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Comcast/Sandvine Traffic Managment System Evolves
'Fairshare 2.0' can tackle more users, more quickly...

Sandvine Corporation, whose traffic shaping hardware sat at the heart of Comcast's P2P throttling controversy, was considered one of the tech-sector's hottest companies in 2007. However, things went south in 2008, when Comcast was investigated by the FCC for implementing traffic management technology that throttled all customers' upstream bandwidth by using TCP packet forgery. But Sandvine and Comcast adapted, deploying new "Fairshare" traffic management gear by Sandvine that was "protocol agnostic."

Instead of treating all customers the same, Sandvine's new solution was able to specifically target only heavy users, throttling back a user's connection only if their node was congested -- and the specific user was a major reason why. The new Fairshare technology was deployed by Comcast earlier this year, and given we've seen virtually no complaints -- it seems like a minimally-intrusive upgrade. Sandvine now says they've unveiled Fairshare version 2.0, which is capable of handling more users, more quickly. The feature list:

quote:
• Advanced reporting capabilities that support network capacity planning

•Improved congestion detection capabilities to help maintain network quality of experience

•Platform scalability to one million subscribers per server, reducing the overall cost of ownership

•An array of customizable policy options to meet network capabilities and business objectives

•Policy options including subscriber-centric approaches, application-centric approaches or, most powerfully, combinations of both
Sandvine says they've deployed the technology with at least four large cable, DSL and wireless operators, but isn't naming them. The one carrier we know that does use Sandvine gear (Comcast) may already have Fairshare 2.0 deployed across their network. The fact that none of you even noticed is a fairly good sign we've made progress from last year at this time, when Comcast was embroiled in a massive network nerd controversy for forging packets.
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Krypty
join:2004-07-09
Olathe, KS

Krypty

Member

Eh

Cant really see any reason anybody would disagree with this. As long as it really does only effect congested nodes where "managing" the heaviest user(s) bandwidth usage during that period of time, than who can really complain.

funchords
Hello
MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA

funchords

MVM

Re: Eh

said by Krypty:

As long as it really does only effect congested nodes where "managing" the heaviest user(s) bandwidth usage during that period of time
If the ISP is behaving irresponsibly, then another way to rephrase this is, "As long as it really does only effect grossly oversold nodes where 'managing' the customers merely using their service as advertised usage during that period of time"

... we need to be careful that "fairshare" doesn't become the cheap alternative for keeping up with network upgrades. I agree with Karl's assessment (based on reading the forums) that we haven't seen that with Comcast so far ...

FreedomBuild
Well done is better than well said
Premium Member
join:2004-10-08
Rockford, IL

1 edit

FreedomBuild

Premium Member

Re: Eh

I dunno...maybe some folks are just confused over Comcast's craptacular regular service or the throttling.

This I know. In my neck of the woods we are lucky to see 2/3 rd of our rated speed with powerboost.

I know for a fact when uploading videos and such to a website I manage. I am lucky to see 1/3rd the rated speed. Then again most folks in my area don't know any better of what they should get verses what they are actually receiving.
Mordhem
Love it, Hate it.
join:2003-07-10
Baltimore, MD

1 recommendation

Mordhem

Member

Re: Eh

Well that's unlucky for you! My comcast service has always been perfect! Mine is aways at speed but allot of the times I get speeds allot higher then what I am paying for. So you wont see my crying.
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO

Lazlow to Krypty

Member

to Krypty
I think they need to be very careful with this. If it is only kicking in for a couple of hours a day, then I would agree that it is no big deal. But if it starts kicking in for six hours a day, that would indicate to me that there is a real congestion issue and they need to split the node. Keeping a close eye on that type of thing and determining how often it is kicking in is too often, will be the real test.
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin to Krypty

Member

to Krypty
Upgrading a single or a few nodes with increased bandwidth to handle congestion is a drop in the bucket to a company as large as Comcast. Employing any sort of traffic throttling is simply a way to allow a very profitable company to avoid having to spend money to provide the same quality of service to *all* its users.

In technology it's the heaviest and most prolific users who ride the wave of new tech and applications. They often tend to be early adopters and the ones who spend the most money (like on Comcast's highest bandwidth tiers). Any sort of throttling is bad for consumers as it stifles innovation on the application provider's end.

DJMASACRE
join:2008-05-27
Nepean, ON

DJMASACRE to Krypty

Member

to Krypty
said by Krypty:

Cant really see any reason anybody would disagree with this. As long as it really does only effect congested nodes where "managing" the heaviest user(s) bandwidth usage during that period of time, than who can really complain.
your joking right ? or not have the slightest clue what is really happening for over a year now with all this garbage .
caco
Premium Member
join:2005-03-10
Whittier, AK

1 recommendation

caco

Premium Member

"massive network nerd controversy "

Best choice of words I've seen in a long time.

cameronsfx
join:2009-01-08
Panama City, FL

cameronsfx

Member

Re: "massive network nerd controversy "

said by caco:

Best choice of words I've seen in a long time.
As funny as this:

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· =related

jmn1207
Premium Member
join:2000-07-19
Sterling, VA

jmn1207

Premium Member

Interesting

I'm suspicious of Verizon FiOS and the mysterious "fluff" introduced with their latest price increase...er...speed upgrade.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Sandvine says Docsis 3 won't end need for traffic mgt

After going to their web site, I found it interesting that they made a big point of explaining that Docsis 3 cable systems(like Comcast) won't end the need for traffic mgt. They say that HD video will relatively quickly even saturate D3 systems and that their product will still be needed.

Of course, they are pitching the need for their services even on much faster networks. But they probably are making a valid point - even Docsis 3 won't keep up when massive HD videos become mainstream. Maybe that is why all the ISPs are looking at caps.
Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO

Skippy25

Member

Re: Sandvine says Docsis 3 won't end need for traffic mgt

Nah..... they are looking at caps with overage charges to keep people like you (corporate stock jockeys) happy.

So they are rolling out what is suppose to be the next great technology and yet still need a device that they implemented with last decades technology to make up for it's shortcomings?

I guess if this new great technology wasn't so good, it should of been skipped and they should of went right to the true next great technology - FIBER all the way to the consumer. That would make too much sense though. Why invest now for tomorrow when you can keep the "we want maximum profits and want them now short timers" happy by milking this cow until it falls over dead?
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to FFH5

Member

to FFH5
Funny how there's no mention of GPON in their bandwidth apocalypse. Why? Well, when you're dividing up 2.488 Gbps of capacity among 32 (at most) users you can run everyone at full throttle with no ill effects.

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

SpaethCo

MVM

Re: Sandvine says Docsis 3 won't end need for traffic mgt

said by iansltx:

Funny how there's no mention of GPON in their bandwidth apocalypse. Why? Well, when you're dividing up 2.488 Gbps of capacity among 32 (at most) users you can run everyone at full throttle with no ill effects.
That's the capacity of the access technology, not overall network capacity.
Verizon isn't budgeting 2.5gbps of distribution capacity for every single FiOS segment.

The problem is solvable with money, and for cheaper than upgrading the edge again. That's the whole point in $18 billion infrastructure upgrade projects -- you want to get as much run time out of them as possible.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: Sandvine says Docsis 3 won't end need for traffic mgt

That's true, however once you've upgraded the edge to PON, you simply drop in faster electronics and you have 10G-PON and beyond. On the backbone side, again all you need is electronics to get where you need to be. 100 Gbit WDM tech (per strand) should be along soonish, so the backbone won't be congested either.

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

1 recommendation

SpaethCo

MVM

Re: Sandvine says Docsis 3 won't end need for traffic mgt

said by iansltx:

That's true, however once you've upgraded the edge to PON, you simply drop in faster electronics and you have 10G-PON and beyond.
Sort of.

GPON to 10G-PON usually requires recharacterization and signal remediation because the allowable signal tolerances are different. The downstream is also shared across all of the ONTs on the segment, so to upgrade to 10GPON you either need to upgrade all the ONTs at the same time or break the 10G signal out into a different lambda and upgrade specific ONTs to using the new wavelength.

At a high level you're absolutely correct, but when you actually start working down into the details of implementation the required tasks make it cost a lot more than it would appear on the surface.
said by iansltx:

On the backbone side, again all you need is electronics to get where you need to be. 100 Gbit WDM tech (per strand) should be along soonish, so the backbone won't be congested either.
100GigE Ethernet isn't due for ratification until sometime around Q2 2010, so I wouldn't expect to see product being widely available for that until probably around 2011. You also have to keep in mind that the major carriers have massive investments in existing WDM solutions that may not be 100G capable. (ie, there's still an insanely large deployment of Nortel Optera 5xxx hardware amongst carriers)
bt
join:2009-02-26
canada

bt

Member

That's not possible!

But it's not possible to do that! Bell Canada said so, and they wouldn't lie to us.

/sarcasm

andyross
MVM
join:2003-05-04
Aurora, IL

andyross

MVM

Reason for DCC's?

I wonder if thew new version is responsible for the excessive number of Dynamic Channel Change (DCC) sent to my modem since mid June. I can get these as often as 5-6 minutes apart. They cause 10-15 second outages. That in turn causes Vonage to go out for 15-20 seconds, and my Citrix connection to work to time out for 30 seconds or more while it tries to reconnect.

Using DCC's is one way to balance and minimize load across multiple channels in D3 areas, but somebody needs to tell the programmers that changing channels is not instant!

ztmike
Mark for moderation
Premium Member
join:2001-08-02
La Porte, IN

1 recommendation

ztmike

Premium Member

Docsis 3?

Why are they even doing traffic management? Isn't Docsis 3 suppose to solve most of these issues?

If a certain area is heavily congested and its not on D3..the logic to me would be to upgrade to Docsis 3 and split some nodes. Not "manage" peoples connection that they pay full price for.

POB
Res Firma Mitescere Nescit
Premium Member
join:2003-02-13
Stepford, CA

POB

Premium Member

Re: Docsis 3?

said by ztmike:

If a certain area is heavily congested and its not on D3..the logic to me would be to upgrade to Docsis 3 and split some nodes. Not "manage" peoples connection that they pay full price for.
ISPs consider only those areas without a FiOS or U-Verse option to be "heavily congested." For some strange reason, only areas without competition need to be "managed" more.

/sarcasm

ztmike
Mark for moderation
Premium Member
join:2001-08-02
La Porte, IN

ztmike

Premium Member

Re: Docsis 3?

said by POB:

said by ztmike:

If a certain area is heavily congested and its not on D3..the logic to me would be to upgrade to Docsis 3 and split some nodes. Not "manage" peoples connection that they pay full price for.
ISPs consider only those areas without a FiOS or U-Verse option to be "heavily congested." For some strange reason, only areas without competition need to be "managed" more.

/sarcasm
I guess I can consider myself "lucky" so far. My area has been upgraded to Docsis 3 and my speed jumped from 6/2 to 12/2 for free..and I get my full speeds if the server I'm downloading from can even do it.

I don't live in a to big of an area..so that's probably why I get full speeds.

I just think its bullshit what Comcast is doing to its customers with traffic management and monthly bandwidth caps, then they don't even provide the bandwidth meter! lol

Until they get a "working" meter, they shouldn't have a cap. The customer shouldn't be the one to figure out how much bandwidth he/she uses. Or what Comcast itself goes by to be their "actual" numbers.

So far (in my eyes) Docsis 3 is nothing but marketing hype, and the fact that these ISP's that have Docsis 3 and still cap users just goes to show how much greed they have.
sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH

sonicmerlin

Member

Re: Docsis 3?

Why would you be willing to accept a cap even if they provided a meter? Caps don't make economical or technical sense.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to ztmike

Member

to ztmike
DOCSIS 3 only has Nx38 Mbps of capacity, where N = 4 right now. Granted, that's better than 38 Mbps of capacity, but still nothing compared with *PON or AON.

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

SpaethCo to ztmike

MVM

to ztmike
said by ztmike:

Why are they even doing traffic management? Isn't Docsis 3 suppose to solve most of these issues?
Adding a lane to a freeway makes things better, but it doesn't necessary solve rush hour.

The DOCSIS 3 plant is still oversubscribed, which means there is still always the possibility of congestion.

This isn't something that's used to solve the problem of links being congested 50% of the time, this is for links congested 1% of the time or less.

ztmike
Mark for moderation
Premium Member
join:2001-08-02
La Porte, IN

ztmike

Premium Member

Re: Docsis 3?

said by SpaethCo:

said by ztmike:

Why are they even doing traffic management? Isn't Docsis 3 suppose to solve most of these issues?
Adding a lane to a freeway makes things better, but it doesn't necessary solve rush hour.

The DOCSIS 3 plant is still oversubscribed, which means there is still always the possibility of congestion.

This isn't something that's used to solve the problem of links being congested 50% of the time, this is for links congested 1% of the time or less.
Then they need to split those nodes also.

spanglo
Premium Member
join:2004-05-17
San Diego, CA

spanglo

Premium Member

?

I wonder what their definition of a heavy user is? Or are they merely targeting the "heaviest" users on the node? And what if the node is oversubscribed to begin with?
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: ?

It probably just throttles the top users on the node, going down the list as congestion increases/doesn't let up.

So if you're on a really oversold node (1000 subscribers) then theoretically a YouTube viewer might be a heavy user. But Comcast tends not to do that.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

What a crappy company!

Sandvine is going to become the new RIAA. They need to use their programming talent on something else.

They are trying to profit off of limiting the internet. Sandvine is one of the worst companies ever.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: What a crappy company!

How is Sandvine limiting the Internet? And why are the such a bad company? They actually appear to be turning around and listening to their customers, which are sort of listening to their customers.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

Re: What a crappy company!

They are in the business of limiting internet. If they are listening to end users then they would not be in business.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: What a crappy company!

They are not limiting the Internet. A tool is only that...a tool. It's how the tool is used that maybe you take issue with. When end users start paying Sandvine for service, then they get a voice, until then, direct your "internet limiting" at the ISPs. FWIW, Comcast appears to be implementing Sandvine's technology with minimal to no noticeable impact to the end users so maybe they are listening

•••••

DJMASACRE
join:2008-05-27
Nepean, ON

DJMASACRE to openbox9

Member

to openbox9
said by openbox9:

How is Sandvine limiting the Internet? And why are the such a bad company? They actually appear to be turning around and listening to their customers, which are sort of listening to their customers.
you have no idea what is happening do you . you better read up in the teksavvy forum maybe

•••••••••

SVC Investor
@dsl.bell.ca

SVC Investor to r81984

Anon

to r81984
hmmm

company with no debt, 90M in the bank, solid biz model...

do your research b4 you comment.

sure sounds like a crappy company! wake up and buy some stock.

•••••••••••••
Zoness
join:2009-07-21
united state

Zoness

Member

Blah

Comcast is terrible company as it is I doubt the new system will really be fair. They have spread all over the country you would think they could manage a few upgrades but nah its easier just to throttle people. I'm so glad I am not with them anymore. In central Illinois I didn't really have the sandvine problem but they had terrible uptime after they acquired InsightBB's local setup and their support people knew nothing.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

1 recommendation

tmc8080

Member

cable has no balls

The cable companies do not want to compete with a dedicated bandwidth last mile network such as FTTP. This undermines their cable-tv business and phone business (phone, to a lesser extent). A 250Gb soft cap is primary proof that the biggest footprint cable company Comcast will not go toe to toe with Verizon's FTTP broadband network. Whatever they do now, they continue to prove that they are an inferior provider of broadband in a feeble attempt to protect a video(aka Cable-TV) revenue stream that's going to see a decline on the order of that seen by Plain Old Telephone Service providers. Due to this lack of competition in duopoly footprint, it begins to make broadband MORE expensive thus, in a way protecting for a little while longer, the cable revenue stream.

As cable companies see a mass exodus of customers, you will see more cable companies offering "ON DEMAND" channels streamed by packets. Cable companies will have no choice but to offer MORE for LESS again. Docsis 3 in and of itself IS NOT an evolution of a business model. The way the cable companies have deployed the service it's more like a circling of the wagons than competition. What is the result.. a clammoring for a 3rd party provider.

IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

IPPlanMan

Member

Re: cable has no balls

100% spot on...