dadkins
Can you do Blu?
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
 ·Comcast
| Waiting...
... for this/these thing(s) to screw up and hose some legit, low-comsumption user(s) to the point of stupidity. 
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Think outside the Fox... Opera |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | It would be easier to deal with overloaded nodes at times than going through caps/filters/traffic shaping techniques.
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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alalper
Premium
join:2000-08-20
Philadelphia, PA
| reply to dadkins
said by dadkins  :... for this/these thing(s) to screw up and hose some legit, low-comsumption user(s) to the point of stupidity. If there is a way to screw it up, Comcast will be sure to find it. |
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GOLFnSUN
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Comcast
| reply to en102
said by en102 :It would be easier to deal with overloaded nodes at times than going through caps/filters/traffic shaping techniques. Only for those CAUSING the overload. For everyone else, this will be an improvement.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
 ·DSL EXTREME
| I don't know.. I've never had issues with an overloaded node on cable or DSL... which is why I see this as a method of rate increase for consumers.
Eg. Lowest tiers ( 1.5Mbps or less) should not need caps, yet they're typically capped hard to purchase a higher rate plan, which is now set as an overloaded node, and requires traffic shaping and/or caps. The end result for the AVERAGE user is not much (i.e. going from a 1.5 to 10Mbps) unless they are bit torrent / gamers / VOD users.
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
·Comcast
| reply to en102
said by en102 :It would be easier to deal with overloaded nodes at times than going through caps/filters/traffic shaping techniques. everything I've read indicates the most straightforward, simplest way to deal with congestion is to add capacity. One of the network engineers for Internet2 said they did a trade between caps/filters/shaping/etc. and adding capacity and adding capacity was cheaper and simpler.
I would be willing to bet money the real reason comcast is doing this is to position themselves for the "two tier" internet, with "fast lanes" for their content and those that pay a premium and "slow lanes" for the rest. |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
·DSL EXTREME
| I'm sure that adding capacity is simpler, and very effective.
ISP's (management) typically would prefer making more money off of existing, through attempting to squeeze a lump of coal into a diamond. Management doesn't really 'care' if its simpler, your typical upper level management is type alpha, and would prefer control at all cost.
I.e. Simple solution = add capacity (requires cost to an outside source... no direct gain, capacity will hit again in the not too distant future)
Complex solution = form of traffic reduction through many different means, which will require some cost, but can recoup at the per MB transferred level, and will allow for future transparent price increases (i.e. same price for service, higher cost on overage, etc)
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
 ·voip.ms
·Vitelity VOIP
·Callcentric
·VoiceStick
·ViaTalk
·Comcast
·Embarq
| reply to en102
said by en102 :I don't know.. I've never had issues with an overloaded node on cable or DSL... which is why I see this as a method of rate increase for consumers. Unfortunately your experience doesn't necessarily match that of all other Internet users. Just look at the poor bastards on Embarq service in Indiana that regularly see latency shoot to 300+ms round trip because Embarq doesn't throttle anyone:
»Embarq network congestion, latency and packet loss in IN
P2P users don't care - they can fire up their client and walk away. For anyone else trying to use VoIP, game, or even just surf the web the situation just sucks. |
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Matt
Gone playing Dragon Age Origins
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| reply to nasadude
said by nasadude :I would be willing to bet money the real reason comcast is doing this is to position themselves for the "two tier" internet, with "fast lanes" for their content and those that pay a premium and "slow lanes" for the rest. Yep, and Comcast's pursuit of P4P (Bittorrent that prefers local, on-network peers) is evidence of that. If they really were concerned about local node congestion, there are MUCH easier and more effective ways to handle this. This is nothing more than a way to kill P2P video distribution and protect their Video On-Demand revenue, while simultaneously lowering costs.
Time Warner is doing the same thing, only with a ridiculously low bit cap. |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | reply to espaeth
True - not all nodes are good on all providers.
DSL-Extreme has been good.
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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telcolackey
The Truth? You can't handle the truth
join:2007-04-06
Death Valley, CA
2 edits | reply to alalper
said by alalper :If there is a way to screw it up, Comcast will be sure to find it. Yeah... they are screwing it up so bad they have become a profitable and successful ISP (not easy to do) that has driven the broadband industry.
Damn them for keeping the stock holders from selling all their shares.
Damn them for providing a solid product for 99% of the customer base!!
Damn them for steadily increasing speeds over the years and investing billions in capacity upgrades
Damn them for introducing powerboost that increases speed for interactive apps.
Damn them for trying to understand how recent dramatic speed increases and unexpected heavy usage has ramifications to all users and costs associated to them.
If they could only spend all their profits and piss off the greedy stock holders to allow for unlimited bandwidth 7x24 so 1% of us could load DVDs on our multi-terabyte disk arrays.
Bastards!
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"Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear." - Dinah Craik |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·voip.ms
·Vitelity VOIP
·Callcentric
·VoiceStick
·ViaTalk
·Comcast
·Embarq
1 edit | reply to nasadude
said by nasadude :everything I've read indicates the most straightforward, simplest way to deal with congestion is to add capacity. One of the network engineers for Internet2 said they did a trade between caps/filters/shaping/etc. and adding capacity and adding capacity was cheaper and simpler. When technologies like Ethernet and Packet-over-SoNET are being used, you are correct it is usually cheaper to add bandwidth. With technologies like DSL and DOCSIS, there are limits to how far you can expand them out. In the Internet2 domain they can add a variety of links from 100mbps - 10,000mbps (10gbps). For DSL you're limited by distance, protocol, and collective connection crosstalk. (ie, if all lines are transmitting at the same time the effective throughput goes down on each line due to interference) For DOCSIS you can only increase downstream capacity 38mbps at a time eating up 6MHz chunks. Even there, the DOCSIS standard limits how many channels you can have on a segment.
The ugly truth is that broadband networks have much harsher scaling limits than other network technologies, and upgrades often require forklift replacement of all involved distribution gear. Just look at DOCSIS 3.0 -- MSOs won't see the benefits there until all of the head-ends and most user cable modems are replaced. Swapping out 14+ million end-user devices isn't a swift activity. |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | reply to telcolackey
 Uh, yeah. |
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alalper
Premium
join:2000-08-20
Philadelphia, PA
| reply to telcolackey
Whoa! I don't believe I said anything even remotely in the same ball park as your response.
I simply said that they will surely find a way to screw up their traffic shaping attempt (kind of like the way they screwed up their implementation of Sandvine) thereby causing themselves and their customers all kinds of problems.
Believe it or not, I'm a triple play subscriber and I'm actually a pretty happy camper when it comes to Comcast.  |
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ske99slem
@swbell.net
| reply to nasadude
said by nasadude :said by en102 :It would be easier to deal with overloaded nodes at times than going through caps/filters/traffic shaping techniques. everything I've read indicates the most straightforward, simplest way to deal with congestion is to add capacity. One of the network engineers for Internet2 said they did a trade between caps/filters/shaping/etc. and adding capacity and adding capacity was cheaper and simpler. I would be willing to bet money the real reason comcast is doing this is to position themselves for the "two tier" internet, with "fast lanes" for their content and those that pay a premium and "slow lanes" for the rest. Adding capacity is expensive and no one here seems to want to pay for it. If they can't get more revenue, why do you think they would pay for more network?
Adding a few shaping boxes is relatively cheap and solves the problem in the short term. In the long term, us high usage people are going to be paying for their capacity upgrades.
Doc |
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telcolackey
The Truth? You can't handle the truth
join:2007-04-06
Death Valley, CA | reply to alalper
oh... yeah.. ok.  |
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dnoyeB
Ferrous Phallus
join:2000-10-09
Southfield, MI | reply to Matt
I agree on the VOD front. The writing is on the wall with the new streaming p2p direction. |
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moonpuppy
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to telcolackey
said by telcolackey :said by alalper :If there is a way to screw it up, Comcast will be sure to find it. Yeah... they are screwing it up so bad they have become a profitable and successful ISP (not easy to do) that has driven the broadband industry. And having some of the lowest customer satisfaction ratings of any industry.
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jc100
join:2002-04-10
| reply to espaeth
Simple solution. Limit the speed of high users, hence alleviating congestion and free up speed for everyone else. If everyone has 10/1 and say 10 percent of users exceed a CLEAR CUT TRACKABLE CAP (IE offer software or online counter to track usage), these 10 percent get throttled to a slower speed. Say maybe 3/512 or 2/512 for the remaining month. This A) Cuts down on lawsuits and investigations as no traffic shaping is taking place. B) ISPS say UP TO in their speed clause meaning they can offer less. C) Make it clear to users. This way you don't alienate everyone. Also, no one is disconnected. The worst that happens is their speed is slower. |
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dynodb
Premium,VIP
join:2004-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
| reply to en102
said by en102 :It would be easier to deal with overloaded nodes at times than going through caps/filters/traffic shaping techniques. If it were just dozens of nodes- perhaps.
If it's thousands of nodes- probably not.
Besides, increase the bandwidth and the "bandwidth hogs" just use that much more. Double the capacity today, and a month from now they'd be in the same boat. |
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