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Degrading video quality is not a bad idea if you have limited bandwidth. This would help in cases such as airplane flights. One person watching HD cat videos

by lqdc13 10y ago

Degrading video quality is not a bad idea if you have limited bandwidth. This would help in cases such as airplane flights. One person watching HD cat videos is going to consume more bandwidth than 20 people doing work. Now, assuming bandwidth increase is difficult to achieve, they would be forced to keep increasing the price instead. Prioritizing non-video content is challenging if all content is encrypted.

icebraining 10y ago
Why not limit the bandwidth per user instead? Youtube itself will auto-adjust quality based on connection speed.
- dyladan 10y ago
  Not sure about other services but at least GoGo was limited to about 500kbps per user last I heard.
- acdha 10y ago
  Exactly – this is both easier to implement and has the advantage of not incentivizing people to use something like a VPN to get more bandwidth at the expense of everyone else.
  - mdani 10y ago
    Per user limits are not easy to implement, maybe easier to visualize - consider that there are a bunch of packet gateways sitting behind a load balancer and each HTTP session may end up on a different server. There is no entity that counts the live bandwidth usage on a per user basis, let alone control it. Billing and metering is done on a session basis through logs. So from T-Mo's point of view it is much easier to detect a HTTP session as video and just throttle that session.
    - blowski 10y ago
      Eh? Even cheap home routers these days allow you to set QoS rules per device. Have I misunderstood something?
      - gleenn 10y ago
        Just because your cheap home router does it doesn't mean it scales to thousands of users on one router. Some home routers are actually quite capable AND very unsaturated. I'm not trying to defend carriers but it is a very apples to oranges comparison.
        acdha 10y ago
        We did that on low-end PC hardware 15 years ago for conference and guest networks (800+ simultaneous active users, LAN and WiFi). I find it unlikely that Linux, FreeBSD have gotten less efficient since then and the hardware has made enormous improvements, far in advance of the common uplink speed.
        hueving 10y ago
        Are there thousands of people on a single flight?
        dredmorbius 10y ago
        And you thought legroom was bad now....
      - warcode 10y ago
        Cheap home routers with QoS has OUTBOUND QoS.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
      My university limits my bandwidth to 20mbps for HTTP/HTTPS and lower for SSH. Are they in a different position to normal ISPs?
    - azernik 10y ago
      It is very easy to implement this (I have worked on such a limiter before). You pick the point of entry into your network (wi-fi connection, ISP connection), keep packet and byte counts for every such point of entry, and limit them. ISPs have it especially easy, because they can be assured of being able to distinguish traffic from a given user (hardware control of the medium). It's a bit harder in wireless scenarios, since the client can spoof multiple different IDs, but it's hard for them to keep open a TCP connection under those conditions.
    - foota 10y ago
      Really? T-Mobile should know your mac address and ip and be able to rate limit based on that.
    - mrb 10y ago
      Per-user limits is certainly way easier to implement than deploying a cluster of proxies doing on-the-fly transcoding of video streams(!)
- lqdc13 10y ago
  Let's say there are only 2 users using it. Then a lot of bandwidth would go unused if each user has a hard cap. Ideally, there would be a dynamic limit based on network utilization and type of content consumed.
  - newman314 10y ago
    Don't think hard cap. Think avail bandwidth/num of users.
- _pmf_ 10y ago
  > Why not limit the bandwidth per user instead? Because that would require actual effort from ISPs, which would be in conflict with their current business practice that can be summarized as "to us, you are all equally worthless".
- spyder 10y ago
  The auto-adjustment is a problem for fast but traffic limited connections because it detects that the connection is fast, then it switches to HD or even 4K and the traffic limit gets used up faster even if the user don't need the better quality stream.
aw3c2 10y ago
> One person watching HD cat videos is going to consume more bandwidth than 20 people doing work. One HD stream probably uses more continuous bandwidth as those 20 people so just limit that. Allow bursts maybe. > Prioritizing non-video content is challenging if all content is encrypted. Good! It's none of their business what I am doing with my bandwidth!
kbenson 10y ago
The problem here is from who's perspective is there "limited bandwidth"? To the ISP there is limited bandwidth available, but to the customer they are having the service they pay for purposefully degraded because the ISP doesn't want to deliver on what they've marketed. > Now, assuming bandwidth increase is difficult to achieve, they would be forced to keep increasing the price instead. And they should. That ISPs commonly use deceptive practices in pricing and delivering service is not a good thing. It reduces market information There should be much more granular pricing based on what's actually delivered, but the major ISPs don't want to go that way because then they would actually have to account for how what they deliver so often falls below what they market. For example, when I moved into my brand new built house a couple years back and got a 25 Mbit Comcast connection set up, the following conversation happened: Installer: Wow, you have the best signal I've every seen actually. Me: Really? That's good. So what throughput am I seeing? Installer: Let me check. (Installer does a speed/circuit test). About 14 Mbit. Me: Didn't I order 25 Mbit? Installer: Yes, but lots of things can affect that, such as line quality... Me: (Having worked at a local ISP multiple times in the past for years, cuts him off, realizing the futility of this conversation). Okay, that's fine. In what reality do "the best signal I've ever seen" and 56% of the advertised throughput coincide? (this was not because the connection was overused by others in the neighborhood either, it was fairly consistent at 14 Mbit). > This would help in cases such as airplane flights. One person watching HD cat videos is going to consume more bandwidth than 20 people doing work. So would separate tiers of connectivity. If you are doing business, you may be happy with a guaranteed minimum throughput, while other people (such as those streaming) might be fine to take up the slack or excess (since you can cache future video). We've had this for a long time through QoS. > Prioritizing non-video content is challenging if all content is encrypted. So don't prioritize based on content, prioritize based on connection.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  FWIW, every time (about 6 times in 3 years I think) I've complained about slow connections to my ISP, with documentation from speedtest.net that I'm getting less bandwidth than promised, they've given me that month free of charge.
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
In which case you do what should have been done all along: Rate limit without regards to packet contents. People that still need better QoS than what that offers can pay for a higher tier to get a bigger chunk of the pie. With effective rate limiting in place the video bandwidth can be dropped by the server as necessary to maintain the stream. The infrastructure in the middle doesn't have any reason to meddle further.

by lqdc13 10y ago

icebraining 10y ago

Why not limit the bandwidth per user instead? Youtube itself will auto-adjust quality based on connection speed.

dyladan 10y ago
Not sure about other services but at least GoGo was limited to about 500kbps per user last I heard.
acdha 10y ago
Exactly – this is both easier to implement and has the advantage of not incentivizing people to use something like a VPN to get more bandwidth at the expense of everyone else.
- mdani 10y ago
  Per user limits are not easy to implement, maybe easier to visualize - consider that there are a bunch of packet gateways sitting behind a load balancer and each HTTP session may end up on a different server. There is no entity that counts the live bandwidth usage on a per user basis, let alone control it. Billing and metering is done on a session basis through logs. So from T-Mo's point of view it is much easier to detect a HTTP session as video and just throttle that session.
  - blowski 10y ago
    Eh? Even cheap home routers these days allow you to set QoS rules per device. Have I misunderstood something?
    - gleenn 10y ago
      Just because your cheap home router does it doesn't mean it scales to thousands of users on one router. Some home routers are actually quite capable AND very unsaturated. I'm not trying to defend carriers but it is a very apples to oranges comparison.
      - acdha 10y ago
        We did that on low-end PC hardware 15 years ago for conference and guest networks (800+ simultaneous active users, LAN and WiFi). I find it unlikely that Linux, FreeBSD have gotten less efficient since then and the hardware has made enormous improvements, far in advance of the common uplink speed.
      - hueving 10y ago
        Are there thousands of people on a single flight?
        dredmorbius 10y ago
        And you thought legroom was bad now....
    - warcode 10y ago
      Cheap home routers with QoS has OUTBOUND QoS.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
    My university limits my bandwidth to 20mbps for HTTP/HTTPS and lower for SSH. Are they in a different position to normal ISPs?
  - azernik 10y ago
    It is very easy to implement this (I have worked on such a limiter before). You pick the point of entry into your network (wi-fi connection, ISP connection), keep packet and byte counts for every such point of entry, and limit them. ISPs have it especially easy, because they can be assured of being able to distinguish traffic from a given user (hardware control of the medium). It's a bit harder in wireless scenarios, since the client can spoof multiple different IDs, but it's hard for them to keep open a TCP connection under those conditions.
  - foota 10y ago
    Really? T-Mobile should know your mac address and ip and be able to rate limit based on that.
  - mrb 10y ago
    Per-user limits is certainly way easier to implement than deploying a cluster of proxies doing on-the-fly transcoding of video streams(!)
lqdc13 10y ago
Let's say there are only 2 users using it. Then a lot of bandwidth would go unused if each user has a hard cap. Ideally, there would be a dynamic limit based on network utilization and type of content consumed.
- newman314 10y ago
  Don't think hard cap. Think avail bandwidth/num of users.
_pmf_ 10y ago
> Why not limit the bandwidth per user instead? Because that would require actual effort from ISPs, which would be in conflict with their current business practice that can be summarized as "to us, you are all equally worthless".
spyder 10y ago
The auto-adjustment is a problem for fast but traffic limited connections because it detects that the connection is fast, then it switches to HD or even 4K and the traffic limit gets used up faster even if the user don't need the better quality stream.

aw3c2 10y ago

> One person watching HD cat videos is going to consume more bandwidth than 20 people doing work. One HD stream probably uses more continuous bandwidth as those 20 people so just limit that. Allow bursts maybe. > Prioritizing non-video content is challenging if all content is encrypted. Good! It's none of their business what I am doing with my bandwidth!

kbenson 10y ago

The problem here is from who's perspective is there "limited bandwidth"? To the ISP there is limited bandwidth available, but to the customer they are having the service they pay for purposefully degraded because the ISP doesn't want to deliver on what they've marketed. > Now, assuming bandwidth increase is difficult to achieve, they would be forced to keep increasing the price instead. And they should. That ISPs commonly use deceptive practices in pricing and delivering service is not a good thing. It reduces market information There should be much more granular pricing based on what's actually delivered, but the major ISPs don't want to go that way because then they would actually have to account for how what they deliver so often falls below what they market. For example, when I moved into my brand new built house a couple years back and got a 25 Mbit Comcast connection set up, the following conversation happened: Installer: Wow, you have the best signal I've every seen actually. Me: Really? That's good. So what throughput am I seeing? Installer: Let me check. (Installer does a speed/circuit test). About 14 Mbit. Me: Didn't I order 25 Mbit? Installer: Yes, but lots of things can affect that, such as line quality... Me: (Having worked at a local ISP multiple times in the past for years, cuts him off, realizing the futility of this conversation). Okay, that's fine. In what reality do "the best signal I've ever seen" and 56% of the advertised throughput coincide? (this was not because the connection was overused by others in the neighborhood either, it was fairly consistent at 14 Mbit). > This would help in cases such as airplane flights. One person watching HD cat videos is going to consume more bandwidth than 20 people doing work. So would separate tiers of connectivity. If you are doing business, you may be happy with a guaranteed minimum throughput, while other people (such as those streaming) might be fine to take up the slack or excess (since you can cache future video). We've had this for a long time through QoS. > Prioritizing non-video content is challenging if all content is encrypted. So don't prioritize based on content, prioritize based on connection.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
FWIW, every time (about 6 times in 3 years I think) I've complained about slow connections to my ISP, with documentation from speedtest.net that I'm getting less bandwidth than promised, they've given me that month free of charge.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago

In which case you do what should have been done all along: Rate limit without regards to packet contents. People that still need better QoS than what that offers can pay for a higher tier to get a bigger chunk of the pie. With effective rate limiting in place the video bandwidth can be dropped by the server as necessary to maintain the stream. The infrastructure in the middle doesn't have any reason to meddle further.