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The unfortunate fact of QUIC is that it's based on encrypted UDP packets, which many ISP routers will happily drop during peak traffic/high load periods. EDIT:
by riobard 8y ago
The unfortunate fact of QUIC is that it's based on encrypted UDP packets, which many ISP routers will happily drop during peak traffic/high load periods.
EDIT: oh come on down voters. This comment is stating a fact. What's your problem with it?
- ianlevesque 8y agoGiven that it retransmits and TCP will also be suffering (slightly less?) during such periods, it doesn't seem like a show stopper.
- riobard 8y agoDepends on the ISP's traffic policy. I've witnessed many times when UDP packet loss is over 50% while TCP loss is below 10%.
- pilif 8y agoIf you are an ISP and you're preventing people using Google Chrome from accessing Google's properties (like youtube and gmail) during peak hours because you're dropping UDP packets, then you'll hear from your customers.
- throwaway2048 8y agoif UDP drops too much, chrome will almost certianly switch back to TCP anyways.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoUDP is the stepchild of protocols. Many devices drop it first during congestion. It is not the peer of TCP in that regard.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y agoThe fortunate fact of QUIC is that it's based on encrypted UDP packets, so ISPs will have to adapt to the fact that not randomly dropping encrypted UDP packets is essential to their users' experience.
- riobard 8y agoIt's a chicken-and-egg problem. For many bad ISPs to care about this problem, QUIC adoption has to be high enough to cause mass user complaints. Yet QUIC's mass adoption requires it providing better user experience before ISPs change their stupid policies. It would be interesting to see how it plays out.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y agoWell, yeah, to a degree. But then, it probably provides a better user experience most of the time, and especially on mobile networks, so that might be enough to gain adoption.
- riobard 8y agoTrue, I do hope that mobile roaming (and switching between WiFi and mobile) would be the killer app for QUIC. But AFAIK many ISPs treat mobile network differently from home broadband. For example, my mobile plan and fiber broadband are from the same ISP, yet they appear to be running on two different backbones. The mobile network rarely experience traffic shaping, even at peak hours. My guess is that because mobile generates higher revenue, it gets better infrastructure. The fiber broadband is likely run at loss, it would be de-prioritized. If that's the case, it would be difficult for QUIC to get traction on desktops.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y agoWell, QUIC already has traction on desktops, as Chrome supports it? The bigger problem I see is whether websites will deploy it ...
- shawnz 8y agoClearly Google is willing to move forward with it regardless of the potential for a diminished experience for some customers. And Google has more weight than most ISPs involved here. Furthermore they have shown before that they are not afraid to direct the blame right at ISPs for lagging behind in situations like this.
- dagenix 8y agoYou're getting downvotes because you aren't proposing anything. Your statement may very well be true, but what else is there to do? Stick with tcp forever and not try to innovate?
- ksec 8y agoHe is stating a valid concern that were not pronounced. So while we don't have a solution to the problem at hand, It helps us to think twice before any usage of it.
- riobard 8y agoI'm not proposing anything because I don't have a solution to it. If pointing out an obvious and real problem deserves a downvote, I'm not sure what's the point of this place after all.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago> This comment is stating a fact You are sneaking in an opinion: "unfortunate". A protocol that implement congestion control + multiplexing + encryption over UDP is excellent progress over TCP. It should have happened decades ago.
- madmulita 8y agoBut should disagreement be expressed as downvotes?
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoNo, according to policy, but people don't seem to care.
- detaro 8y agoHN doesn't really have a policy about what downvotes are for, and the community is clearly split about it.
- manigandham 8y agoActually yes, this has been determined to be OK here.
- riobard 8y agoIt's "unfortunate" because ISPs drop UDP packets. How else would you phrase it?
- the8472 8y agoPure speculation, but maybe most TCP implementations are ECN-aware while custom UDP transports aren't, thus making the former more responsive to congestion without forcing the routers to drop packets?
- riobard 8y agoEven without ECN, routers can indirectly slow down sending sides by dropping TCP packets because most TCP implementations behave politely. QUIC also adapts to packet loss, but I guess it's those other fire-and-forget-style UDP traffic that gets dropped, taking QUIC down as casualty.
- wmf 8y agoThis sounds like an urban legend. What fraction of Internet traffic is non-congestion-controlled UDP? VoIP and gaming are pretty low bandwidth.