Should Your ISP Be Allowed To Delay Your File Transfers?

Hi

Ok. I don't get it.

If I'm playing World of Warcraft (also know as, "Bandwidth Bandits 'R' Us")at peak usage times, I get a slice of the pie, just like everyone else. It's not how much stuff you have used, it's how much stuff you're using right now.

If I'm playing at off-hours, I'm pretty much alone. Why do they care how much stuff I download?

They aren't being charged by the byte, but they're going to object that I'm WowING AT 2 A.M. when I'm pretty much alone on the local subnet?

Whazzup with that??
 
Gagglegnash said:
Hi

Ok. I don't get it.

If I'm playing World of Warcraft (also know as, "Bandwidth Bandits 'R' Us")at peak usage times, I get a slice of the pie, just like everyone else. It's not how much stuff you have used, it's how much stuff you're using right now.

If I'm playing at off-hours, I'm pretty much alone. Why do they care how much stuff I download?

They aren't being charged by the byte, but they're going to object that I'm WowING AT 2 A.M. when I'm pretty much alone on the local subnet?

Whazzup with that??
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They probably are being charged by the byte (unless they have some really impressive peering arangements).

But in any case you've purchased the wrong pachage. In the UK at least there are options where you get caped at peak times and "uncaped" offpeak. However most people want to use their web connections during peak periods so a flat 250GB cap may be the best option for them.
 
Our ISP (Telus) gives us a fixed pipe to the net, which means I don't have to give a rat's behind what Joe Blow down the road is doing. He cannot encroach on my bandwidth any time of the day.

The bottlenecks to other networks and the upstream connection are a different story entirely. However, the end result of that seems to be increased latency of the traffic. (My ping goes up when I play Medal of Honor.)
 
This new plan from Comcast seems pretty reasonable. As I understand it, they don't have much of an issue with "active" traffic. The big bandwidth eaters are the people who have P2P programs running in the background taking up a ton of resources on the network. Seem pretty fair overall, since the few big uploaders and downloaders will probably have their own premium slot soon.

The only thing that had people worried was if they took to the web server format. Most of the techies were worried that they'd just send a bill saying you are 2 Gb over, pay us an extra $20. That is what most servers do to webmasters. Since the consumers don't have a great way to monitor their bandwidth, it just wouldn't be fair.

The system they're claiming to setup sounds pretty fair. If you go over or near your limit, they'll call and warn you. If you continue to go over they'll cap your service. Pretty standard bandwidth agreement.
 
AvarianParakeet said:
The only thing that had people worried was if they took to the web server format. Most of the techies were worried that they'd just send a bill saying you are 2 Gb over, pay us an extra $20. That is what most servers do to webmasters. Since the consumers don't have a great way to monitor their bandwidth, it just wouldn't be fair.
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I've seen software that does exactly that. It works fairly well.
 
geni said:
Depends where you are. Infrastructure costs cause the problem that one ISP frequenty manages to get a monopoly in an area.
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Monopoly is impossible without government force, especially for something like Internet access. There were dozens of dial-up BBS'es in my area back in early 1990s, and that's back when only the super-geeks used modems. With a few thousand dollars of equipment (which can be recouped through user fees and reinvested), any geek can run his own WiMax hotspot, and those hubs can inter-connect using locally-owned cable or a P2P mesh of some sort. When there's a will there's a way! Oh, and there's also satellite, and a dozen other things...
 
geni said:
Downloading the entire wikimedia image database would probably put you over that if you could find a copy to download (closest would be starting at the top of http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ImageList&sort=img_size&limit=50&desc=1 and working down). Leaveing the BBC iplayer would do it but I don't think comcast operates in the UK. Downloading a lot of NASA images perhaps?

There are legit ways to do it but not many and the users who do have legit reasons to move that amount of stuff would probably benifit from a geniunly premium service.
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As I recall and understand the contract I signed up for, my ISP has special accounts set up for that sort of usage, listed under "business accounts" that cost a premium price... and they specifically suggest that heavy gamers and file-sharers invest in those services as well.
 
Alex Libman said:
Monopoly is impossible without government force, especially for something like Internet access. There were dozens of dial-up BBS'es in my area back in early 1990s, and that's back when only the super-geeks used modems. With a few thousand dollars of equipment (which can be recouped through user fees and reinvested), any geek can run his own WiMax hotspot, and those hubs can inter-connect using locally-owned cable or a P2P mesh of some sort. When there's a will there's a way! Oh, and there's also satellite, and a dozen other things...
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Yup. All extreamly expenisive or provide really poor service. In the end to get high qualty service at a reasonable cost you need cable in the ground and in the sea. Setting up such cable is expensive and requires skills and equipment that are limited. So if you are a broadband company you are going to choce areas where you will have a monopoly rather going for dirrect competition. Sure eventualy you will get round to other areas but the timescale is years.


This of course assumes you live in the US or europe (actualy higher population densities mean europe isn't so bad).

Now supose you live in west africa. Your options are satilite or SAT-3/WASC and satillite is expensive. Problem is so is building an upgrade to SAT-3/WASC. So in effect the cost to enter the market is enough to give SAT-3/WASC a monopoly.

Remeber undersea cable is in international waters so goverment interference is minimal still outside US-Europe and US-Japan the amount of cable is pretty poor. In addition since cable is in international waters no goverment is really required to protect it. Takes a few smart fisherment to knock a country effetively offline.

Now this is about low quality 10mb/s contections. 100mb/s is far more a problem satilites really cease to be a viable option at this point an it's less a case of upgradeing existing infrastructure as building new stuff. Entry costs into that market are high enough that monoplies could last decades.

Not that any of this matters in you Anarcho-capitalist utopia. The problem of trying to negotiate transit rights with several thousand landowners means that laying cable on any scale becomes a non-viable prospect in any case.
 
JoeEllison said:
As I recall and understand the contract I signed up for, my ISP has special accounts set up for that sort of usage, listed under "business accounts" that cost a premium price... and they specifically suggest that heavy gamers and file-sharers invest in those services as well.
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Indeed but as long as it is standard practice to advertise "unlimited" 10mb/s contracts as standard people will tend not to do so.
 
geni said:
Indeed but as long as it is standard practice to advertise "unlimited" 10mb/s contracts as standard people will tend not to do so.
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Yes... but.

How do you define "unlimited"? Slowing down someone's connection during peak hours can still be considered "unlimited" under certain definitions of the word.

To go back to the "all you can eat buffet" example, it isn't fraud if they run out of the specific item you want at the moment you want it. There is an understanding that there are people cooking food at a reasonable pace, and that if you are eating at an unreasonable pace you might outstrip their ability to supply the food. At that point, it is reasonable to tell you to wait until they get more of the beef with broccoli.
 
geni said:
I've seen software that does exactly that. It works fairly well.
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I guess I should clarify that it definitely is available. A lot of the average consumers just don't know about it though (I assume that off of anecdotal, considering most of the people I know don't understand much about bandwidth).

I also remember a web company developing a "Switzerland" program that would tell you whether your cable company was limiting file transfers behind your back.
 
BPSCG said:
So my question isn't so much about what can I do about the service, but a question of principle. Should ISPs be allowed to discriminate against bandwidth hogs? Or, turning the question around, should ISPs be required to give bandwidth hogs the same service as your mom, who only sends out one email a week (usually with the subject line, "FWD: Warning!!!! Killer Death Virus!!!")?
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If I understand it correctly, this is what the fight about "net neutrality" is all about.
 
Net neutrality is more about keeping the Internet unlimited in general. The biggest concern there is that a provider could divide the Internet. Specifically, you would have to pay for premium access to certain websites. An example would be making consumers pay an extra buck if they want to go to Youtube or AOL. There's also the general concern that they could intentionally torpedo sites until they paid some "premium access" bill to remove the limitation.
 
AvarianParakeet said:
Net neutrality is more about keeping the Internet unlimited in general. The biggest concern there is that a provider could divide the Internet.
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Alreadly posible. Already happened. Normaly when tier 1s fall out but large tier twos falling out with tier 1s or each other also tend to have issues.


Specifically, you would have to pay for premium access to certain websites. An example would be making consumers pay an extra buck if they want to go to Youtube or AOL. There's also the general concern that they could intentionally torpedo sites until they paid some "premium access" bill to remove the limitation.
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Pretty much.
 
idoubtit said:
Yet Comcast promotes the speed of its high-speed. They slay me! I'm all for paying by use. I download mighty little compared to someone down the street using up the bandwidth for TV shows or movies. I think it should be charged sort of like your wireless or water bills ... My Speedtest gives me well over 10,000. Don't know what the deal is.
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Couple of thoughts: If Comcast or any other provider is to have a fixed limit on how much you can transfer per month, (ex: 250GB last I read) they should provide a free measuring tool, just as Cell phones & electricity meters show you how much electricity you've used, or minutes per month.

Secondly, I'm not exactly sure what the deal is with speed, but that Comcast alleged 6Mbps + PowerBoost is faster than DSL 768 (no surprise there). But I can't find a definitive spot where the cap is set on my Cable modem, by contrast there was a definitive spot on the DSL modem.
-- Speed Test results vary depending on what testing site I use.
 
ShowerComic said:
Couple of thoughts: If Comcast or any other provider is to have a fixed limit on how much you can transfer per month, (ex: 250GB last I read) they should provide a free measuring tool, just as Cell phones & electricity meters show you how much electricity you've used, or minutes per month.
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I doubt they would have a problem with that I think tesco's web service did/

Secondly, I'm not exactly sure what the deal is with speed, but that Comcast alleged 6Mbps + PowerBoost is faster than DSL 768 (no surprise there). But I can't find a definitive spot where the cap is set on my Cable modem, by contrast there was a definitive spot on the DSL modem.
-- Speed Test results vary depending on what testing site I use.
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I doubt there is one. You will just get the maxium speed availible to you at that moment.
 
Comcast doesn't just do Internet, you know. They also have cable services; and people watching movies online, either legally or illegally, cuts into their profit margin. I'm sure they'd rather have you watching their films on pay-per-view.

Since Comcast can't charge you extra for visiting a site like Netflix (that's what net neutrality is all about), then they'll just cap your bandwidth to make it less appealing.
 
Psi Baba said:
Imagine going to an all-you-can-restaurant and having them you (after you've committed to the meal), "Sure, it's all-you-can-eat, but you have to wait 20 minutes after each plate before you can go up and get another."
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I kid you not, I actually visited a Sushi bar one time that did this.
They are out of business now, naturally.

What shocks me most of all is the fact that in many other industrialized countries outside of the U.S., the speed and available bandwidth even for basic internet service leaves America in shame;
For example,

Japanese Fiber: 100mbps
Japanaese Cable:30 mbps

American Fiber: 5mbps
Amerian DSL: 3mbps
American Cable: 8 mbps


We are far, far, slower than S.Korea, Finland, Sweden, and even Canada, who's average slowest connection is 8mbps.

It's a fairly sorry state of affairs if you ask me.
 
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If they're going to implement and enforce transfer caps, why not make bandwidth unlimited?

I may be able to only download 250 GB in a month, but i should be able to do it as fast as the network supports.
 
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