5 ms·

>In 2015 they redefined it as 25 Mbit/s down, 3 Mbit/s up. How can that be? That's the same time we achieved net neutrality. That's not net neutral. That's fas

by danjoc 9y ago

>In 2015 they redefined it as 25 Mbit/s down, 3 Mbit/s up. How can that be? That's the same time we achieved net neutrality. That's not net neutral. That's fast lane on download, slow lane on upload. Asymmetric bandwidth is a prime reason why we all can't host our own clouds and social networks.

ahupp 9y ago
I have never seen anyone define net neutrality as including symmetric bandwidth. I am also skeptical that lack up upload bandwidth has much to do with the lack of success for self-hosted social networks.
- narag 9y ago
  I've heard two theories about capped upload bandwith: making possible to upsell premium hosting services and P2P damage control.
  - ahupp 9y ago
    I think the simplest explanation is that the transport uses a fixed allocation of bandwidth between upstream and downstream flows, and they've chosen an allocation that matches typical workloads. It looks like full-duplex DOCSIS (data-over-coax protocol) was just announced last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS
    - fjsolwmv 9y ago
      That's begging the question. The up/down ratios they choose determine what workloads are possible/typical. More upstream means there would be other workflows enabled.
      - chimeracoder 9y ago
        > That's begging the question. The up/down ratios they choose determine what workloads are possible/typical. More upstream means there would be other workflows enabled. Not really, because the options exist at different tiers. If you have 5/1, 10/3, 25/5, and 100/20 as options, and you notice that people choose 10/3 and saturate their download but only use a third of their upload capacity, then turning that into a symmetric system would result in them having to pay more for the same usage. On the other hand, if you noticed that people were choosing the 100/20 but only peaking at 15 down and 15 up, then yes, it would be clear that customers would prefer a symmetric system. As it stands, P2P is a pretty rare use case for residential broadband, even when the capacity exists. Access to symmetric speeds is unlikely to increase P2P usage, because those aren't the main blockers.
        narag 9y ago
        Not really, because the options exist at different tiers. There are not so many options where I live, none in practice. Anyway, those tiers are, after all, commercial options. Is the cost for providers really different? If there isn't a substantial difference, then the upsell theory stands. If people doesn't want upload, why do they throttle it? It would be a nice selling point: you offer a plus that looks nice and costs you nothing. Access to symmetric speeds is unlikely to increase P2P usage, because those aren't the main blockers. That's backwards. What they're supposedly doing is discouraging usage. There is more usage than wanted (no matter if it's not common) so measures are put in place to shrink it even more. The measure does not affect most users so they can get away with it: "only those few freeloaders want more". Edit -> also consider this: upload limitation in P2P isn't obviously negative. You still can download at max speed so you could think the limitation as a bad thing for others. You need to think for a while to understand why it's also bad for you.
      - jnordwick 9y ago
        +1 for proper use of begging the question
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
w0m 9y ago
But different technologies support different speeds. Fiber can do symmetric much easier than cable can as an example, and cable is much more ubiquitous.
djsumdog 9y ago
Network neutrality has nothing to do with bandwidth. Network neutrality means if I purchase a pipe with x Mbps of potential bandwidth, my communication on that pipe to any destination should have equal priority. In other words, an ISP shouldn't be able to add rules that say, "When our pipe is congested and we need to slow or drop packets, Google has the highest priority, followed by Amazon, then x, y, z." You cannot shape or throttle traffic basted on where it comes and goes. You could still have congestion. Maybe the route to AWS has a shorter round trip than to Digital Ocean because of which backbones the ISP has decided to pay for and connect to. But the point of Network Neutrality is that ISPs cannot priorities one packet type over the other. They must try to deliver each payload from each customer evenly and, if they can't, slow or block those payloads evenly and without prejudice. The one exception to this is if the customer is on IPv6 and uses the prioritization available in the protocol. But even then, the customer is sending an indication to the ISP saying "this packet is not as important" or "this packet is very important."

by danjoc 9y ago

ahupp 9y ago

I have never seen anyone define net neutrality as including symmetric bandwidth. I am also skeptical that lack up upload bandwidth has much to do with the lack of success for self-hosted social networks.

narag 9y ago
I've heard two theories about capped upload bandwith: making possible to upsell premium hosting services and P2P damage control.
- ahupp 9y ago
  I think the simplest explanation is that the transport uses a fixed allocation of bandwidth between upstream and downstream flows, and they've chosen an allocation that matches typical workloads. It looks like full-duplex DOCSIS (data-over-coax protocol) was just announced last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    That's begging the question. The up/down ratios they choose determine what workloads are possible/typical. More upstream means there would be other workflows enabled.
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > That's begging the question. The up/down ratios they choose determine what workloads are possible/typical. More upstream means there would be other workflows enabled. Not really, because the options exist at different tiers. If you have 5/1, 10/3, 25/5, and 100/20 as options, and you notice that people choose 10/3 and saturate their download but only use a third of their upload capacity, then turning that into a symmetric system would result in them having to pay more for the same usage. On the other hand, if you noticed that people were choosing the 100/20 but only peaking at 15 down and 15 up, then yes, it would be clear that customers would prefer a symmetric system. As it stands, P2P is a pretty rare use case for residential broadband, even when the capacity exists. Access to symmetric speeds is unlikely to increase P2P usage, because those aren't the main blockers.
      - narag 9y ago
        Not really, because the options exist at different tiers. There are not so many options where I live, none in practice. Anyway, those tiers are, after all, commercial options. Is the cost for providers really different? If there isn't a substantial difference, then the upsell theory stands. If people doesn't want upload, why do they throttle it? It would be a nice selling point: you offer a plus that looks nice and costs you nothing. Access to symmetric speeds is unlikely to increase P2P usage, because those aren't the main blockers. That's backwards. What they're supposedly doing is discouraging usage. There is more usage than wanted (no matter if it's not common) so measures are put in place to shrink it even more. The measure does not affect most users so they can get away with it: "only those few freeloaders want more". Edit -> also consider this: upload limitation in P2P isn't obviously negative. You still can download at max speed so you could think the limitation as a bad thing for others. You need to think for a while to understand why it's also bad for you.
    - jnordwick 9y ago
      +1 for proper use of begging the question

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

w0m 9y ago

But different technologies support different speeds. Fiber can do symmetric much easier than cable can as an example, and cable is much more ubiquitous.

djsumdog 9y ago

Network neutrality has nothing to do with bandwidth. Network neutrality means if I purchase a pipe with x Mbps of potential bandwidth, my communication on that pipe to any destination should have equal priority. In other words, an ISP shouldn't be able to add rules that say, "When our pipe is congested and we need to slow or drop packets, Google has the highest priority, followed by Amazon, then x, y, z." You cannot shape or throttle traffic basted on where it comes and goes. You could still have congestion. Maybe the route to AWS has a shorter round trip than to Digital Ocean because of which backbones the ISP has decided to pay for and connect to. But the point of Network Neutrality is that ISPs cannot priorities one packet type over the other. They must try to deliver each payload from each customer evenly and, if they can't, slow or block those payloads evenly and without prejudice. The one exception to this is if the customer is on IPv6 and uses the prioritization available in the protocol. But even then, the customer is sending an indication to the ISP saying "this packet is not as important" or "this packet is very important."