The CAP. Why it is there + how it might be got rid of. Please read.

SkepticOne

It is a shame that caps seem to be the way things are going because it means the end of carefree internet before it even started. One of the selling points for light to moderate users is gone, which means that less of them will apply, leaving only the heavier users. This, in turn, further increases the need for caps and moreover more stringent caps.

Caps, while effectively solving the bandwidth problem, do so in a very crude way and they remove flexibility from the user. For example a lot of users may need to occasionally download a lot, but not every month - during other periods, they may only download a little. These users, in the agragate, do not place much of a burden on other users. In addition, users downloading at night don't degrade the service at the crucial peak time when lots of light users focussed on speed and gaming may be using it. Yet both these categories of users are penalised by a fixed cap.

There are possible solutions to this problem.

1. Price. By reducing price, more light users would apply, thus easing the pressure on the connection. This may come down in the future but for the moment, services such as RADSL depend heavily on wholesale prices by Eircom. Right now UTV, as with other operators, are forced rely on these prices. I think UTVs pricing puts it just about within the range of ordinary users, so it may not be that big of an issue.

2. Promote the concept of responsible use of a shared resource.

In reality, what is sold (to us) by the ISP is not a quantity of data (5, 10 gigs etc), but rather access to capacity shared with others. This is true whether it is capped or uncapped and is true of all broadband provided by ISPs internationally for home use. Because it is a shared resorce it is possible to abuse this shared resource. And therefore the ISP may have to do what any other reasonable person in charge of a shared resource might do and take measures to curb the abuse.

Lets make no bones about it. It is abuse. If someone takes significantly more from a shared resource to the significant detriment of others most reasonable people would call this abuse. We are simply arguing about the way in which it can be dealt.

Note that it is indeed a shared resource. No matter what the contention ratio is, it will never be 1:1. Therefore, the actions of 1 user will always have an effect on others. Even if it was 3:1, there would always be a very small number of users who would some how find a way to download data 24/7 and degrade the service significantly for others.

These same users would argue that they have "paid for a 512k connection and are only using it to the full". This argument would be valid if they were on a dedicated connection, not a shared connection. Some broadband providers are partly to blame for this, because even though in their advertising they may refer to "unlimited downloads" or whatever, they can never deliver on this without the risk of serios degradation in speed at peak times for everyone (thereby negating their advertising of a 512k service).

Therefore, what I propose in UTVip's terms and conditions is something like the following.

Like all home broadband services, you are sharing a limited amount of bandwidth with other users. It is possible to abuse this bandwidth to the extent of significantly degrading the service to others. Such activity may include heavy use of peer-to-peer file sharing programs (such as Kazaa, eDonkey and others), extended periods viewing high bandwidth streaming video etc. In particular heavy bandwidht use during peak evening time may be considered an abuse of the service. As such, UTVip may take measures to curb abuse. These measures may include limiting the speed of the connection, or in extreme cases, removal from the service.

UTVip does not provide the facility for unlimited downloads but wants to ensure a fair compromise between flexibility and quality of service. Unfortunately, it is not possible to specify in advance precicely the conditions under which bandwidth usage might be curbed as this depends on the usage patterns of all users combined.

Something along these lines would have to be signed by the potential customer in order to recieve the service.

Now the main objection to this will be that people want to know precicely what they can and can't do to avoid being 'curbed'. Unfortunately, the solution to this is a cap. It might be a simple monthly download limit. It might be a complex cap, for example, different amounts of data allowed at night, or to take into consideration the rolling average downloaded over several months or some other formula. However the problem with caps (especially the more complex ones) is that they put off the average Joe Soap user. Without Joe Soap, you are left with far more of the heavy users and the cap needs to be lower than it might otherwise be.

In addition to this, a cap specified in advance, as well as putting off light users who should not be burdened with such things, encourages heavy users to monitor precicely their downloads to make sure they get their money's worth. If a significant number of people did this, the caps would need to be even lower. A simple calculation based on 512k at a contention ratio of 48:1 shows that the maximum that can be downloaded is only 3.25 gigs. If every user of the service decided to download 3.25 gigs, the system would slow to a crawl and that 3.25 gigs would take the entire month to download for each user. This is just basic arithmatic based on how much data a 512k pipe can deliver divided by 48.

The payoff, however, is twofold.

1. Socially, more people in Ireland get a decent internet connection. They are attracted to it because it does not burden them with gigs they can download etc. The concept of 'fair use' and downloading at night when there is more capacity, this is fairly easy to understand. This is the more important one for me. The side effect is that UTV make more money from more getting more customers.

2. For the heavier users, more flexibility provided they behave in a responsible manner and don't abuse the shared resource. All they need to do is recognise the nature of the bandwidht they are sharing and act accordingly. Use common sense.

What we need to do

Now the suggested 'terms and conditions' section is not particularly unusual. Many broadband ISPs have this sort of thing. This is what allows 'uncapped' services in other countries.

What I think, UTV may be worried about is people that they have been forced to throttle, or in the more extreme case, kick off the service, may end up here ranting about it. I think the majority of people can understand the argument I have been making.

So what is required is the active positive endorsement of UTVs possible inclusion of such a paragraph in their terms and conditions as well as an acknowlegment of their right to act on it where necessary. Remember, they would rather not kick off or throttle anyone's bandwidth. Also, we need to make sure that no sympathy is given to abusers that have been curbed if they rant about it here or elsewhere as such ranting is the result of a false sense of entitlement. It does not save UTV money when they curb someone since there is little they can do about providing bandwith, it is done to make the service more useable for others.

In the hope that UTV may be influenced to be flexible about the issue bandwidth management (as they are in the North), I invite people to actively endorse what I've been saying if they agree with it. What I'm saying here is simply the standard practice elsewhere.

This message is aimed at us boards users. It is not to put UTV on the spot, although their comments would also be welcome.

I would also welcome criticism of the above. However, it should take into account the constraints underwhich UTVip is operating as well as your own desires. UTV might like to provide the ability to download tens of gigabytes for everyone a month, but they are forced to operate within constraints not of their own making.

I can't guarantee that UTV will be influenced. I'm sure we all respect their right to act as a private company and do what they deem necessary as much as they respect our right to give or withold our custom.

So, your endorsements (if you agree) and comments please.

flamegrill

Here here :-)

After much debate and slight ranting last nite from myself in an effort to explain the very nature that is Broadband in this county you have put together a nice piece.

UTV I applore you to listen to the comments that will follow in this thread and I ask you to also comment.


Paul

tomk

Good points, SO, and yes, I would sign up to that kind of T&C.

spongebob

This is called a Fair Usage policy, not a cap.

I am a fan of these, in the interests of fairness.

As Sceptic pointed out, it is a 3.25Gb per month product once averaged. My objection to Eircom setting a 4Gb cap is that they cannot guarantee all 48 users 4Gb because the contention is too high, therefore it is false advertising IMO.

I would personally support a 1Gb per day 'threshold' after which that user gets throttled for the rest of that day, throttle off again at ...1AM that night or so.

If you get throttled 10 times in a month then you could be singled out for an email, telling you that you have hit your threshold 10 times that month.

If you keep doing it you could be throttled for the rest of the month and not just the rest of the day

I think that a dynamic approach to problems as they arise is pretty fair, a 24:1 Contention is much fairer.

Austria Telecom has a mixed bag of packages for the different kinds of surfers (in German)

M

flav0rflav

Namby-pamby bunch of push-overs.

The government has spent your money putting big fibre links all over the country and you can't get a measly 512k?

The only bottleneck should be the international links! The expensive links, owned by the corporates.

With a signifiicant available bandwidth in the country, you'd have alot more hosting/gaming/p2p/etc in the country and no need for all users to be going outside over expensive links.

Spouting bollox? Maybe, but look at S.Korea and Japan first.

BT aren't suffering contention on the back of their dslams, nildram in the uk averages ~450k on their 512k service and all the gamers/dl'ers know that and go there. See adslguide.org.uk for info.

drjolt

Put simply, calling it 'abuse' sets up a confrontation with the user no matter what your definition of 'abuse' is. Human nature being what it is, as soon as you go down that road, you just waste an enormous amount of time arguing about what 'abuse' is, does it mean the same thing during peak hours as at off-peak times, when should those peaks be, etc. etc. etc.

There is a better way: have the network enforce equality of service during times of congestion. All modern router platforms support some type of 'fair queueing'. This feature goes by different names, and there are a number of variations on the theme, but they all work in basically the same way: by changing the way in which packets flow through the router.

By default, a router deals with packets on a First In, First Out (FIFO) basis. So, if I'm downloading the latest episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer over KazaMorpheDonkeySter, your email traffic ends up stuck in the queue and slowed down, because the router isn't differentiating between traffic going to me and traffic going to you, and isn't doing anything to control how much of the bandwidth I use - if I can generate enough traffic, I can swamp the backhaul link, and you don't get a look in.

The smart thing for that router to do is to start differentiating between you and me, and start ensuring that you get a fair share of the bandwidth. Fortunately, modern router software is well able to do this. Instead of having a single queue, and that queue being a free-for-all, a router can effectively give every user their own queue, and service those queues fairly.

What this allows an ISP to do is implement a policy like "Every user is guaranteed X Kb of bandwidth, where X might be <backhaul bandwidth> / <users>, at all times, and can burst over that if and only if the backhaul link is not being fully utilised right now."

So, in the above scenario, my P2P download would be automatically throttled back in order to give you your fair share of the pipe.

It would be fully automated, easily explained to customers, and above all, fair - it only throttles someone when they're causing a problem, and leaves them alone otherwise.

drjolt

Originally posted by flav0rflav
Namby-pamby bunch of push-overs.

The government has spent your money putting big fibre links all over the country and you can't get a measly 512k?

Who's supposed to be administering that anyway? Who do I talk to to get a quote?

SkepticOne

Originally posted by flav0rflav
Namby-pamby bunch of push-overs.

The government has spent your money putting big fibre links all over the country and you can't get a measly 512k?

The only bottleneck should be the international links! The expensive links, owned by the corporates.

With a signifiicant available bandwidth in the country, you'd have alot more hosting/gaming/p2p/etc in the country and no need for all users to be going outside over expensive links.

Spouting bollox? Maybe, but look at S.Korea and Japan first.

I'm fully aware of this. There is a vast amount of bandwidth coming into the country, most of it unsold. However, UTV or any ISP must still deal with other entities in order to deliver the service. I'm fully in favour of trying to utilise this bandwidth more, but right now there is a limited amount that an ISP (UTV, Netsource) have to deal with.

spongebob

Originally posted by drjolt
Who's supposed to be administering that anyway? Who do I talk to to get a quote?

ESAT own the Western Digital Corridor and have shedloads of spare capacity (48 pairs) on it ....because they never used it after it was laid 3 years ago.

Ring ESAT business sales, it runs Dublin Athlone Galway Ennis Shannon Limerick . DWDM fibre, mmmmmmmmmm

Back then Mary O'Rourke could stand up and spout thus!

"The award of this project is a firm indicator of the Government's faith in OCEAN and our technology. The building of the Western Digital Corridor is an important first step in the construction of a national fibre ring which we see as a multi-operator platform linking Dublin, Athlone, Galway, Shannon, Cork, Waterford and Wexford and the new cable landing points. I invite the other major new operators to join with OCEAN in completing this ring in Year 2000 thereby extending the benefits of the International Connectivity Project countrywide. We also believe that national wayleave and infrastucture assets (such as those along the canals and railways) need to be quickly deployed to support the new communications revolution in Ireland and broaden its geographic impact. We will work positively with the relevant agencies to achieve this end and to facilitate the Government's wish to position Ireland as the primary hub in Europe for E-commerce."

M

DeVore

Or we could have a decent infrastructure which was capable of handling peakloads like any other network.

originally posted by SkepticOne
I would also welcome criticism of the above. However, it should take into account the constraints underwhich UTVip is operating as well as your own desires. UTV might like to provide the ability to download tens of gigabytes for everyone a month, but they are forced to operate within constraints not of their own making.

Are we *just* talking about UTV's position here? Or the situation in general?


I worked as a WAN engineer for a major irish-wide company. 80 locations round Ireland all hooked together with fibre.

We monitored the network and when something bottlenecked somewhere we'd look closely at that area. If it was regularly bottlenecking, we increased the capacity.

Any network engineer worth his salt knows this way of doing it. Shared resources dont NEED to be capable of handling the theoretical maximum of all clients connected to them. They just need to be able to satisfy the demand that is MOST LIKELY to be put on them.

Its usually referred to as something like the 95% rule. 95% of the time you should have spare resource going to "waste". 5% of the time you are operating at total capacity.

If you find that you are operating at total capacity 80% of the time, well hey buddy, you need to buy yourself some more resource there!

But wont the hogs just keep hogging the new stuff? No, because they ARE capped in a way. They are capped by only having a 512K connection. Thats the upper range of a single hogs capacity to hog!

If you have a bottle neck, why not expand it rather then find ways to punish people to make them all fit in.

Maybe this isnt realistic but like... in the end of the day its not like you have to PAY the electrons to travel down the wire. Sending twice as many or 10 times as many doesnt cost twice as much or 10 times as much.

UTV are being hobbled in this regard by their upstream suppliers, they have to pass on the restrictions that are applied to them (you think UTV *want* this bad press??). This is why I'm looking at wireless where hopefully saner minds have prevailed and the networks are less stingey with the resources.

DeV.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by drjolt
The smart thing for that router to do is to start differentiating between you and me, and start ensuring that you get a fair share of the bandwidth. Fortunately, modern router software is well able to do this. Instead of having a single queue, and that queue being a free-for-all, a router can effectively give every user their own queue, and service those queues fairly.

What this allows an ISP to do is implement a policy like "Every user is guaranteed X Kb of bandwidth, where X might be <backhaul bandwidth> / <users>, at all times, and can burst over that if and only if the backhaul link is not being fully utilised right now."

So, in the above scenario, my P2P download would be automatically throttled back in order to give you your fair share of the pipe.

It would be fully automated, easily explained to customers, and above all, fair - it only throttles someone when they're causing a problem, and leaves them alone otherwise.

If I understand this currectly, you are saying, basically deprioritise those doing big downloads. If you want to do a big download - fine, but others use of bandwidth (for example for web browsing will be prioritised). It is a much better solution to the crude cap, since it does not place the burden of a cap on light users who should not have to worry about such things.

UTV should implement this, if possible. Maybe it is not the complete solution, but it would be a step along the way.

Even with this measure in place, the only bandwidht that the ISP can guarantee with absolute certainty at peak time is 512k / 48 = a measly 10k a second. There is nothing a router can do about this although it is likely to arise to this extent. I think there will always be a need for self-imposed restraint.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by DeVore
Are we *just* talking about UTV's position here? Or the situation in general?

UTV or any ISP in the position of UTV selling services based on 48:1 RADSL bitstream from Eircom.

Unfortunately, some of the methods you mention may not be available to UTV for this reason.[/B][/QUOTE]

Dustaz

Originally posted by drjolt

It would be fully automated, easily explained to customers, and above all, fair - it only throttles someone when they're causing a problem, and leaves them alone otherwise.

Thats actually an incredibly good solution and probably the best ive read so far in the 3495993,0039393,09393 threads about caps.

Is it in use anywhere else in the world do you know?

drjolt

Originally posted by SkepticOne
If I understand this currectly, you are saying, basically deprioritise those doing big downloads. If you want to do a big download - fine, but others use of bandwidth (for example for web browsing will be prioritised). It is a much better solution to the crude cap, since it does not place the burden of a cap on light users who should not have to worry about such things.

UTV should implement this, if possible. Maybe it is not the complete solution, but it would be a step along the way.

Essentially what would happen is when the backhaul gets congested, everybody gets an equal fraction of that link. When it's not so congested, a given download would get a bigger fraction of the pipe, but only when there's unused capacity. It'd be an "X Kbps guaranteed, burstable to 512Kbps" service, rather than an "512 Kbps service which we might have to charge you extra for if you use it too much, and it's up to you to track how much you use it" service. Everybody could then go ahead and use whatever applications they wanted, in the knowledge that the worst that would happen is they'd be throttled down to their guaranteed minimum rate.

spongebob

Originally posted by Dustaz
Thats actually an incredibly good solution and probably the best ive read so far in the 3495993,0039393,09393 threads about caps.

Is it in use anywhere else in the world do you know?

Eircom have ensured that the wholsale customer (UTV or Netsource) cannot talk back to the Eircom Routers across the Virtual Circuits or to the Dslam.

Throttling works smoothly when the instruction is implemented on the DSLAM itself or on the first router, this is not possible with Eircoms product.

I am a big fan of throttling after due warnings are given. It is a dynamic way to immediately enforce quality of service for all users.

The 'hog' still has their service, albeit at a lower guaranteed quality than the rest for a period (end of day or end of month) . A lot of VSaT operators do this.

M

flav0rflav

Eircom enforced radsl 48:1:

Either just download crap with kazaa and as many sources as you can, which gives you elbows with spikes on to get in front of the queue, or

go back to dialup.

(probly should split to two threads)

drjolt

Originally posted by Muck
Eircom have ensured that the wholsale customer (UTV or Netsource) cannot talk back to the Eircom Routers across the Virtual Circuits or to the Dslam.

Throttling works smoothly when the instruction is implemented on the DSLAM itself or on the first router, this is not possible with Eircoms product.

Although ideally you'd do it as close to the user as possible, I think it should still be effective if the ISPs do it at an IP level on their own routers (either where they connect to the Eircom DSL infrastructure, or on the routers which connect the ISP to the upstream carriers). All the eircom bitstream malarkey happens below the IP layer, right?

flamegrill

Originally posted by drjolt
Although ideally you'd do it as close to the user as possible, I think it should still be effective if the ISPs do it at an IP level on their own routers (either where they connect to the Eircom DSL infrastructure, or on the routers which connect the ISP to the upstream carriers). All the eircom bitstream malarkey happens below the IP layer, right?

For that to work they would need to give static IP's, I'm not sure of their position on this, but its quite possible it could work on the ISP side, all be it a better option on eircoms side.


Paul

drjolt

Originally posted by SkepticOne
Even with this measure in place, the only bandwidth that the ISP can guarantee with absolute certainty at peak time is 512k / 48 = a measly 10k a second.

Yes, and this is the sort of thing I believe should be highlighted and taken up with the regulator by the ISPs, and indeed by IOFFL too - unfortunately, the fact that the terms of service aren't structured as 'X guaranteed, burstable to Y' obscures the issue, but it's a real problem.

drjolt

Originally posted by flamegrill
For that to work they would need to give static IP's

The beauty of a queueing setup is that it works in real time, based on the current network conditions, i.e. how congested the link is right now, and what IPs are sending and receiving right now, this minute. You don't need to care who has been assigned that IP at any given time, because you aren't trying to keep long-term records like you have to when you're enforcing a cap.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by drjolt
Essentially what would happen is when the backhaul gets congested, everybody gets an equal fraction of that link. When it's not so congested, a given download would get a bigger fraction of the pipe, but only when there's unused capacity. It'd be an "X Kbps guaranteed, burstable to 512Kbps" service,

. As far as I can see, this is an answer to a different problem, that of advertising a 512k service when not being able to deliver it. The solution being not to advertise it as such.

I have a couple of questions.

In the idalised scenario where you have a 512k pipe shared by 48 users and three of them are downloading Lord of the Rings. At the same time light user wants to view a short streaming video at 300k.

Are you saying that this bandwidth would be shared equally between these three users (i.e. giving an effective bandwidth of 512k/4 = 128k ignoring any other users on the system)?

Advertising of broadband normally talks about "up to 512k" anyway and does not guarantee any specific amount and even capped services can't guarantee 512k all the time.

drjolt

Originally posted by SkepticOne
. As far as I can see, this is an answer to a different problem, that of advertising a 512k service when not being able to deliver it. The solution being not to advertise it as such.

That is a solution, but one is almost always in a situation where there isn't enough upstream bandwidth to give all the users all their bandwidth all the time, so you oversubscribe and ideally use the 95% rule DeVore mentioned to upgrade from time to time. However, even if you haven't guaranteed anything in your advertising, you still need to deal with the problem of users who will use everything they can get.

I have a couple of questions.

In the idalised scenario where you have a 512k pipe shared by 48 users and three of them are downloading Lord of the Rings. At the same time light user wants to view a short streaming video at 300k.

Are you saying that this bandwidth would be shared equally between these three users (i.e. giving an effective bandwidth of 512k/4 = 128k ignoring any other users on the system)?

It would basically work as follows:

You have 48 users being serviced by 512Kbps of bandwidth. You configure a router with 48 queues into which it can place any given packet, one for each user, and have programmed it to give each user a fair share of the bandwidth. As each packet comes in from a user, it assigns it to the appropriate queue. The router looks at each queue in turn, and if there are packets waiting to go, it sends one out, then moves on to the next queue, and so on for each queue.

If it's 4am and there are three active users, then the router will find that 45 of its queues are empty, so it will spend its time moving packets for the 3 active users. Because it deals with each in turn, each user effectively gets 1/3 of the bandwidth. Now, if at 4:30am another user wakes up and starts downloading something, all that happens is that the router now finds 4 queues with packets on them, so it now divides its time amongst 4 queues instead of 3, and thus each user ends up 1/4 of the bandwidth.

flav0rflav

OK, theory has it's place, but before you all go too far, would anyone who wants to discuss technical methods of resoving the contention issue with eircom's bitstream please read:

http://www.eircom.ie/bveircom/pdf/Bitconnser.pdf

the eircom doc describing exactly how the service is constructed. (and stop wasting your own time)(apart from some esoteric gain in your experience of theoretical discussions)

MDR

I endorse this method as an innovative alernative to capping ....
capping has become a dirty word, and service which loses term from its t&c's, is bound to reap benefits ....

theciscokid

or you could go over to the dark side and uncap it another way but thats not the proper way now is it

some good points in this thread

drjolt

Originally posted by flav0rflav
OK, theory has it's place, but before you all go too far, would anyone who wants to discuss technical methods of resoving the contention issue with eircom's bitstream

The only way to reduce the contention on a service is to reduce the number of users or increase the amount of bandwidth, i.e. change one of the sides of the ratio. Eircom is a part of this equation for xDSL, because they control the lines into the houses. Publicising the ratio as I mentioned above, making it an IOFFL issue, is in my opinion the best way to approach the contention problem.

What this thread is mainly about is how an ISP can best deal with the problem, which exists for every ISP, of having any contention at all (and you always, always, always have some contention. It's a fact of life). Specifically, I'm talking about an alternative approach to caps and allowances.

the eircom doc describing exactly how the service is constructed. (and stop wasting your own time)(apart from some esoteric gain in your experience of theoretical discussions)

There's big money in esoteric experience, y'know.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by flav0rflav
OK, theory has it's place, but before you all go too far, would anyone who wants to discuss technical methods of resoving the contention issue with eircom's bitstream please read:

http://www.eircom.ie/bveircom/pdf/Bitconnser.pdf

the eircom doc describing exactly how the service is constructed. (and stop wasting your own time)(apart from some esoteric gain in your experience of theoretical discussions)

Fair enough. You brought up the the subject of bandwidht into Ireland and what is happening in Korea and were shot down.

Let's agree to keep this descussion to precicely what can be done given the constraints UTVip and other bitstream based ISPs are under.

I say the issue of bandwidh usage and abuse is a mainly social rather than technical issue anyway.

Señor Juárez

say you have 480 users in one exchange, at 48:1 contention. this would mean that you would need a minimum of 5120k coming into the exchange. rather than splitting each 512k between 48 users, the whole resource should be pooled:

each user is set with a minimum bandwidth throughput of 10.6k (512/48).

each user is set with a maximum throughput of 512k.

the above would ensure that the effects of hogging would be less noticable, as one hog would be spread between 480 users on 5120k, rather than 48 users on 512k.

make sense?

__________________________________________________

another idea for reduction of bandwidth wastage: set up filesharing programs for people on the same exchange/backbone. this should mean that while people are downloading whatever game mod or movie, it could come in at the 4mb/sec at which ADSL connects to the exchange, without using any actual internet bandwidth.

it would also help if eircom or whoever set up servers with games patches or whatever on their own backbone as well.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by marclar
the above would ensure that the effects of hogging would be less noticable, as one hog would be spread between 480 users on 5120k, rather than 48 users on 512k.

make sense?

It would be less harsh in that the percieved slowdown at peak time would be gradual and more predictable rather than sudden. At the end of the day, though, you are still sharing on a 48:1 basis and the slowdown would be just as severe if more gradual.

1 heavy user is going to have less effect on 480 users, but of course, there are going to be 10 times as many heavy users.

another idea for reduction of bandwidth wastage: set up filesharing programs for people on the same exchange/backbone. this should mean that while people are downloading whatever game mod or movie, it could come in at the 4mb/sec at which ADSL connects to the exchange, without using any actual internet bandwidth.

Interesting, but not in the power of UTV or other bitstream based providers.

Señor Juárez

i meant for the broadbanders among us. it should really be up to the likes of eircom

DeVore

Some of you are labouring under false pretenses.

Look two *critical* points.

1. RADSL Planned Contention happens BEFORE THE DATA EVER GETS TO THE RESELLING ISP... therefore this *entire* conversation is moot because unless the duopoly decide to alter the products they are offering you just have to put up with it (from a resellers pov).

Do you think that if I could have tweaked options like this I would be talking to Wireless people?

2. A major major major problem with contention current is that the upstream bandwidth IS THE SAME AS THE BANDWIDTH TO A SINGLE USER.

therefore a single user can max out the line and start to cause contention.

Joe Hog jumps on, starts warezing and suddenly everyone is getting crap connection and halving their speeds etc.

Lets say that instead of a 512kb connection from DSLAM to upstream you gave 1Mb and doubled the user pool. so its still 48:1 but *now* when Joe Hog jumps on he's maxed at 512k because thats all his *personal* line will carry. That still leaves 512k spare and so contention doesnt happen so easily. It takes two Joe Hogs or quite a number of light users to start contending for the upstream.



I'm with Flav on all this though. Yes, hogs are a problem but the truth is that we shouldnt accept caps or at least not caps that more then 5% of us are going to hit. 5Gb is 21 hours of downloading at full blast.

Theres 3 people in my flat.... it wouldnt take us too long to burn through that tbh...

DeV.

PiE

That's all very well Dev, but isn't this thread about what we can do to ensure that everyone that takes up the current offer gets a fair deal?

DeVore

Ok then I can end this thread pretty fast.

What you, I and I imagine UTV can about the current contention problems:

---

Start Solution

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End Solution

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DeV.

Gavin

Originally posted by SkepticOne

quote:

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another idea for reduction of bandwidth wastage: set up filesharing programs for people on the same exchange/backbone. this should mean that while people are downloading whatever game mod or movie, it could come in at the 4mb/sec at which ADSL connects to the exchange, without using any actual internet bandwidth.

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Interesting, but not in the power of UTV or other bitstream based providers.

Is this not the guts of what flav was proposing... ?

That being we have huge bandwidth internally(in ireland) between exchanges. Why not simply make this available(cost is negligible), increase the dsl connection rate for end user and, there is effectively a high speed 'local' connection in ireland. Users have large bandwith to their home and large bandwidth to services within ireland. The internationl links then become the point of congestion. ( which is not absolutely necessary, seeing as the consumers needs could be satisfied with the services made available right here in ireland, due to providers/consumers having access to large bandwidth)

howinever, that's slightly ot.

Gav

spongebob

Eircom own customers get treated the exact same way as all the others. They'll never go along with that will they?

The only fair solution (and it makes for a larger variety of Tariffs and Packages) is to allow the Wholesale Customer (UTV/IOL/Netsource) to control the QoS on the DSLAM Port. Funny how Eircoms wholesale decides the QoS for their customer, the competing carrier.

M

sceptre

Originally posted by marclar
another idea for reduction of bandwidth wastage: set up filesharing programs for people on the same exchange/backbone. this should mean that while people are downloading whatever game mod or movie, it could come in at the 4mb/sec at which ADSL connects to the exchange, without using any actual internet bandwidth

Not going to happen. Unlike the US there are no safe harbour provisions for ISPs (if Napster had been an ISP and had limited its file-sharing service to its subscribers it couldn't have been shut down). Also we've no fair use exceptions (like they have in the US) so that mp3 you just made is illegal in the UK and Ireland, which isn't too much of a problem until you start sharing it using a centralised file-sharing service in a country that has enforceable laws against it. Hence any file-sharing service from Eircom would be facilitating copyright infringement, which has lots of nice new penalties under the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act. If Eircom ever officially set up a file-sharing service they'll be in the High Court within days (and for a change it won't be them initiating the case)

If you are actually just talking about game mods (as opposed to <cough>"game mods"</cough>), see below

it would also help if eircom or whoever set up servers with games patches or whatever on their own backbone as well.

It would. It would even help them if they decided to pocket the difference and not pass on the savings to the consumer (as they'd make a little more money out of it). Would require brains to be turned on in eircomland though.

drjolt

Originally posted by DeVore
Ok then I can end this thread pretty fast.

What you, I and I imagine UTV can about the current contention problems:

I'm sorry, you must be confusing this with some thread about changing contention ratios. Talking about ways an ISP can deal with customer bandwidth usage over here.

DeVore

Originally posted by drjolt
I'm sorry, you must be confusing this with some thread about changing contention ratios. Talking about ways an ISP can deal with customer bandwidth usage over here.

EH?

*boggle*


If the bandwidth wasnt contended YOU WOULDNT HAVE TO DEAL WITH USAGE.


Contention causes the phenomena of "hogging"... hogging causes light users to get a crap deal, ISPs have to introduce caps to try and make it fair again.


One group here is trying to find a way to fit the camel through the eye of the needle while Flav and I are suggesting widening the needle's eye to begin with.


I swear if I have to mash my head on the keyboard once more today I'll have QWERTY on my forehead...

Accept the cap today... and fight to have it removed.

DeV.

drjolt

Originally posted by DeVore
If the bandwidth wasnt contended YOU WOULDNT HAVE TO DEAL WITH USAGE.

ISP bandwidth is always contended. Feel free to refute this point with examples.

NeoSlicerZ

/me waits for the boards.ie ISP's offering :-)

qwertyup

I know that my actual knowledge in this area is not much better than naught, but I'm always willing to learn, so please point out the flaws in this post. Just try not to ridicule it too much :P

Anyway, I was thinking about the contention issue, and this is what I'd like to see in a perfect world (admittedly a perfect world where 512K was shared with 48 people for €50 a month).

Basically, that usage pattterns be monitored. On a weekly basis, users would be allocated a rating from one to five.

1 -> Very Heavy Usage
2 -> Heavy Usage
3 -> Moderate Usage
4 -> Light Usage
5 -> Very Light Usage

These ratings would be based upon the hours spent uploading/downloading during the previous week, as opposed to the volume of data transfered.

Anyway, the way it would work is that the total available bandwidth usage would be divided up between the users in a manner somewhat similar to the idea behind weighted means.

As in, with 4 users on with a rating of 1, 22 at 3, and 4 at 5 you would have 512/((4*1) + (22*3) + (4*5)) as your base unit, in this case 5.68

This value would then be multiplied by your usage value to determine what portion of the bandwidth you get. Basically the idea would be to deprioritise the downloaders in favour of the light browsers.

Since the light and moderate users will only require the service for a reletively small amount of time, the service would still work at high speeds for the heavy users, but only at lull periods.

Its not like it will ever happen here, and its probably not in anyway feasible. It's just that it is the kind of solution which I would like to see.

PiE

One thing about drjolt's suggestion about splitting the line into 48 sections, 1 for each online person etc. What about the people who just leave their "always on" connection well... always on?

If they leave the connection idling, using say 0.1k/s, they still get the share that the rest of the people who are downloading get even though they don't need it. So that's a fair chunk of bandwidth going to waste, no?

Moriarty

Once the connection is established theres no traffic over it until something needs it Pie. The link lies idle until something uses it, there isnt a constant trickle whenever its switched on.

Señor Juárez

PiE, that is the whole idea behind contention, and what we have been talking about in this whole thread...

PiE

Nnnnnno... don't think yiz are getting what I'm saying.

The way it is now (from what I understand anyway), is that there's one queue in which all of the users use. That way one person can hog most of the bandwidth.

What drjolt suggested was splitting the line up into seperate queues so that nobody can hog all the bandwidth if others are online.

If 1 person is online, they get 100% of the bandwidth, 2 people each get 50%, 4 people get 25% etc etc.

Now if 10 people are idling on the system with ONE queue for all, then it won't make much difference.

However, the way that I understand it is that if 10 people are idling on the system with 48 queues, each one will be allocated their fair share of the bandwidth even though they're not using it. Hence the reason why this system hasn't been implemented on a widespread scale before... maybe?

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong but thats just the way I'm reading it.

Moriarty

The 'queues' arent allocated to people who are "online", theyre allocated to packets that want to get out to the internet. Your connection can be active and have no 'queue' allocated to you if you arent using the connection at that exact moment in time. The number of queues will change from second to second as people start and finish downloads, open and finish downloading from web sites etc.

SkepticOne

Responses so far seem to be mainly discussing technical means of sharing bandwidth. I don't think most of them are available for UTVip to implement. Most of them don't deal fully with the problem.

For example, DrJolt's idea, although it prevents programs like Kazaa grabbing more bandwidth than otherwise, because it works on a moment by moment basis, it can't distinguish between 'bursty' use like web browsing, and downloading a DivX. For this, you would need to keep a history of activity and lower the priority of queues with sustained heavy activity. This would give a better experience to those browsing the web and gamers at peak time.

Obviously if you are up front about the fact that the service will slow down at peak time significantly, then fine, you are being honest. However, you really want to prevent this slow down.

Can we assume for the purposes of the discussion that such methods are not available through the RADSL bitstream product?

In my original post, I suggested out that caps are a fairly crude way of regulating bandwidth use since they put off the light users and encourage the heavy users to maximise their usage up to that point. The lack of light users + behavior of heavy users, means that this cap then needs to be set fairly low.

It seems to me that the only alternative to setting a cap, is the enforcement of a fair use policy with the criteria for curbing heavy use ultimately at the ISPs discretion.

The downside of this is lack of transparancy. Although, this may seem a huge problem, it is the way 'uncapped' isps operate in other parts of the world. If you don't use the service with consideration, then you get a warning and either get your bandwidth throttled or you get kicked.

There's nothing wrong with either approach in my mind. I just think it would be good to have an 'uncapped' DSL provider in Ireland with affordable rates. Because UTV have established a certain relationship with boards users here, this 'uncapped' but with AUP approach is more likely to work.

Obviously, UTV and other ISPs should still try for a better deal from their supplier. This would lessen the need to curb or kick people.

My only worry (and I think this is why UTV dsl is uncapped in the North, yet they are proposing caps in the South) is that UTV are concerned about people protesting on this and the bb forum.

So to be safe, the ISP is up front about exactly how much you can download, keeps the cap simple so that people can understand and keeps the cap low so that everyone gets the speed they expect. No one gets to complain. But is it what we want?

That is why I wanted to gauge peoples opinion here. Also, in answering, please consider not just what *you* want but also what might be good for the country. My fear is that once caps get established, they are here to stay.

drjolt

Originally posted by SkepticOne
For example, DrJolt's idea, although it prevents programs like Kazaa grabbing more bandwidth than otherwise, because it works on a moment by moment basis, it can't distinguish between 'bursty' use like web browsing, and downloading a DivX.

It doesn't need to. It's able to react to bursty traffic, so you'd get your web browsing or email bandwidth when you needed it. The problem with having any system where the traffic is kept track of over a period of time is that once you build that infrastructure, the simplest way to use it is to enforce a simplistic cap. If you just use throttling/queueing, you can save that whole cost of maintaining the database of how much traffic users have used in the current month/week/day.

(That's it for me on this subject)

SkepticOne

Originally posted by drjolt
It doesn't need to. It's able to react to bursty traffic, so you'd get your web browsing or email bandwidth when you needed it. The problem with having any system where the traffic is kept track of over a period of time is that once you build that infrastructure,

If it doesn't distinguish and give priority to bursty traffic, then it doesn't go far enough. It is a solution to a lesser problem. Yes, bandwidth is divided fairly at a given moment in time, but it doesn't take into account the fact that bursty usage is less of a problem for other users.

IMO, to prevent slow down of light users, bursty applications and the downloading of short video clips should be given extra priority than those downloading large movies. I agree that it is more complex than a simple cap. Really need to open up a new thread on this.

flav0rflav

Who wants a 15 GB cap, always on, for ~30 euro a month?

Would all those people step to the side and wait for flat-rate dialup at the end of the month. The rest of us want broadband.

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Fair caps can be approached using drjolt's router round robin scheduling per ip address. But for it to be perfectly fair, it needs extra info about the grouping of the ip addresses, ie. which 48 user dslam group the ip is coming from.

Caps are only being mentioned because eircom have banjaxed the contention. Contention ratios are based on probability and statistics. As everyone knows probabilities only pan out in the large scale, not the small scale. Eircom have applied contention at the lowest level possible, right at the dslam. Why? Take your pick between incompetency and business strategy.

There are no caps in the north or in the UK (in general) as BT have correctly applied contention at the ISP handover point.

USER | - telephone line- | DSLAM | - eircom - | ROUTER_H | - isp - | ROUTER_I | - internet cloud - (warez monkey)

ROUTER_H (handover) is the first thing under control of the ISP. In the UK there is effectively no contention up to this point, and the ISP can choose how big a connection the want there, depending on number of users and the quality of the service they want to provide for whatever cost, based on business strategy. They will make similar decissions about the ROUTER_I (internet) point. The ROUTER_I bandwidth is the expensive link. This is how nildram are able to offer a better service in the UK than others. They have fast ethernet and gig ethernet at the handover and in their internal network (where the game servers are).

You want to apply the 48:1 (20:1 or whatever) at the highest point possible, therefore gathering as many users together to share as much of the expensive resource as possible. Which, according to the probabilities means you get very little real reduction in service.

Here, in eircom controlled Ireland, the DSLAM is where the contention is, 48 users on one 512k VC (from info gleaned from them). Sent over a 2.4G fibre payed for by the gov, back to Dublin. At the moment, I don't believe there are actually enough people hooked up with broadband to actually be having a significant problem with this. Netsource were/are actually having a problem at their handover point.

Fair scheduling will in the worst case give a service worse than dialup (48users). In the best case it'll give regular broadband (1user). In the intermediate it will solve the problem where if I go on and do 20 downloads at the same time I get more bandwidth.

But I don't want a service that is worse than dialup and more expensive. What is broadband about? It's not just about how much you can download or how quick pages pop up. Thats just slightly faster diakup. Broadband is a step, enabling all new services, if implemented correctly.

Who is the wallet inspector? eircom.

Who do you want to be socially responsible for their internet usage? Male teenagers, dressed in black, disliking their parents, prawning and warezing, playing FPSs, calling themselves 'evil', etc.

flav0rflav

Have UTV actually said anything about why they have a cap in the south but not up north?