Ikarasu
join:2004-01-09
Port Coquitlam, BC
 ·ITalkBB
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Thaler
Re: hell ya.
Which is perfectly fine.
Comcast has a bandwidth cap, if you go over it...you're suspended. Instead of throttling perfectly legit protocols, they should state a limit instead of a soft cap.
I'm perfectly fine with ISPS having limits. Mine has one, and theyre rated the #1 ISP in Canada because they have no BS support, stated caps, cheap prices if you go over that cap, ect.
I hate the practice of throttling. It may just be BT now, but if it's allowed to go on... You'll be seeing a lot of La carte internet options coming up... Access to the high bandwidth sites costing more, certain protocols being allowed/not allowed... it's all just a matter of time. |
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Thaler
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| reply to Ikarasu
said by Ikarasu  :Explain how cable companies in other Countries dont have this problem? They're rather explicit about their bandwidth caps there. You buy a connection at a rated speed and are allocated so much total bandwidth per month. If you go over that, then you start paying extra for the data you download in excess. |
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Ikarasu
join:2004-01-09
Port Coquitlam, BC
·ITalkBB
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to TKJunkMail
Hm.. my reply got erased somehow. Must not have confirmed it.
As stated below you - If comcast didn't oversell their network, it wouldn't hurt it. Explain how cable companies in other Countries dont have this problem? When is the last tim Comcast upgraded their infrastructure? They have crappy lines built in right now, and instead of rectifying that situation.. they just keep selling and selling to anyone who wants cable net.
If they want so many subscribers, build a network to support it. It's like a phone company offering 1 million people a phone, but only having the capacity to service 100 thousand people at once. If comcasts network cant handle all the throughput of legal use, falling within their bandwidth limits, either upgrade the network, set lower limits, or dont take on more customers then you can handle.
Would you goto a lawfirm and take a lawyer with 20 other cases, and have him accept your case but only work 10 mins on it? Would you goto a store with 100 customers and only 1 clerk, when right next door theres 0 lines? Comcast oversold their network, They have constant slowdowns from people who use the bandwidth THEY pay for, then restrictand complain at such users, instead of rectifying the problem thats THEIR own fault.
If they want to put on bandwidth caps, fine. That's reasonable. Telling people there is a cap, but refusing to tell them what it is... isn't.
One way to get around the throttling was VPN. Another ISP saw their users using VPN to get around...so what did they do? They throttled VPN also. Another legit protocol, that many people rely on for work and other uses... throttled because it was simple to do so.
You dont seem to understand... it starts with BT, then works it way up to VPN, then whatever else they decide to do. Throttling legit protocols should NOT be allowable. |
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Thaler
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| reply to TKJunkMail
said by TKJunkMail :But when you are going 120 MPH(P2P] and everyone else on the Hwy is going 50, you don't need a law degree to figure out who is going "FAST". I'd agree in that particular example, however, there is no visual context to bandwidth. We can't see how much traffic everyone else is generating in our node/neighborhood. I mean, it'd be hard for me as a customer to agree upon a bandwidth limit that I don't know the numbers/scope to. (which is likely why I go with my current DSL provider) |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·Comcast
| reply to Thaler
said by Thaler :But doesn't that stem from Comcast's practices of both overselling their network capacity and failing to set concrete numbers as to what's "acceptable"? Even looking in the TOS, the best estimates you get are very, very vague. I mean, its kinda hard to be expected to understand & obey a highway speed limit, if the limit posted simply says "Fast". But when you are going 120 MPH(P2P] and everyone else on the Hwy is going 50, you don't need a law degree to figure out who is going "FAST".
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page |
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Thaler
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| reply to TKJunkMail
said by TKJunkMail :Because you hurt their network and your neighbors and Comcast said in their TOS and AUP that they have the right to manage the network for the AVERAGE good and not just you. But doesn't that stem from Comcast's practices of both overselling their network capacity and failing to set concrete numbers as to what's "acceptable"? Even looking in the TOS, the best estimates you get are very, very vague.
I mean, its kinda hard to be expected to understand & obey a highway speed limit, if the limit posted simply says "Fast". |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Comcast
2 edits | reply to Ikarasu
said by Ikarasu :Anyways, I'll make it simple. Answer this one question with a thought out, reasonable answer, and I'll drop the whole thing. Say I'm a Comcast subscriber. I pay xx money, to get xx speed and xx bandwidth from them. I then use that connection to download Linux ISOs, game patches, whatever else I find on Bittorrent legally. As long as I stay within the limits, what gives Comcast the right to throttle/limit my connection, from advertised speeds/bandwidth I already paid for? Because you hurt their network and your neighbors and Comcast said in their TOS and AUP that they have the right to manage the network for the AVERAGE good and not just you. And NOT reading the TOS or AUP is not an excuse to claim ignorance.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page |
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Ikarasu
join:2004-01-09
Port Coquitlam, BC
·ITalkBB
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Ikarasu
Anyways, I'll make it simple. Answer this one question with a thought out, reasonable answer, and I'll drop the whole thing.
Say I'm a Comcast subscriber. I pay xx money, to get xx speed and xx bandwidth from them.
I then use that connection to download Linux ISOs, game patches, whatever else I find on Bittorrent legally. As long as I stay within the limits, what gives Comcast the right to throttle/limit my connection, from advertised speeds/bandwidth I already paid for?
Don't you consider that bait and switch? "Have 100 GB of bandwidth, but if you actually use it...we may throttle you!" |
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Ikarasu
join:2004-01-09
Port Coquitlam, BC
·ITalkBB
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to fiberguy
Out of the loop?
Microsoft doesn't auto update everyone at once. Microsoft doesn't set Windows XP to not work until you update. Most Teksavvy people don't even have auto update turned on. I highly doubt Microsoft streams it's pack to 1 million users, let alone 4-5 million at once.
Whats not to get? In USAs current situation... yes, BT does bog down the network. Does it affect DSL? Not as much as cable, which is why DSL providers mainly don't mind it.
You remind me of the cable companies...
"Hey! We have 100 MB/s internet now! think of how FAST you can load webpages! /smallprint however if you go over 60 GB, which you will do in 5 mins of downloading at them speeds, you're going to get banned. It's OUR network and while we want you to believe them 100K webpages load faster on this extra expensive 100 Mb/s line, then they would on a 1 Mb/s line, the truth is we're just advertising prices to look better then the competitors!"
Your views pretty much destroy net Neutrality. First, I'm not allowed to use Bittorent.. a perfectly legal, perfectly acceptable protocol. Tomorrow... I'll be paying $5 a month more to get to google/yahoo, and all the popular sites... because hey, they're taking up too much bandwidth on the network.
10 years ago... the Internet was designed to send small messages across distances. 5 years ago, it became a nice way for multimedia. Today... VoIP, IPTV, Huge content packs... There's A LOT of changes happening, and all these cable providers citing a "Bandwidth apocalypse" about to happen, are usually the ones who are too CHEAP to upgrade their networks to fit their needs, despite making tons of profit. TONS of country's don't have a problem handling speeds and all these "apocalyptic" Bandwidth apps don't seem to be a problem to them.
Lets ban Xbox live. All the Demos/HDTV streams takes up more bandwidth then the average site. Or Apple.com/tv... How dare they stream and sell high Def TV.
As for the typical "gamer" tag you have on me. CCNA, CCNP, along with many other computer degrees defines my knowledge on the subject a lot more then "gamer" does.
Bittorrent is the fastest, most economical way to spread a file to thousands of users, once that number comes up in the millions... Bittorent beats ANY protocol at file distributing.
I pay my ISP $35 a month for 200 GB upload/download. If I want to contribute some of that bandwidth to help seed a game patch, a linux ISO, underground artists music, or millions of the other legit uses for BT... why shouldn't I be able to?
Blizzard has an option to not use their downloader. But the servers are usually bogged down and slow because of all the users getting the file. If you truly ran a data center, you'd know max speed for even 1 million + users is no wheres financially possible for a gaming company. If you want to compare to to Microsoft, a company worth 250+ Billion dollars... and then have a laugh at my comments, that's up to you.
FCC is looking into Comcasts bittorent shaping. And judging by how FCC favors the telephone co's, and screws over Cable companys every chance it gets (/tinfoil hat) I cant wait to see the outcome. |
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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| reply to gopnick
Thanks for the laugh.
Your focus is on the wrong area... for one, I'm a former customer.. dropped them for all their BS .. tired of their faulty patches and tired of their inability to put out a maintenance schedule that doesn't work.. tired of them allowing cheats on the system and tired of them taking away resources because of their faulty programming.
Do I work for AT&T? Give me a break.. what a total and complete moronic, stupid, idiotic come back... if you knew anything, or bothered, you'd know else wise. |
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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
1 edit | reply to Ikarasu
I know plenty.. I don't need your spin.
Please.. tell me.. how does Microsoft push service packs to the number of users they do?
Those that bow to BT as the "only way" are themselves closed minded.
BT may be a protocol.. but where is the distribution model? Wake up, gamer. In all of your babble, you still didn't get a single thing.. you did, however, prove my point when you said "No only does this take stress off their 100+ servers"... that's their problem.. maybe they should buy the bandwidth and balance their load on their own back, not someone else's.
You said: You seem to be the only person with a problem with it. I suggest you go read up on it, if you care so much about blizzards practices."
Really? You are clearly out of the loop... but thanks for a good laugh before bed. |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY | reply to elios
Buy a couple 10 gigabit lines then. Or better yet, PAY a content distribution network like Limelight or Akamai. |
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Ikarasu
join:2004-01-09
Port Coquitlam, BC
·ITalkBB
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to fiberguy
said by fiberguy :For one, there are a couple people in my house that play many of the games... one of them is also friends with one of the founders of Blizzard. Among other things, I'm very much aware of what the games are, what they consist of, how they play (as I have played them as well) and what the patches are.. Besides all of what you said, their method of delivery system is still no excuse nor does it change my original message.. Microsoft, too, runs some large data centers in the country.. and do you see them using BT? I want to bring up one item you talked about... "it took all damn day".. and? It's not the same as mowing a 1 acre lawn with a push mower vs. a riding mower.. you're not actively doing any hard, physical labor. You're talking about instant pleasure. Start the download and let it do it's job. You may want your $15 a month to them going to new content, but now you also know now why Comcast doesn't want to be the one to have to spend the "billions" to upgrade their networks BECAUSE of Blizz's business model. Maybe Blizzard should collect an extra $5 or $10 per month per user in order to supply more bandwidth. $180 a year times how many users? I think they have PLENTY of money to handle their own servers. They DON'T need to send out the patches on the back of last mile providers. Like I said.. I used to play the games when I didn't have better things to do.. regardless of anything of how great the "system" is... they need to support their own stuff 100%. Just my view. Can you tell me how using new technology isnt supporting their game 100%?
There is no way they can max out everyones speed 100% through a data center. I don't care if you run your own, I don't care how large it is. When you have 10 million subscribers, a good amount of which downloads at the same time, you simply cannot meet the requirements.
They took a new technology, used it for what it was DESIGNED to do.
10 million customers. Some in diff regions, so lets presume average is $10 a month. Thats 100 million a month, which even with all their other bills... is a pretty heft sum. If they could do more efficiently then BT... don't you think they would? A data center for 10 million people isn't optimal, possible at crawling speeds, sure... but not optimal. Blizzard is a gaming company, not a data center. What your asking them to do is impossible, let alone realistic.
Not to mention they do have servers seeding the torrent. Which is the reason people can get max speeds, even at the beginning of the download. I'm no sure of what speeds they have, but I've maxed out a full 100 Mbps server the moment the patch came out, so to think they just push all the burden onto their customer is just wrong.
Bittorent is a protocol, much like HTTP. To say they shouldn't use it is absurd. My clients never used more then 5 Kb/s up, and I imagine same goes for everyone else.
BT has A LOT more benefits to it then HTTP. For instance, they stream all the graphics, and finished data out weeks before the final patch is released in the background, then on Maintnence/patch day, all the user has to do is download a 5 MB file, click install, and the patch is there.
Not only does this take stress off their 100 + Servers and millions of people playing on patch day, but it ensures a seamless patch transfer.
You seem to be the only person with a problem with it. I suggest you go read up on it, if you care so much about blizzards practices.
I do suggest you go look up information on it, before spewing out nonsense about a company though. |
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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| reply to elios
For one, there are a couple people in my house that play many of the games... one of them is also friends with one of the founders of Blizzard. Among other things, I'm very much aware of what the games are, what they consist of, how they play (as I have played them as well) and what the patches are..
Besides all of what you said, their method of delivery system is still no excuse nor does it change my original message.. Microsoft, too, runs some large data centers in the country.. and do you see them using BT?
I want to bring up one item you talked about... "it took all damn day".. and? It's not the same as mowing a 1 acre lawn with a push mower vs. a riding mower.. you're not actively doing any hard, physical labor. You're talking about instant pleasure. Start the download and let it do it's job.
You may want your $15 a month to them going to new content, but now you also know now why Comcast doesn't want to be the one to have to spend the "billions" to upgrade their networks BECAUSE of Blizz's business model. Maybe Blizzard should collect an extra $5 or $10 per month per user in order to supply more bandwidth. $180 a year times how many users? I think they have PLENTY of money to handle their own servers. They DON'T need to send out the patches on the back of last mile providers.
Like I said.. I used to play the games when I didn't have better things to do.. regardless of anything of how great the "system" is... they need to support their own stuff 100%. Just my view. |
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Ikarasu
join:2004-01-09
Port Coquitlam, BC
·ITalkBB
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to fiberguy
Are you saying Bittorent isnt legit?
WoW has over 10 million customers. Putting costs aside(since blizz is obviously pretty financially stable) Do you know the work/time involved in distributing a 300 MB patch to 10 million people at once?
sure, not all 10 million download at the exact same time, but a huge portion of them do. It's near impossible to be able to achieve that throughput.
Bit torrent was made to get files out to multi users as fast as possible. Blizzard is taking this new technology, and putting it to practice - And guess what? It works.
Theres no forum posts about patches downloading too slow, no queue/wait times to download patches like many MMOs have, no free hosting sites like filehost or other gaming patch sites.
WoW is putting new technology to use. Bittorent is NOT a problem, more internet developed companies dont seem to mind it at all, infact some endorse it. If USA/Canadas internet wasn't in the state it is, it wouldn't affect other subscribers either.
If comcast spent some of the billions it made to make their pipes larger, or adopt the many new diff cable standards out there, and increase their capacity... Bittorent wouldn't be a problem for them either.
So using your logic, The people who pay Comcast a monthly fee, should be able to use their ADVERTISED speeds, and ADVERTISED bandwidth for the actual subscription they're paying for.
People pay comcast specifically to access the Internet - They have imposed limits and speeds, and as long as people adhere to them, I don't see why they have a right to limit what you can/cant do on their network, as long as it's legal.
Blizzard doesn't announce that they have direct downloads, nor do they hide the fact they use Bittorent. It's as great technology, and I'm glad they put it to use. |
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elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO
·Mediacom
2 edits | reply to fiberguy
you dont play mmos do you
or you would know the big "patchs" like that add NEW content to the game gg /youfail l2mmo etc... most are under 5MB but when that big content update hits i like that they use BT to send it out FFXI didnt and patch days like downloading the update took ALL DAMN DAY were it takes maybe a few min with WoW how much bandwith would they have to buy to max out even a million connections at 1MB/s? whos smarter now
id rather my 15/month go to them making new content not bandwidth for patchs
Blizz runs some of the worlds biggest data centers or did you miss the press releases?
if you didnt know take away the pretty graphics and all a MMO is a very very large interactive database think of the largest SQL server you have ever seen multiply that by few thousand users 24/7 PER world server then times that by how ever many of them
and thats just the live part of it on the server side not counting making items work right all the time as intended
WoW has a free trial go try it and see how massive this is your self |
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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| reply to elios
I do have an idea how much bandwidth that takes... I operate a data center of my own and purchase large amounts of bandwidth.
My point is simple... The WOWs of the world are charing money to it's end user each month to support their services.. by not operating a data center as everyone else does, they are 1) cheating the end user, 2) operating their business on the backs of the others 3) pocketing more of your money each month. Maybe they should drop the rate to the monthly subscribers... right?
Here's the other thing.. Maybe they should learn how to patch their software with out sending out a 400MB patch ... while everyone is bitching about Microsoft selling buggy software, with all these patches that they need to send, especially the 400MB patches.. well.. I guess they just don't know how to program very well.
Brought to you by Sony... the big winners in the BluRay HD war... I think people in the other thread, Sunday, have MUCH to celebrate!  |
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Thaler
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| reply to TKJunkMail
said by TKJunkMail :Well Microsoft seems to manage OK every month on Patch Tuesday without using P2P. And damn anyone else for innovating on top of that, eh?
Again, P2P technology is legal, much like any other protocol zooming through the pipes. Rather than bastardizing a technology for its criminal miscreants, how about folks actually follow up with existing laws, and leaving us law-abiding citizens alone? |
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elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO
·Mediacom
| reply to TKJunkMail
said by TKJunkMail :said by elios :right do you have any idea how much bandwidth that would take come a big patch some are over 400MB that x a few million all trying to get it at once one would be lucky to get 10-20KB/s Well Microsoft seems to manage OK every month on Patch Tuesday without using P2P. they dont have to run a live MMO server at the same time |
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bunklung
join:2002-07-13
Northampton, MA
| reply to TKJunkMail
said by TKJunkMail :said by bunklung :
Secondly, I don't think for a second the move to tiered caps is just because they can't handle BT, it's because cable is threated by other forms of digital distribution, like Apple TV and Netflix online.
Would you agree that Apple TV and Netflix are getting a free ride on the ISPs just like Blizzard does on their distribution model?
Cable will have no problem handling very large bandwidth growth downstream. It is only the stress that P2P puts on upstream that is the issue. So, no I don't think Netflix and Apple TV are problems. I'd like to reiterate my point. Netflix and Apple TV are a problem, since it's competition to their services, re: VOD.
Tiered service fixes all those pesky problems.
They will continue to advertise high speeds beyond what they can sustain. Yes, cable will have no problem handling very large bandwidth growth downstream, but that comes at a cost. It's an expense they would rather not pay for a technology that has it's limitations. |
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