By popular demand. A realistic Poll

LFCFan

FFS, if you actually stand back and look at what we are discussing here it would make you sick. Other '1st World' countries take broadband for granted and are off arguing about whether or not vDSL would be too expensive at €50 a month or whatever while we're arguing about whether a cap at 10gb for 512kb/s at a rediculous prices is a good deal or not. We've been shafted for so long now that we're starting to accept the bullsh1t dished out to us by the likes of €ircon.

As far as a cap is concerned, what's wrong with a letter in the post to the bandwidth hoggers explaining that furthur abuse of the system would result in termination of the service. In other words if Mr. Kazaa is constantly hitting 40 -60GB's a month then after the 3rd month they get a warning and if they continue to abuse they are cut off. This could be stipulated in the contract. Most people who get broadband might go nuts for the first month and then download habits would normalise. I don't think it's fair to penalise someone who might need to download some large files one month and download feck all for the next 3 months.

spongebob

Certain ports are an invitation to 'abuse', lets see ....... Port 21 for starters. 6667 for DCC sessions etc. etc.

If the contended group is being hit with a collective slowdown because of a hog somewhere in the 25 or 50 on that DSLAM, the best idea is to dynamically throttle port by port until you are left with 3 ports open

110 INBOUND
25 OUTBOUND
80

Then synamically relax the rules in reverse order of application as the demand eases.

Here's a bit of interesting Hog Math.

As there are 3600 seconds in an hour , the max capacity of a 512k pipe(inbound) is

(512*3600) and then divide by 8 to get Bytes.

= 230Mbyte an Hour.

With a 4Gbyte Cap it is possible for a single user to use up their bandwidth in (4,000 / 230Mb) = 17.4Hours of solid hogging and dogging.

As the total capacity of the pipe ...in a month is 24 hours by 30 days (and as each of the '50' users can DOG for 17.4 hours each)

24*30 = 720 Hours in a 30 day month.

720/17.4 = 41.40

Uhhhhhhhh 41.40 wow!

This means that the 512k pipe, in a situation where all the users decide to use up their full 4Gb allowance in a month, can only accomodate 41.40 users to their full quota. The other 8.6 users will get nothing , at all.

It strikes me that this contention ratio is threrefore illegal as it is technically impossible for All the customers on a DSLAM to get what they Paid for.

At 40:1 contention there would be a 7% capacity surplus each month.

M

Andor

This means that the 512k pipe, in a situation where all the users decide to use up their full 4Gb allowance in a month, can only accomodate 41.40 users to their full quota. The other 8.6 users will get nothing , at all.

Eircom Service Contract Update:

Due to matters that have come to our attention, the initially stated Cap of 4Gb has been reduced to 3 - in order to accomodate all users, but your stuck in an 18 month contract and cant do squat in fact, you didn't read the small print that permitted us to alter the contract at any given time!*
Thank you for using eircom i-stream.

[size=-2]*whoa-ho! your screwed now![/size]

SkepticOne

Obviously 3.27 is the "fair" amount if the utility of a broadband connection is measured entirely in downloaded data terms. I would cautious in advising an ISP to think in these terms. They should take into account the reasons that people sign up for broadband. Curbing excessive use may be necessary if a problem emerges, but if they want to maintain the attractiveness of the service to both light (in bandwidth) terms and relatively heavy users, they need to do it in an unobtrusive way. They also need to build in a bit of flexibility into the system. It will be interesting to see how the market develops provided, of course, the damn service appears.

bk

What people don't seem to be realising is that while you may have a 50:1 contention ratio, in any group of 50 people you will probobaly have only one or two hogs.

The vast majority of Joe Public wouldn't know what Kazaa, Linux ISO's, etc. are if they crawled into bed with them. Most users will be down at the pub, watching TV, asleep, etc. so really you wouldn't really have any great problem with hogs and any problem could be easily dealt with by threatening to cut them off under the AUP.

The real problem here is that we know the 4 gig cap has nothing to do with QoS (Quality of Service). Eircom are really hoping that you will go over the cap, so that they can charge you x per MB.

We all know Eircom really hate flat rate services and will do everything possible to maintain a per unit (weither it be time or data) charging model. As they will make a great deal of money when unsuspecting Joe Public goes over the cap. This is what I hate the cap so much, it is a continuation of Eircoms greed and their ruthless ripping off of the Irish public.

Hogs can easily be dealt with in other ways (throttling, disconnection, etc.), please don't fall for the trap that Eircom is laying for us. We finally have flat rate, please don't surrender it back to them.

Ardmore

Originally posted by SkepticOne
Obviously 3.27 is the "fair" amount if the utility of a broadband connection is measured entirely in downloaded data terms. I would cautious in advising an ISP to think in these terms. They should take into account the reasons that people sign up for broadband. Curbing excessive use may be necessary if a problem emerges, but if they want to maintain the attractiveness of the service to both light (in bandwidth) terms and relatively heavy users, they need to do it in an unobtrusive way. They also need to build in a bit of flexibility into the system. It will be interesting to see how the market develops provided, of course, the damn service appears.

Which, difficult as many people find it to believe, pretty much describes Eircoms approach. They set a cap, with "the right to charge" an absolutely ridiculous price for usage over the cap. This gave them the flexibility to hammer persistent hogs, but apparently they haven't applied this excess usage charge to most people, presumably because the problem never reared it's ugly head. Possibly because the bandwidth hogs were scared away from using the service.

elexes

id pay up to 150 without thinking about it if i had a 1 meg unlimited line . but is there any chance of this happening ??

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Ardmore
Which, difficult as many people find it to believe, pretty much describes Eircoms approach. They set a cap, with "the right to charge" an absolutely ridiculous price for usage over the cap. This gave them the flexibility to hammer persistent hogs, but apparently they haven't applied this excess usage charge to most people, presumably because the problem never reared it's ugly head. Possibly because the bandwidth hogs were scared away from using the service.

I meant flexibility for the user not for the ISP. Eircom have done things their way, because for the most part, there is no competition. What little their is is only emerging very slowly.

Praetorian

I would get option 4 (1mb uncapped). But i have the option to share the expense via a wireless network. Either way its still less than im paying now....I guess im used to paying a lot

longword

Originally posted by Muck
Certain ports are an invitation to 'abuse', lets see ....... Port 21 for starters. 6667 for DCC sessions etc. etc.

This is a discussion probably best left for Net/Comms, but DCC doesn't happen on port 6667 - the two IRC clients directly connect to each other on random source and destination ports. Almost nothing of an FTP session happens on port 21, though it can often be tied to port 20.

the best idea is to dynamically throttle port by port until you are left with 3 ports open

110 INBOUND
25 OUTBOUND
80

You can do a hell of a lot of damage with port 80. And wouldn't it be unfair to the other users within that group to be throttled for the actions of an unrelated customer? The only fair solution is a per-user cap, preferably with a daily sliding window as implemented by the likes of telenet.be.

This means that the 512k pipe, in a situation where all the users decide to use up their full 4Gb allowance in a month, can only accomodate 41.40 users to their full quota. The other 8.6 users will get nothing , at all.

It's a good point. And I'm very glad someone else is starting to apply math to the situation. You also have to understand that if your network is fully utilised, you'll run into slowdowns. In particular at peak hours of usage - the general public doesn't surf on a 24 hour clock so as more users sign up you will find the network congested at times, idle at others.

Overselling is pretty common both in the telecoms world and outside it. Eircom don't have sufficient capacity to allow every phone user in the country to simultaneously make a voice call. Airlines routinely overbook flights by 10-20% on the assumption that some passengers won't turn up - and on the whole that works out. Every other DSL provider in the world does it - it's just not economically viable to provide every customer with a dedicated 512k link to the rest of the world for $100/month.

You're forgetting something else. At no point does Eircom guarantee you 4GBytes per month. They've merely set that as a maximum for you.

spongebob

Originally posted by longword
This is a discussion probably best left for Net/Comms, but DCC doesn't happen on port 6667 - the two IRC clients directly connect to each other on random source and destination ports. Almost nothing of an FTP session happens on port 21, though it can often be tied to port 20.

You can do a hell of a lot of damage with port 80. And wouldn't it be unfair to the other users within that group to be throttled for the actions of an unrelated customer?

I meant the existence of open ports 6667 and 21 and 119 to be 'interpreted' by the DSLAM as a reason to throttle a given user in a contention group of 50 while preference should be given to 25 110 and 80 users.

It is crude but not totally unreasonable. More scientific methods would be intrusive (packet sniffing)

By changing the cap from 3Gb to 4Gb , Eircom are promising something that cannot be delivered ....in all honesty. Is that not ...grey or illegal ?

The math did make sense at 3Gb by the way, scbby and all as it is.

M

Ardmore

Originally posted by Muck
By changing the cap from 3Gb to 4Gb , Eircom are promising something that cannot be delivered ....in all honesty. Is that not ...grey or illegal ?

They aren't selling you 4GB. They are just reserving the right to charge you if you go over 4GB. That's not the same thing at all.

And no, I'm not defending the cap, I'm just pointing out that it's not illegal.

zynaps

Originally posted by Ardmore
You can't get 12mbps uncapped ADSL for €30 everywhere in Japan (you can't even get it in most cities in Japan). You can't get anything even remotely like it in most major markets in the US, or in any major market in the EU. but apparently it's the yardstick by which to measure our backwardness?

It may have been an extreme example, but it's not really questionable that we are absolutely -way- behind almost the entire developed world, in terms of affordable, fast and available internet access.

A (relatively) quick search on yahoo gave me a Canadian provider, Telus, offering 2.5 mbps/640kbps ADSL for the equivalent of €30.20 monthly.
Another Canadian company, pacific coast.net, offers 1.5mbps/512kbps ADSL for €19.90 monthly.
DLS in Illinois offer wireless at up to 10mbps dependant on location/signal strength for about 60 euros a month.

(Interestingly, almost every broadband offer that turned up had a downstream and sometimes upstream cap, generally from 1gb to 4gb per month - except the wireless service, which had a fair use contract stating similar though)

Besides, why should we not compare ourselves with the most efficient countries in terms of internet connectivity?

Unless Japan and Korea etc. are hiding some magical technology we don't know about, we can do what they did, and better, as communications technology continues to advance.
It's been said many times before, but if we expect and await failure, we're more likely to get it.

zynaps

nahdoic

Originally posted by zynaps
Besides, why should we not compare ourselves with the most efficient countries in terms of internet connectivity?

Yeah. It's about time we stopped playing paddy catch-up with the rest of the world.

Serbian

eheh Do the prices include VAT? Well, I am already paying €40 a month ex Vat for a 512k connection so I already have a cheaper service, but I went for the €70, 700k connection in the interest of the poll

Ardmore

Originally posted by zynaps
Besides, why should we not compare ourselves with the most efficient countries in terms of internet connectivity?
It's been said many times before, but if we expect and await failure, we're more likely to get it.

I'm not talking about "expecting failure", though if you have unrealistic expectations, you can expect failure.

The point I was making is that if when someone does things exactly the way it's done everywhere else (introduce a service in just one small market), everyone here bitches and moans about it not being available everywhere (NTL, IBB, IrishWisp, etc).

You won't find anyone here arguing that Ireland has had broadband for €30/month for the last 2 years (NTLs cable deal in Tallaght), but they'll still trot out comparisons with this amazing deal in one tiny little market in Japan, as though it proves something.

Yeah, eircom has pissed away years of opportunity for us on the broadband front. But one of the problems with Universal Service Obligations is that the customers in the built up areas (where ADSL is practical) have to subsidise the customers in the less densely populated areas, and, even though broadband isn't a USO (yet), anyone can see the mindset that Eircom have to deal with - deliver the same service to everyone, at the same price, or else.

spongebob

Originally posted by Ardmore

You won't find anyone here arguing that Ireland has had broadband for €30/month for the last 2 years (NTLs cable deal in Tallaght),

But one of the problems with Universal Service Obligations is that the customers in the built up areas (where ADSL is practical) have to subsidise the customers in the less densely populated areas,

N.T.Unwell have told so many lies that they are disregarded in this forum. They pass 3000 houses on upgraded cable, nobody knows any more precisely an dcertainly not themselves. If you want to waste about 2 days, try to find out where the upgraded cable is yourself and then try to get N.T.Unwell to admit where it is themselves and then try to sign on for it once all the parties accept that it exists and is signable up to(-ish , tthats means by N. T. Unwell standards) . Then search for the user NTL_Cable_Modem in this Board (underlines necessary) in order that you may see one of the most pathetic attempts at damage limitation in all of last year.

I'll have that subsidy too so I will, thanks Ardmore. You're sound for a non-culchEE

M

maxheadroom

Originally posted by Muck
If you want to waste about 2 days, try to find out where the upgraded cable is yourself and then try to get N.T.Unwell to admit where it is themselves and then try to sign on for it once all the parties accept that it exists and is signable up to(-ish , tthats means by N. T. Unwell standards) .

2days? Try 3 months! It actually took me 3 months of phoning, arguing and lecturing (yes, the roads were dug up. Yes, the cable was replaced. Yes the tap on the front of the house had 4 ports. Yes there are lots of little green boxes... you get the idea)


But moving a little more on topic, Ardmore's point was that you wouldn't use ntl:'s pathetic excuse for coverage to back up an argument that you can get broadband in Ireland for €30, so why would you pick a similar arrangement in Japan where a small amount of users can get 12Mbps for ~€30 to back up the point that "in japan you can get 12mbps uncapped DSL for €30". If that's the kind of logic you want to use then "You can get uncapped cable broadband (512kbps) for €30 in Ireland" is a perfectly valid argument too.

leeroybrown

I went for the €70 option (but only just) purely on the grounds that if I was getting DSL I'd want to split the costs with at least one other person in my house if possible.

Paying €20 line rental along with €50 for 10 Gigs makes an extra €20 for a 30 Gig cap seem quite appealing when you're splitting between people.

The 24:1 contention ratio is also much better if you have 2 or more heavy users browsing, gaming, downloading, etc.

zynaps

Originally posted by maxheadroom
But moving a little more on topic, Ardmore's point was that you wouldn't use ntl:'s pathetic excuse for coverage to back up an argument that you can get broadband in Ireland for €30, so why would you pick a similar arrangement in Japan where a small amount of users can get 12Mbps for ~€30 to back up the point that "in japan you can get 12mbps uncapped DSL for €30". If that's the kind of logic you want to use then "You can get uncapped cable broadband (512kbps) for €30 in Ireland" is a perfectly valid argument too.

Where has this dsl option in Japan been stated as similar in pathetically limited availability to ntl's "nothing" cable offer, which is available to what, two, three thousand people at best?

I'm just going on the basis of someone's post about their experiences of widespread, cheap internet connectivity in Tokyo. He did not state exactly what parts and how much of Tokyo, or what conditions outside of Tokyo were.

So, if you want me to rephrase and say TOKYO has 12mb DSL for about €30 a month, fair enough.
Is Tokyo comparable with the measly amount of upgraded cable connections ntl is offering here?

No. Thanks.

And I'm not saying, Ardmore, that we should be the same as other countries, or have the same internet connectivity schemes and pricing expectations as them.
I'm saying we should see from them that it is possible to do much better than what we have here.
I'm not saying it's necessarily possible or a good idea at all to try to provision the same services at the same prices to everyone in Ireland, regardless of the difficulty in getting them those services due to topography, geography and local resources, blah blah.

zynaps

byte

Chose this coz of the 30gig limit and the 25:1 contention ratio. It's still far too expensive though but would take it up if my exhange was enabled as I'm sick of 28k dialup!

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Muck
By changing the cap from 3Gb to 4Gb , Eircom are promising something that cannot be delivered ....in all honesty. Is that not ...grey or illegal ?

The math did make sense at 3Gb by the way, scbby and all as it is.

Well, assuming that this new possible service will be 512k @ 50:1 then 3 gig is the approximate "fair" amount. Eircom however have a download limit of 3 gig on a 512k 24:1 service.

Of course, the utility of a broadband service for most users does not revolve around the amount of downloaded data so such calculations are not entirely useful.

spongebob

3Gb per user on a 512 24:1 was Deliverable, 4Gb on a 512 50:1 is not.

The backhaul will not be provisioned in chunks of 512k or 1Mb , it will more than likely be provisioned in chunks of 10Mbit or 30Mbit or even 155Mbit , telco grade pipes.

The backhaul will be symmetric so there will be shedloads of 'spare' uplink available TOWARDS Dublin....

(da Muck sees a datacentre and remote backup biz model opp a crystallising in da membrane until he realises that Comreg won't let him)

Ardmore

Originally posted by zynaps
I'm just going on the basis of someone's post about their experiences of widespread, cheap internet connectivity in Tokyo. He did not state exactly what parts and how much of Tokyo, or what conditions outside of Tokyo were.

On the basis of someones post about their experiences? Take a few minutes and find the website of the ISP offering 12MB connections in Tokyo and post some facts, then. Otherwise it's little more than pub talk.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Muck
3Gb per user on a 512 24:1 was Deliverable, 4Gb on a 512 50:1 is not.

I may be arguing at cross purposes here, but I think that most users will not, on average, be interested in broadband purely for the ability to download 4 gigs of data each month. The ISP can probably deliver (with a fair degree of certainty) 4 gigs to those that want it, knowing that this capacity will be available due to the majority of light users.

By not entirely useful, I realy meant that most people don't buy broadband for the ability to download a set amount per month, they buy it for convenience, the ability to surf for an unlimited amount of time, quick downloads when they need it, etc. They probably don't want to worry about download amounts etc.

zynaps

Originally posted by Ardmore
On the basis of someones post about their experiences? Take a few minutes and find the website of the ISP offering 12MB connections in Tokyo and post some facts, then. Otherwise it's little more than pub talk.

Right. Have a look at this and I hope you can read Japanese, but if not, the banners down the bottom of the page pretty much sum it up.

This is an offer from Yahoo, through NTT (Nippon Telecommunications), a company which covers pretty much all of Japan.
The bottom banner offers 12mbit ADSL for 2480 Japanese yen per month.

From XE.com:
2,480.00 JPY 19.3422 EUR
Japan Yen = Euro

There you go, now if you'd be so kind, get out of my face, Ardmore
My point was not specifically about what you can get in Japan, Tokyo, Tallaght, or whatever (although it was nice to back up my original example).

zynaps

Ardmore

Originally posted by zynaps
This is an offer from Yahoo, through NTT (Nippon Telecommunications), a company which covers pretty much all of Japan. The bottom banner offers 12mbit ADSL for 2480 Japanese yen per month.

Thank you.

It's interesting to see an American response to this: Here's a newsgroup posting comparing broadband availability in the US to Japan.

It just goes to show you that the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Ardmore
Thank you.

Not just "pub talk", so? They really do have 12Mbit/sec broadband in Tokyo.

It's interesting to see an American response to this: Here's a newsgroup posting comparing broadband availability in the US to Japan.

It just goes to show you that the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill

I would not pay too much attention to this. For example:

Cable based broadband is the most widespread form in
use (and second most widely available next to the horrible satellite option) and it is still only availble to about 6% of all homes in the USA!

Where is he getting this from? He seems to have mistaken the number of people who have signed up for cable internet with the availability of cable internet.

No. The fact is that although availability of broadband varies from country to country, they are almost all leagues ahead of Ireland to the extent that differences between them mean little (ignoring 3rd world countries for a moment).

In Ireland less than 2% (and that is optimistic) of homes have access to anything remotely resembling affordable broadband. Ireland is a case study in how to get broadband wrong.

In every country (including Japan), there will be people, like the quoted newsgroup poster, for whom the "grass is greener on the other side", however if you live in Ireland, you can point to statistics which show that Ireland is not even in the race compared with the US, Japan, Europe etc.