightful)
Legitimate use (Score:3, Insightful)
Customer: Why is my download so slow?
ISP: Well sir, we detected that you're using bittorrent, that must mean you're downloading pirated software or movies.
C: I'm an academic and I'm downloading some images from nasa I need for a class tommorrow.
I: uh..uhm.. have you tried turning it off and on?
2) I'll repeat the false advertising. Nowhere in the advertisements does it say "Unlimited HTTP traffic at super high speeds!". In fact nowhere in the advertisements I've seen does it give any indication that a certain type of traffic is welcome.
3) Pick one: Usage cap, throttling. Enforce it. Make it very clear in your terms what the usage cap is, what the penalty for going over it is. Offer tiered usage plans, don't just sodomize them with something stupid like $10/GB after 20 GB limit. I have a 90 GB limit I believe, I usually top out around 36 GB a month. I haven't experienced any throttling to my knowledge. I do notice that legit linux distros go WAY faster that less than reputable torrent sites. I don't think that has anything to do with my ISP though.
4) Prepare for the backlash. If you choose to throttle, those users you so aggressively marketed to will be pissed off. If you don't spell out any limits on use very clearly, its going to bite you in the ass. If you want to advertise something you can't provide, don't sell the product.
Return of metered useage (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember when this was the norm, and few people really cared about the 'internet' ? un-metered usage is what caused/allowed things to take off. going back to it will hurt a lot of business that exist only because of the network.
This reminds me a a drug dealer. Cheap[ drugs until you get hooked.
Cell phones are next, now that all your teenagers are used to those 'free in-plan calling' things
Two sensible proposals ragrding P2P vs ISPs (Score:3, Insightful)
2) ISPs should not simply block P2P traffic, but should instead encourage P2P-traffic between users in their own and "friendly" network, so that more of the flow of data in P2P stays within their own networks, reducing fees to other nets. Since many P2P-networks consider latency in their queue ratings, one way would be to raise latency a little.
I am not even mentioning that ISPs should structure their contracts in such a way that power-users with high network load pay more. Using the networks resources fully is not rogue behavior, it is simply different behavior.
Re:Mis-Leading Comment (Score:2)
The only time I have a significant problem with Traffic-Shaping, and QoS services is when the same ISP who uses Traffic shaping to limit traffic advertises their Internet as 'unlimited'. There is no such thing and any ISP which uses it should be taken to task.
I am limited to the maximum bandwidth they will a lot me at any one time, and I am limited by the total data they will allow me to transfer wit
I agree, P2P isn't just for illegal downloads (Score:2)