NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: NYT: Differing views on Time Warner's Bandwidth Cap Experiment
I am in no way in favor of letting ISPs modify crapola in my data packets unless it is agreed upon technically in a RFC to make the network perform. I think that is a slippery slope we do not want to go down and one in which the public is having difficulty getting ISPs to retract current behavior. Why stop at TCP headers? Maybe it is because Barry has given his blessing irrespective of what his neighbor will think. Can't we build consensus before making declarations of what we think is appropriate or should do? What is this idea about comparing users to the "average" customer? I feel like I am an average customer that plays games over the network. How does my profile stack against an individual the surfs the web? An individual that uses VOIP? The future user of VoD for HD content? When it does come to VoD and HD content, are you going to trickle the bandwidth for that content because of an artificial definition of "average" and affect the growth of that industry by slowing its uptake? After all, a VoD user will have a download profile mutlitple times larger than the average any kind of user today. Maybe certain technologies that you feel are important will justify moving the "average", but who are you that makes you a decision maker over your neighbor aside from how you spend your dollars? What events are these that adjust the "average"? What are you going to do when the network is as omnipresent as the telephone, but there are thousands of devices that are carrying on the communication not just at the user's behest like a telephone? This will obviously have an effect on the definition of "average" because that definition, which is convenient for the smaller pool of Internet customers and smaller pool of internet devices today, will be too broad for everyone on the network in the near future without overloading current networks which are already struggling as the ISPs would have us believe. What I do not understand is irrespective of whether a person is an "average" user, the faucet for broadband is always on. Why is there a problem if the "extreme" user uses bandwidth that is wide open during non-peak hours. He is not crowding out others with his packets. Dan On Jan 18, 2008 10:33 AM, Barry Gold <bgold@matrix-consultants.com> wrote: > Lauren Weinstein wrote: > > http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/time-warner-download-too-much-and-you-might-pay-30-a-movie/?ref=technology > > This is beyond stupid, and I hope TW gets smacked down by its customers > if and when they try this. See my earlier post on what customers want. > > Item 1: No surprises. A $30 surcharge on their bill is going to result > in a very unhappy user. I know what Time Warner is thinking: when the > user sees a $30 surcharge on his cable bill, he'll buy a higher service > tier and we make more money. Well, it's a lot more likely that the user > will > a) Switch to satellite, DSL, or any other competitor he can find, > b) Write his city councilman about turning the city into a hotspot > (some small cities already are) > c) write his congressman about regulating cable prices. > > So the *best* likely scenario is that TW loses a customer. Other > possibilities include losing a whole city of customers, or being turned > into a regulated utility like phone and electric service used to be (and > natural gas still is). That's a nice niche, you always make a > guaranteed profit -- but your profits are pretty strictly limited. > > I hope TW and Comcast wise up, because frankly I *like* the current > (nearly) unregulated market. But if they keep trying stunts like this, > they will feel like Wile E. Coyote when the anvil falls on him. > > I can hear Brett and others asking, so what _should_ we do when we have > one customer who uses 100 times as much as our average. Answer: > graceful degradation. Slow him down. This can be done manually -- you > notice that user X is using more than most, so you re-program his cable > modem to a lower bit rate, and/or drop some of the packets destined for > him. Or you can just make it automatic - the system notices when a > customer is using a large amount of bandwidth over a period of time, and > takes steps. > > And as I said elsewhere, I would favor allowing ISPs to modify the TCP > headers to reduce the window, even though strictly speaking it's a > violation of the protocol -- that header is supposed to be for > communication between the end-points. But until we get protocol stacks > that actually _pay attention_ to Source Quench, I think this would be a > good way to limit bandwidth consumption. >