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acrufox

join:2004-07-14
Canada
Reviews:
·Eastlink Cable

2 edits

Using the Internet's about to get more expensive

The Chronicle Herald, editorial on the wonderful new UBB thrust onto Canadians:

»thechronicleherald.ca/Editorials···885.html

Not like any of us didn't see this coming, thought I'd at least share the url.


I_H8_Spam

join:2004-03-10
St Catharines, ON
Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL

Sadly any news outlet owned by Bell have been quiet on the subject of UBB.

The ISP pushed propaganda of heavy downloaders = thieving pirates seems to have propagated. The large population of ill informed sheeple are not acutely aware of the changes to content delivery, and until the propaganda spoon fed to the masses by bell is discredited; there wont be mass public support.


acrufox

join:2004-07-14
Canada
Reviews:
·Eastlink Cable

Nope, and even if there was mass public support it won't be till everyone wonders why they are paying so much for something they get so little back from.

I've come across many people that don't even know the internet can go faster. Probably won't even notice the UBB much or just chalk it up to the price of everything going up.

"Well there is nothing much you can do about it" is going to be the reaction for the most part.



realitybytes
Premium
join:2002-07-15
Ottawa, ON

That's why there should be a boycott the web movement, cancel tv/cable/internet/land phone, tell them how you feel with your money by keeping it!


bjlockie

join:2007-12-16
Ottawa, DSL
Reviews:
·voip.ms
·Nexicom
·TekSavvy DSL

reply to acrufox

said by acrufox:

I've come across many people that don't even know the internet can go faster. Probably won't even notice the UBB much or just chalk it up to the price of everything going up.

I'm sure Bell has done their homework.
The majority of people I know use under 60GB, CURRENTLY.

Davesnothere
No-BHELL-ity DOES have its Advantages

join:2009-06-15
START&Cogeco
kudos:6

reply to acrufox
-
Note that in the article, Eastlink was quoted saying that they will put into place a 250GB/month cap on some of their plans soon.

I could live with THAT, but BHell has reached the point where 'Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely'.

IOW, BHell is out of control, like a runaway street car in San Francisco.


acrufox

join:2004-07-14
Canada
Reviews:
·Eastlink Cable

reply to bjlockie
Sadly I can't really say the same, of course my age group might have something to do with that.

With steam games, console games, patches, addons and throwing more than one user into the mix, usage can start climbing up well past 60GB.

I haven't had the "pleasure" of using metered/measured bandwidth to date personally. How do cable ISP's count that usage? Is that 60GB combined downstream and upstream? If it is both added together then 60GB isn't very much at all.

One of my hobbies is photography and posting to flickr. With jpegs around 8-10MB and panoramas close to the 20MB limit each. It doesn't take all that long to pile up outgoing usage to sites like flickr.


scorpido

join:2009-11-02
New Hamburg, ON

reply to acrufox
Bell needs UBB because their network sucks, and pretty much always will. This is the only way that they can keep somewhat fast speeds without having to upgrade all the copper to the home to Fiber to the home on a mass scale. They bitch and complain that indie ISP's will cripple their networks and prevent Bell from offering more services, well it is true. But thats what happens when you have a shitty network and dont put any effort into upgrading it. Rogers for example has 50meg service in New Hamburg, where Bell has a best effort 6 meg tops. Bell also knew that the cable co's would say hey WTF if the telcos can to ubb then so can we. I think that if the cable co's say hey, we are not going to do UBB or at least offer much higher speeds and a lot better caps or even no caps, and also let the indie isp's set their own caps like dsl once was, then you can be assured that Bell will be shitting their pants when the cable CO's take all the internet customers from dsl that can get cable. And we all know that the cable co's have the bandwidth on the HYBRID ***FIBER*** CABLE network that they have had in place for years. Oh and just for everyones information the Bell Fibe crap, well Bell has had fiber to the CO's since the 1980's. And it is the same service as the Bell Optimax which was a colossal failure.


bt

join:2009-02-26
canada
kudos:1
Reviews:
·Start Communicat..

reply to bjlockie

said by bjlockie:

The majority of people I know use under 60GB, CURRENTLY.

Hell... I use more than anybody in my family, and I use under 60GB monthly - usually well under. Actually, most of my family are on 2GB caps (except for the ones with kids in the house). None of them have hit their caps yet and none of them alter their behaviour to stay under the caps. Though most of them are the kind of internet user that wouldn't actually know how to hit the cap if they wanted to try.


realitybytes
Premium
join:2002-07-15
Ottawa, ON

For many the issue isn't just caps, but throttle, and pricing changes meaning everyone will be paying more for less, if you want more money I want more service/data/speed!



GNca George
GorillaNET Wireless Broadband
Premium,VIP
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON

reply to acrufox
A few questions for the group:

What percentage of Bell's total DSL customer base is served by the Indie GAS ISP's?

Is Bell introducing UBB only to screw the Indie's, or is the bigger issue (from Bell's perspective) keeping a usage lid on Bell's own customers?

The GAS pricing tariff was originally based on a cost analysis provided by Bell, which included an average utilization per port of xxxKbits per second. What was X?
(I stumbled across this once, can't find it again)

If a good-sized GAS ISP provisions 12 Gig connections per 40,000 customers, how much bandwidth is allocated per customer on average?

What is that number stated as an over-subscription ratio?

How do cable and DSL networks differ in engineered over-subscription ratios?

Last but not least. What happens to a network as described above when streaming video such as NetFlix becomes the norm instead of broadcast TV?

I know the answer to a some of these, no idea on the rest. It would be fascinating to fill in the blanks as every ISP I know is spending a LOT of time thinking about the issue these days...

Geo
--
Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
"My logisticians are a humorless lot...they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay."
Alexander of Macedonia



TakeTheFifth

join:2004-04-20
Anjou, QC
Reviews:
·ELECTRONICBOX

2 edits

said by GNca George:

If a good-sized GAS ISP provisions 12 Gig connections per 40,000 customers, how much bandwidth is allocated per customer on average?

What is that number stated as an over-subscription ratio?

How do cable and DSL networks differ in engineered over-subscription ratios?

Geo

BAM! Good questions. I have a pretty good idea what numbers Bell used. I have yet to see numbers from independant ISPs. Even ballpark figures.

12gps for 40,000 subscribers comes out to 300Kbps average. If you get an average of 1.5mbps per connection, that's a 5:1 over-subscription ratio. To hit the 60G cap means you would download ~14 hours a day at 300Kbps every day of the month.

Phil

Davesnothere
No-BHELL-ity DOES have its Advantages

join:2009-06-15
START&Cogeco
kudos:6

4 edits

reply to GNca George
-
Here's MY take on this (re-formatted for clarity) :

said by GNca George:

A few questions for the group :

What percentage of Bell's total DSL customer base is served by the Indie GAS ISP's ?
A number we keep hearing for all Indie ISPs' end users combined is 5% of all end users, but I do not know whether that proportion holds true within each incumbent ISP's client base, such as Bell's GAS division compared to all of Bell's DSL subscribers.

Is Bell introducing UBB only to screw the Indie's, or is the bigger issue (from Bell's perspective) keeping a usage lid on Bell's own customers ?
Could be Yes to Both, and if so, it WOULD conform to the generally accepted definition of Capitalism, and we CAN say for whatever it's worth, that Bell is, if nothing else, a devout corporate capitalist.

The GAS pricing tariff was originally based on a cost analysis provided by Bell, which included an average utilization per port of xxxKbits per second. What was X ? (I stumbled across this once, can't find it again)
Just the other day, YOU quoted some rather conservative sounding numbers in another thread regarding acceptable oversubscription ratios, but you said they were from elsewhere than a Bell tariff. - I dunno, myself.

If a good-sized GAS ISP provisions 12 Gig connections per 40,000 customers, how much bandwidth is allocated per customer on average ?
If 12 gigE is 12 Gigabits, and that was what you meant, then 12 gigE would be 12x1024x1024x1024 = 12,884,901,888 bits per second, then divided by 40,000 subscribers = 322,123 bits/s = 40,265 bytes/s = about 40 Kbytes/s, FULLY over-subscribed (less PPPoE overhead) - i.e. EVERYONE should be able to sustain that level of Download CONTINUOUSLY, and if Bell's gigE links support the same speed of Upload, then that figure theoretically could also apply to THAT, subject to the constraints mentioned in the answer to the next question.

What is that number stated as an over-subscription ratio ?
The answer to THIS one would depend upon what speed tier we wished to use as an example.

If we chose 5Mbit/800Kbit (which is the currently highest tariffed GAS tier, AFAIK), then Downstream of 5Mbit/s = 5x1024x1024 = 5,242,880 Mbit/sec (less PPPoE overhead)

If we divide that figure by the 322,123 Mbit/s obtained earlier, we would have an oversubscription ratio of (wait for it....) 16.28

Upstream performance might be limited, dependent upon the amount of technology which Bell chose to implement in the last few miles of the overall network for that purpose.

How do cable and DSL networks differ in engineered over-subscription ratios ?
Do not know, but I DO know that their topology is different, so bottlenecks could occur at different points, due to loading on any segments below such points in the topology.

Last but not least, what happens to a network as described above when streaming video such as NetFlix becomes the norm instead of broadcast TV ?
Much of the same stuff which many of us are starting to bitch about recently, BUT, it would NOT suddenly begin at 4:30 PM or 6 PM, IMNSHO.

I know the answer to a some of these, no idea on the rest. It would be fascinating to fill in the blanks as every ISP I know is spending a LOT of time thinking about the issue these days...

Geo



GNca George
GorillaNET Wireless Broadband
Premium,VIP
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON

1 edit

said by Davesnothere:

A few questions for the group:

What percentage of Bell's total DSL customer base is served by the Indie GAS ISP's ?
A number we keep hearing for all Indie ISPs' end users combined is 5% of all end users, but I do not know whether that proportion holds true within each incumbent ISP's client base, such as Bell's GAS division compared to all of Bell's DSL subscribers.

Bell claimed that GAS ISPs use quite a lot of the network. I have problems believing that a 5% market share translates into this kind of load. It doesn't make much sense.
»netneutrality.michaelgeist.ca/cr···ven-bell

For wholesale, Bell stated that "two assertions must be corrected". First, contrary to what many have told the CRTC, retail users and wholesale GAS users share the same network. As a result of this, wholesale traffic impacts retail traffic, and vice-versa. Secondly, Bell stated that "wholesale ISPs have attempted to dismiss their impact on our retail network by pointing to their overall market share." They argued, however, that the reality is that wholesale traffic is significant, as in the month of May 2009, wholesale GAS traffic accounted for 31% or their total GAS and retail traffic, and GAS traffic accounted for 36% of their total P2P traffic.

Is Bell introducing UBB only to screw the Indie's, or is the bigger issue (from Bell's perspective) keeping a usage lid on Bell's own customers ?
Could be Yes to Both, and if so, it WOULD conform to the generally accepted definition of Capitalism, and we CAN say for whatever it's worth, that Bell is, if nothing else, a devout corporate capitalist.

My guess is yes to both. If the GAS percentage of use is in fact really is high, then the continual whining about GAS may have more basis in fact. Still have a hard time believing it.

The GAS pricing tariff was originally based on a cost analysis provided by Bell, which included an average utilization per port of xxxKbits per second. What was X ? (I stumbled across this once, can't find it again)
Just the other day, YOU quoted some rather conservative sounding numbers in another thread regarding acceptable oversubscription ratios, but you said they were from elsewhere than a Bell tariff. - I dunno, myself.

Those numbers I put up a few days ago are from the current IC Rural Broadband standards documentation. I'm heading for California for a couple of days, when I get back if no one has posted the reference I'll go dig some more. The stuff I'm thinking of was submitted to the CRTC at the very start of the GAS offering, back when pricing was originally being set up years ago.

ISTR that the number Bell was using was somewhere around 150Kbits per second utilization on a DSLAM port. It would be VERY interesting to know what the number is today, and what the growth curve has really looked like over the last five years or so. But we will likely never get that info released.

If a good-sized GAS ISP provisions 12 Gig connections per 40,000 customers, how much bandwidth is allocated per customer on average ?
If 12 gigE is 12 Gigabits, and that was what you meant, then 12 gigE would be 12x1024x1024x1024 = 12,884,901,888 bits per second, then divided by 40,000 subscribers = 322,123 bits/s = 40,265 bytes/s = about 40 Kbytes/s, FULLY over-subscribed (less PPPoE overhead) - i.e. EVERYONE should be able to sustain that level of Download CONTINUOUSLY, and if Bell's gigE links support the same speed of Upload, then that figure could also apply to it.

Sounds about right without doing the math. So peak utilization would be around 325Kbits per subscriber if everyone was beating on the system at once.

What is that number stated as an over-subscription ratio ?
If we chose 5Mbit/800Kbit (which is the currently highest tariffed GAS tier, AFAIK), then Downstream of 5Mbit/s = 5x1024x1024 = 5,242,880 Mbit/sec (less PPPoE overhead)

If we divide that figure by the 322,123 Mbit/s obtained earlier, we would have an oversubscription ratio of (wait for it....) 16.28

Upstream performance might be limited, dependent upon the amount of technology which Bell chose to implement in the last few miles of the overall network for that purpose.

We run around 12:1 which, although it sounds good, paradoxically is not nearly as nice in the real world, but we are so much smaller and thus have that much less of a statistical universe to play in.

You used to be able to run 30:1 a few years ago. The world has changed. I'm going to try to get ours below 8:1 by this coming summer for the cottage season.

How do cable and DSL networks differ in engineered over-subscription ratios ?

Do not know, but I DO know that their topology is different, so bottlenecks could occur at different points, due to loading on any segments below such points in the topology.

I don't know either. I'm guessing its going to wander around because there is so much variation in speed tiers and DOCSIS technologies.

Last but not least, what happens to a network as described above when streaming video such as NetFlix becomes the norm instead of broadcast TV ?

Much of the same stuff which many of us are starting to bitch about recently, BUT, it would NOT suddenly begin at 4:30 PM or 6 PM, IMNSHO.

Yup, its going to get ugly, but probably not nearly as ugly as some doomsayers are predicting. I think we're going to see what 2011 looks like right after Christmas when all those shiny new net-enabled-streaming goodies get hooked up.

There is a real technology basis for increased costs as usage increases when you figure what a vast area in Ontario and Quebec Bell actually covers. However, most of the bs that floats around seems to be based on business decisions rather than technology ones. Gee, what a surprise! Preserving revenue streams seems to be the driving force in most of this stuff.

Geo

Davesnothere
No-BHELL-ity DOES have its Advantages

join:2009-06-15
START&Cogeco
kudos:6

said by GNca George:

....Apologies, trying to break this up to keep it readable was tricky. I've screwed up the attribution...

-
I follow it fine.

BTW, I have been editing (adding to) my last post many times on the fly, and you should review it again from about the 40,000 subscribers question onward.


GNca George
GorillaNET Wireless Broadband
Premium,VIP
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON

Caught up I hope. Interesting topic, there are a lot of experts here, hopefully some will chime in.

Geo



GNca George
GorillaNET Wireless Broadband
Premium,VIP
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON

reply to TakeTheFifth

said by TakeTheFifth:

[
BAM! Good questions. I have a pretty good idea what numbers Bell used. I have yet to see numbers from independant ISPs. Even ballpark figures.

12gps for 40,000 subscribers comes out to 300Kbps average. If you get an average of 1.5mbps per connection, that's a 5:1 over-subscription ratio. To hit the 60G cap means you would download ~14 hours a day at 300Kbps every day of the month.

Phil

Once you filter out the spin, there is a lot of good info in the Sandvine stuff.

The document I was thinking of is part of Bell's original price justification for a GAS port tariff. This was a proceeding from many years ago right at the start of GAS and it provided a port peak utilization number that I don't think has ever been updated. I sure would like to see the current numbers...

Geo
--
Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
"My logisticians are a humorless lot...they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay."
Alexander of Macedonia

Davesnothere
No-BHELL-ity DOES have its Advantages

join:2009-06-15
START&Cogeco
kudos:6

2 edits

reply to GNca George

said by GNca George:

What percentage of Bell's total DSL customer base is served by the Indie GAS ISP's ?

DAVE : A number we keep hearing for all Indie ISPs' end users combined is 5% of all end users, but I do not know whether that proportion holds true within each incumbent ISP's client base, such as Bell's GAS division compared to all of Bell's DSL subscribers.

GEO : Bell claimed that GAS ISPs use quite a lot of the network. I have problems believing that a 5% market share translates into this kind of load. It doesn't make much sense.
»netneutrality.michaelgeist.ca/cr···ven-bell

For wholesale, Bell stated that "two assertions must be corrected". First, contrary to what many have told the CRTC, retail users and wholesale GAS users share the same network. As a result of this, wholesale traffic impacts retail traffic, and vice-versa. Secondly, Bell stated that "wholesale ISPs have attempted to dismiss their impact on our retail network by pointing to their overall market share."

They argued, however, that the reality is that wholesale traffic is significant, as in the month of May 2009, wholesale GAS traffic accounted for 31% of their total GAS and retail traffic, and GAS traffic accounted for 36% of their total P2P traffic.


DAVE : Even if those numbers ARE completely accurate for the time, SO WHAT !

The REAL question to be asked is "Did those conditions REALLY cause congestion on Bell's network, or is this just some sort of pecker measuring contest, for the sake of the almighty Cash-Grab ?"

-
said by GNca George:

Is Bell introducing UBB only to screw the Indie's, or is the bigger issue (from Bell's perspective) keeping a usage lid on Bell's own customers ?

DAVE : Could be Yes to Both, and if so, it WOULD conform to the generally accepted definition of Capitalism, and we CAN say for whatever it's worth, that Bell is, if nothing else, a devout corporate capitalist.

GEO : My guess is yes to both. If the GAS percentage of use is in fact really is high, then the continual whining about GAS may have more basis in fact. Still have a hard time believing it.

DAVE : See my answer to your other above comment, as I reckon it applies to both.


Davesnothere
No-BHELL-ity DOES have its Advantages

join:2009-06-15
START&Cogeco
kudos:6

reply to GNca George

said by GNca George:

said by GNca George:

Last but not least, what happens to a network as described above when streaming video such as NetFlix becomes the norm instead of broadcast TV ?

DAVE : Much of the same stuff which many of us are starting to bitch about recently, BUT, it would NOT suddenly begin at 4:30 PM or 6 PM, IMNSHO.

-
Yup, its going to get ugly, but probably not nearly as ugly as some doomsayers are predicting.

I think we're going to see what 2011 looks like right after Christmas when all those shiny new net-enabled-streaming goodies get hooked up.

There is a real technology basis for increased costs as usage increases when you figure what a vast area in Ontario and Quebec Bell actually covers.

However, most of the bs that floats around seems to be based on business decisions rather than technology ones.

Gee, what a surprise! Preserving revenue streams seems to be the driving force in most of this stuff.

Geo

-
Yessiree, Revenue Streams trump Data Streams ANY day in the BHell BHoardroom !

Forget the subscribers, lets budget to buy MORE GOLF BALLS !



GNca George
GorillaNET Wireless Broadband
Premium,VIP
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON

1 edit

reply to Davesnothere

said by Davesnothere:

The REAL question to be asked is "Did those conditions REALLY cause congestion on Bell's network, or is this just some sort of pecker measureing contest, for the sake of Cash-Grab ?"

Now that is the real question.

If someone could post that original port utilization number, we would have an scenario we could work from.

But for the sake of having some fun. Let's assume it was 150K and it was maybe 8 years ago (likely more).

So lets also say for the sake of argument that somewhere around 325K, maybe even 512K is getting the job done today.(edit: even for the heaviest user community)

And Bell says the big bad Indies are eating what, 37% of their network?

If you assume that most of the heavy users have migrated to the Indies (edit: and are still getting by with 512K), which seems like a pretty safe guess, then I'm having a realllllly hard time seeing where any unmanageable network growth has been coming from as the average of the remaining Bell customers simply can't be all that much higher than it used to be, so in my eyes at least Bell's 'unsustainable' growth thing looks pretty bogus. Sure, there's been significant growth, but hardly explosive. Seems like most of the growth has been through acquiring new customers rather than the existing ones going nuts. In my experience, a lot of customers brand new to Broadband just aren't that heavy to start with.

We need more input to fill in the blanks. I hate assumptions. (edit: One if the bad assumptions is we don't really know what "native" port utilization would be today if there was no throttling at all. Its going to be higher, but how much? I suspect throttling affects a relatively small percentage of the total GAS user community so it may not have that much of an impact on the total GAS usage numbers. Hmmm??)

Geo

see embedded edits.
--
Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
"My logisticians are a humorless lot...they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay."
Alexander of Macedonia

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