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Verizon did something interesting with their wireless network: they track heavy bandwidth users and throttle them during peak traffic periods. [1] That seems l
by runningdogx 15y ago
Verizon did something interesting with their wireless network: they track heavy bandwidth users and throttle them during peak traffic periods. [1]
That seems like a more reasonable option than hard traffic caps. It's no surprise more wired ISPs aren't using that strategy, though... hard caps generate revenue, while rate limiting heavy users doesn't. That wouldn't be such a problem if there were healthy competition in most metro markets, but there isn't.
Verizon FIOS is one of the few good [fast] U.S. wireline ISP options left that doesn't cap traffic. It's too bad many markets are still de-facto duopolies (from the days when there was a meaningful distinction between "telephone" and "cable" companies aside from layers 1-2). FIOS isn't available here, and if it were I'd switch in a heartbeat because of AT&T's incompetence [2].
[1] http://www.tekgoblin.com/2011/02/03/verizon-to-throttle-high-bandwidth-users/ http://www.tekgoblin.com/2011/02/03/verizon-to-throttle-high...
[2] http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/users/2011-02/msg00074.html http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/users/2011-02/msg00...
- DrJ 15y agoI full heartedly support throttling during peak traffic, but I don't see a reason for bandwidth capping. We should all rise up as one and really ask, if we are now paying $X for $Y GB of data, why doesn't it roll over like Minutes or a persistent commodity. I'd also like to point out Charter Communications doesn't throttle nor cap their bandwidth and yet the service is great!
- achompas 15y agoWe should all rise up as one and really ask, if we are now paying $X for $Y GB of data, why doesn't it roll over like Minutes or a persistent commodity. Because user bandwidth is not, by definition, a persistent commodity. ISPs do not accrue bandwidth every month they are under capacity, so why should users?
- MatthewB 15y agoTrue, but neither do cell phone mintes to a cellular company. They just figured out a way to make the economics work while providing a better service to users.
- achompas 15y agoRight. Unlike wireless minutes, though, ISPs would directly help their competition by offering rollover bandwidth: http://acompa.net/blog/2011/05/why-isps-will-not-offer-rollover-bandwidth/ http://acompa.net/blog/2011/05/why-isps-will-not-offer-rollo...
- AretNCarlsen 15y agoI disagree completely. It's just like real estate: since I only use about 50% of the floor space in my apartment at any given time, I roll over my unused square footage and only pay rent every other month.
- seanp2k 15y agoTangible vs. intangible, service vs. product, bandwidth is immediately available again as soon as you're done with it, etc.
- MatthewB 15y agoThe difference is when you don't use your bandwidth, the company benefits, but when you don't use your square footage, a company doesn't gain anything.
- vladd 15y agoThe ISP company only benefits if their pipe is saturated 100% at that moment. If they had spare capacity at that point in time, it's of no use to them and they can't carry it over.
- achompas 15y agoNot sure if this is tongue-in-cheek, but: your house does not increase in size by 50% for every month you have that unused floor space.
- runningdogx 15y agoAs do I. Throttling per user (as in per customer port) rather than per traffic stream (the latter can cause net neutrality issues) is obviously a superior technological solution. Traffic caps and overage charges do nothing to prevent people from saturating links at peak traffic times (evenings, for home ISPs). How do you know Charter doesn't throttle bandwidth at peak times? Do you track packet loss, and would you notice if it went up by a percent or two? Even if an ISP doesn't voluntarily throttle traffic, border routers automatically will with WRED or some other more modern queue management strategy if there's too much traffic buffered for the link it's trying to send on. It's more a question of whether packet loss is managed on a per-flow or per-ip basis, on egress, or whether it's managed on a per-port basis on ingress from the customers to their ISP.
- ktsmith 15y agoI just went through a very long (about two months) trouble shooting session with Charter after moving to a new town. After getting the personal cell phone number for a local plant supervisor and keeping in touch with him during the time it took to fix things I got some information out of them. They try to keep their lines at 80% capacity all the time. They do have traffic shaping in place though he wouldn't be specific or didn't know. They don't throttle customers, they do disable power boost and more tightly restrict bandwidth to the plan the customer uses during peak hours. Which tools they are using to manage these restrictions I don't know. Since they've finished the DOCSIS 3 rollout here last week I've considered upgrading to 60/5 from my 25/3 plan but it's pretty over priced and would be much more worth it at 60/10 or 60/15. During the period of trouble (not enough bandwidth for their inter city link where they actually do their peering) I was down as low as 1Mbit/s during peak hours on a 25Mbit plan.
- funkshanker 15y agoif we are now paying $X for $Y GB of data, why doesn't it roll over like Minutes or a persistent commodity. This will usher in a 'pay what you use' scheme, not unlike long-distance phone bills back in the days of yore. (you transferred $Y GB this month, so you owe us $X dollars.)
- ktsmith 15y agoThere is a bandwidth cap in the terms of service for Charter. They are not enforcing it at this time. http://www.myaccount.charter.com/CUSTOMERS/SUPPORT.ASPX?SUPPORTARTICLEID=2124 http://www.myaccount.charter.com/CUSTOMERS/SUPPORT.ASPX?SUPP...
- dhughes 15y agoIf an ISP throttles they should be required to say they are doing so to you the customer and indicate it to you in real-time. You're paying for a service and if the company you're paying considers your use in violation of the terms agreed to they should indicate to you that you are in violation not some sneaky restriction you never know about. In fact I bet people have called their ISP and played the "it's not me it's you" game when it's actually the ISP throttling their customers.
- absconditus 15y agoJust yesterday I discovered that Clear does this. Unfortunately they lower one's bandwidth to 0.25Mbps and keep it that way for days or weeks. Excessive to Clear is also as low as 5GB in one day.
- mattmanser 15y agoSpeaking as a victim of the UK's BT rampant throttling at peak times, often making any video streaming service totally unusable, FTP's die, RDP's to private servers extremely laggy, I can say only this. Be careful what you wish for. Once they start, they will not stop.
- petercooper 15y agoRight on. I have a pretty good DSL connection (measures 10Mbps down most of the time) but YouTube is almost unusable on my iPad since if there's an HD video, that's the only version you can watch. The speed to YouTube is so poor that the video can't play in real time at all even with a long buffering period.
- arethuza 15y agoHow do you know it is active throttling and not just contention?
- stcredzero 15y agohard caps generate revenue, while rate limiting heavy users doesn't. Rate limiting heavy users at peak times has exactly the effect on the customer base that an ISP should want. Exactly the subpopulation of users they don't want gets an incentive to leave, and everyone else stays and talks about the smooth, uninterrupted service and "unlimited" bandwidth.