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Comments on news posted 2007-06-08 08:26:25: A Rochester, New York, Time Warner Cable/Roadrunner customer in our forums says he's received an e-mail telling him the company has begun implementing traffic shaping technology to help deal with bandwidth hogs. ..
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JamesPC
join:2005-10-12
Orange, CA
| TWC I have had Time Warner Cable (RoadRunner Cable Internet) for a while now and the connection has been great in both consistency and speed. I have noticed that when I run my Azurez (bit torrent app.), that my connection speed as a whole drops considerable. As soon as I turn it off, the speed goes right back to normal. In addition, when I run the program at night, there are no restrictions. | |
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Stray Bullet
Dangerous?
Premium
join:2004-04-03
Rochester, NY | :) Well I live in rochester, NY & have recieved no email of any of this sort... So I think it is just a bunch of crap!  | |
| | | house
join:2001-08-28
Rochester, NY
clubs:
|  What is "Packet Shaping?"
Do they add additional headers to packets on some ports to increase the TCP overhead and slow things down? Or is it something else.
I haven't noticed any speed change and I'm in Rochester; but I also don't use P2P or Torrent and rarely use newsgroups.
Any information would be appreciated. Thanks. | |
| | jyc76
join:2006-10-18
Beverly Hills, CA
1 edit | Re: What is "Packet Shaping?" They choose to degrade and lose most incoming/outgoing packets that they recognize as Torrent (even encrypted), P2P programs, newsgroup, FTP,VOIP etc, so that the speed is artifically limited to generally dialup speeds, if they're hamfisted like my ISP. Anything can be targetted. If one P2P program is running on the network, then *all* packets are degraded, doesn't matter if you're surfing a web page at the same time, they slow you down.
The nice way to do this is to throttle everything instedad of throttling selectively. Otherwise, why don't they advertise that they only guarantee just HTTP protocol? HTTP is not just the internet anymore... | |
| | | house
join:2001-08-28
Rochester, NY
clubs: | Re: What is "Packet Shaping?" Thanks - especially for explaining it in clear English.  | |
| | | jester121
Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
 ·surpasshosting
 ·ViaTalk
| said by jyc76  :They choose to degrade and lose most incoming/outgoing packets that they recognize as Torrent (even encrypted), P2P programs, newsgroup, FTP,VOIP etc, so that the speed is artifically limited to generally dialup speeds, if they're hamfisted like my ISP. Anything can be targetted. If one P2P program is running on the network, then *all* packets are degraded, doesn't matter if you're surfing a web page at the same time, they slow you down. Gotta call bullshit on you there -- it doesn't mean they automatically degrade traffic. It can be used to ensure that traffic like VOIP is set at a higher priority than large file transfers, for example. If Rogers chooses to be stupid about it, then so be it, I feel for you. But it's not really responsible to mis-characterize the technology based on how one company mis-implements it. | |
| | | | Done_Posting
Shoot to kill
Premium
join:2003-08-22
Toledo, OH
 ·buckeye cable
| Re: What is "Packet Shaping?" Gotta second you on this, jester121. Either Rogers is doing something incorrectly or jyc76 is misinformed. Where I work, we dedicate a set amount of bandwidth for shaped traffic. Let's pretend that's 600Mbps. If you're the only bandwidth hog that's doing P2P or ISO downloading (or whatever else) at any given time, you have full access to the 600Mbps, up to the limit of your service level (whatever level you're paying for). Now, say there are 600 bandwidth hogs competing with you. Assuming each one is downloading at full blast, and pretending there aren't other factors such as overhead to consider, each one of you should theoretically achieve 1Mbps.
It's also important to note that as each packet comes through our WAN links, it gets classified and if it matches certain criteria (P2P, etc), it is assigned to the hog pool. Non-hog traffic is routed through the network normally.
So, if you're using a program that fits in the hog criteria, your traffic gets delayed while you wait for your piece of the imaginary 600Mbps hog pie. We've seen in the past where high priority traffic (Ventrillo VoIP traffic to be exact) was really screwed up by accidentally classifying it as hog traffic. Ventrillo packets were being delayed while the user waited for his / her turn at the 600Mbps, and subsequently the voice traffic got to them with significant jitter. It was an unfortunate situation, and it really helped drive home the importance of knowing which types of traffic to shape.
One last important thing to know -- broadband ISP's limit the maximum number of simultaneous connections you can have open at any given time, unlike a dedicated circuit such as a T1 or commercial fiber line. If you're being capped at only 50 open connections at a time, it's highly unlikely that your P2P will perform as well as someone that can do 500 simultaneous connections, regardless of how big your slice of the hog pie is. ISP's do flow limiting to cut down on their equipment load. This practice can make the difference between having a costly network component die after one year of service instead of five.
I hope my little rant helps clear up some confusion. Presumably other networks do their shaping in the same way, but your mileage may vary. More than anything, I wish companies would just be up front about how they manage their networks. In my opinion they are completely justified to run things as they see fit, but being open and forthcoming could make all the difference in the world between having a pissed off customer and one who happily understands how his or her connection should behave.
- Tate
--
Happiness is an OC-48 in your basement... | |
| | | | | Cogdis
join:2007-03-26
Floral Park, NY | Re: What is "Packet Shaping?" I understand the benifits of packet shaping, what I dont understand is why they would reserve the right to shape VoIP traffic. The average VoIP call uses 90k, how is that negatively impacting the network?? | |
| | | | | | Done_Posting
Shoot to kill
Premium
join:2003-08-22
Toledo, OH
·buckeye cable
| Re: What is "Packet Shaping?" I couldn't say. I know we assign VoIP one of the highest QoS priorities on our network, and I can't imagine why any other ISP wouldn't do the same. I could be a pessimist and say they might do it to encourage you to use their VoIP services instead, but I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the statement was issued by marketing / PR suits instead of any division of the company that actually deals with technical details. There's no way to know for sure unless they either clarify their intentions or actually start to shape VoIP traffic.
- Tate
--
Happiness is an OC-48 in your basement... | |
| | | | | | jester121
Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
·surpasshosting
·ViaTalk
| Once again, for the cheap seats:
Traffic shaping doesn't automatically mean make it slower.
It just means treat it differently. If my ISP would identify and tag SIP traffic (for example) while it's on their network, that would be great, I'd really appreciate it. | |
| | | | | | | Cogdis
join:2007-03-26
Floral Park, NY
 ·Verizon FIOS
·RoadRunner Cable
·Teleblend
·ViaTalk
| Re: What is "Packet Shaping?" said by jester121 :Once again, for the cheap seats: Traffic shaping doesn't automatically mean make it slower.It just means treat it differently. If my ISP would identify and tag SIP traffic (for example) while it's on their network, that would be great, I'd really appreciate it. TWC has given VoIP priority since they started offering digital phone (I think this rule may have helped my third party VoIP as well).
What worries me is that they're covering themselves should they choose to keep their VoIP at top priority, while dropping "high bandwidth" competing VoIP to 8 (Best effort). | |
| elro1
join:2007-06-10
Birmingham, AL
1 edit | Out of Control I think it's ridiculous the type of services companies are selling and using the internet to deliver them on. HD movies available for download ? Streaming video from your T.V. to any computer wherever you are ? VoIP over the internet. Those are just a few examples.
Even though I am forced to use it, I dislike VoIP. The technology is fundamentally flawed. Why in the hell would you "Converge" voice & data on the same wire ? Yes I know this is being done all over the world and I understand the benefits. It works on an internal network where you control all aspects of the hardware but doing this across the internet as a companies primary method of voice communications to the outside world ? Are all the ISP's on the same page here when it comes to delivering the real time bandwidth that this requires ?
ISPs have to do something to try & help keep the data flowing at a reasonable level. The internet was not designed for all this. It really is an unenviable position to be in even though some of it is self inflicted. Even when using the standard telephone lines during extremely high usage periods it is possible to overload available circuits. So why do people complain about restricted service over a medium that isn't infinite ? Because the ISP told them to. Shame on you ISPs for offering "Unlimited" service. Please stop advertising what you may not be able to deliver.
Maybe the free market will take care of any service that can't be reliably delivered but in the short term bandwidth can & will be effected either by the load on any given ISP or the attempts to alleviate them. | |
| bunklung
join:2002-07-13
Northampton, MA
| Killer App Will Kill the Cable Modem? I think Time Warner Cable's effort to traffic shape is truth in the limitations of the technology. If Cablelabs and the cable companies only inteded us to use cable modems to surf the internet, then life is great. 50 times faster than dial up to do a search on Google!
However, if there ever is a killer app that uses REAL broadband speeds, Joost takes off, Slingbox/Slingcatcher takes off, Apple iTV takes off, or the unknown... Cable modems will be in a world of hurt!
They can either block the services, throttle them, or upgrade their networks.
My guess is that they will block and throttle (band aid) users, and start investing in a better technology when customers leave for providers that offer service that are't hindered.
When 400 people in the node use a cable modem to check e-mail and surf CNN for news, everything works great! Just don't use broadband for broadband! What happens when half or even 20% of the people in the node are using Joost, or some unknown killer app?
Are they going to split the node to 50 users? Get rid of analog? Bond 10 channels for broadband? Invest in FTTH? | |
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