5 ms·

Paid fast lanes are a bad idea, but I think 100% equality for all packets is just as bad or worse. Real time traffic should be prioritized over data transfers.

Paid fast lanes are a bad idea, but I think 100% equality for all packets is just as bad or worse. Real time traffic should be prioritized over data transfers. Right now my video call gets clobbered when I download a file. It doesn’t have to be like that.

skizm 7y ago
Use quality of service controls in your router/modem. That's an end user problem, not a dumb wires problem.
- travbrack 7y ago
  Without tagging packets over the internet, you can only throttle tcp streams and prioritize your upstream. I can prioritize the packets I send to my ISP, but I have no control over the order I get packets from them.
gsich 7y ago
How should your ISP know? Diffserv might help, but I doubt some shitty application will set them.
- javagram 7y ago
  They can tell right now. T-Mobile gives free data usage for video and music streaming, for instance. You can either do traffic pattern analysis or just base it on what IPs they are connecting to.
  - rblatz 7y ago
    That works great today, but it stifles innovation. If I roll out a new real-time service my users suffer shitty delayed service, until I get big enough to force them to prioritize me.
  - gsich 7y ago
    That is not independent and not net neutral.
    - travbrack 7y ago
      It also doesn’t cross the ISP boundary.
      - gsich 7y ago
        It probably doesn't need to, bottleneck is usually at the customers side. (Mainly due to bad upload)
- travbrack 7y ago
  That’s one of a whole host of issues raised by the idea of tagging packets on the internet. Attackers could assign priority to their DDOS attacks for example. I don’t have the answers but I think this is the direction the conversation should go in. The discussions I see on the topic almost never competently address the issue I’m raising. Nobody should be arguing that all traffic should be equal, we should be discussing which traffic gets priority and how that decision is made.

skizm 7y ago

Use quality of service controls in your router/modem. That's an end user problem, not a dumb wires problem.

travbrack 7y ago
Without tagging packets over the internet, you can only throttle tcp streams and prioritize your upstream. I can prioritize the packets I send to my ISP, but I have no control over the order I get packets from them.

gsich 7y ago

How should your ISP know? Diffserv might help, but I doubt some shitty application will set them.

javagram 7y ago
They can tell right now. T-Mobile gives free data usage for video and music streaming, for instance. You can either do traffic pattern analysis or just base it on what IPs they are connecting to.
- rblatz 7y ago
  That works great today, but it stifles innovation. If I roll out a new real-time service my users suffer shitty delayed service, until I get big enough to force them to prioritize me.
- gsich 7y ago
  That is not independent and not net neutral.
  - travbrack 7y ago
    It also doesn’t cross the ISP boundary.
    - gsich 7y ago
      It probably doesn't need to, bottleneck is usually at the customers side. (Mainly due to bad upload)
travbrack 7y ago
That’s one of a whole host of issues raised by the idea of tagging packets on the internet. Attackers could assign priority to their DDOS attacks for example. I don’t have the answers but I think this is the direction the conversation should go in. The discussions I see on the topic almost never competently address the issue I’m raising. Nobody should be arguing that all traffic should be equal, we should be discussing which traffic gets priority and how that decision is made.