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Cable Packet Shaping Causing Slowdowns
knorthern knight writes "To counter P2P programs that encrypt their traffic to evade detection, Rogers Cable in Canada has apparently started degrading all encrypted IP traffic, according to a post on Michael Geist's blog. How many of you log in to work over a VPN or ssh-tunnel? How many get usenet news or email over an encrypted connection? This could be a problem for Rogers Cable customers. Geist, who teaches at U of Ottawa, has 'been advised that the University computer help desk has received a steady stream of complaints from Rogers customers about off-campus email service.'"
Cable companies do NOT want you to actually use your Internet connection for anything more than connecting to their webmail, POP, or SMTP servers and surfing CNN, Google, and their billing site.
:(
We have known for years that they have been overselling bandwidth and then cutting you off when you use more than their "unlimited service" will permit without telling you any concrete numbers of what that is.
I would guess that very few people use SSH, VPNs, or other encrypted connections that require the speeds to which we have become accustomed. They don't want that 10% of users on their residential network anyway and they will be happy to have you move to their commercial service packages if you so desire.
I complain that I have to use DSL and pay for land line service that I rarely use but at least my ISP (visi.com) doesn't give a shit what I do (they allow you to run servers, use all your bandwidth, and offer static and reverse).
I feel sorry for those that don't have more of a choice
So why not offer GRADUATED pricing levels? 2 GB/month for $x. 5 GB/month for $2x. 10 GB/month for $10x. You could even break it down to traffic that stays on your own network and traffic that reaches the Internet.
The reason for this is because they want to sell an "unlimited" package to people who will only use 2GB/month. Most people want to have unlimited traffic even if they have no concept of the amount of traffic they need.
I'm no fan of cable companies, but someone has to speak up about the problems associated with P2P. I'm aware of some educational institutions that saw their newly upgraded networks come to a complete grinding halt - simply because of P2P sharing. They had no choice but to shape their traffic so that other business could get done. They didn't ban it or shut it off. They simply said X amount of our bandwidth can be used for it during business hours and Y amount at other times. And now look what's happened: P2P clients have deliberately foiled such attempts by encryption. Great. Now those institutions will be crippled once again by dorms full of students sharing their entire music collection to the world, many not even aware that they are doing it.
I don't want to kill P2P. I am no fan of cable companies or the RIAA or the MPAA. But don't blame network admins when they have to fight back on this stuff!
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Telecommuting is too popular for this tactic to work in the US. There are some very powerful companies that have a vested interest in VPNs being reliable and responsive. How many of you think Cisco would let ISPs get away with this? Sure, Cisco sells lots of expensive hardware to ISPs, but they also sell a lot of hardware and software to businesses and consumers so that VPNs can be established.
Also, I know that many employees of my local and state governments use VPNs daily. If their VPN connections get any slower, they will be well-nigh unusable. This is essentially a lower-stakes version of NTP wanting to cripple every congressman's BlackBerry. Our monopolies seem to be forgetting rule #1: don't piss off your regulators!
I would guess that very few people use SSH, VPNs, or other encrypted connections that require the speeds to which we have become accustomed.
Actually, some major companies out there have several thousand "work at home" employees that are required to use VPN. Most of these people are in sales type of jobs, but plenty others are required to use VPN to connect to Exchange servers to access email from home.
Considering MS Exchange and dialup don't really mix, these people often have to have broadband to do their jobs efficiently. Seeing how not having VPN with an exchange server is a security risk, I can't really see any alternatives for these work at home types other than to switch to the provider who downgrades them the least.
Keep in mind these people are often working on company laptops who are locked down completely and couldn't install P2P software even if they wanted to.
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upgrade their shitty equipment?
Seems like I have read over and over about how North America is like pretty much at the bottom of the ladder of high speed Internet service compared to the rest of the world with the exception of places in Africa.
I think I read places like France and Korea have gigabit service pretty much nation wide.
WHY is the (used to be) world leader of technology and one of the richest nations on Earth (USA) still dragging it's feet and living in the past? I know so many people that are STILL running 54k dialup modems at home but their actual throughput averages around 48k. And they are paying an average of $30 a month for such sorry service! Not to mention, frequent disconnects, busy trunks in the evenings, etc..
How pathetic.
These companies have no interest in providing a quality service, their only interest is milking their customers for as much as possible as long as they can. They'll continue to use antiquated and archaic equipment to provide substandard service until they are FORCED to by either massive equipment failures or court order.
Telcos have ALWAYS oversold their capacity. So do most other businesses.
If EVERYONE tries to use their phone at the same time, there are problems. Remember trying to make a cell call anywhere in greater New York City on 9/11? Nevermind the destroyed equipment, the demand on each cell tower was just too much.
Even today, on busy days like Mother's Day, it's hard to get a long-distance call between certain cities on certain carriers. It's not as bad as it used to be thankfully.
Other businesses do the same thing. Ever tried to get into a computer store at 5AM the day after Thanksgiving? Some stores have fire-wardens at the door and when the store reaches fire-code capacity they won't let anyone else in until someone leaves. There's a popular restaurant I used to go to that took a different approach: They kicked you out after a certain period of time during peak hours. Think of it as "traffic-shaping" your restaurant experience.
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No, because it isn't a free market. It's monopolized by a handful of backbone providers who are frequently supported by your taxes.
The government can't save you.
.......there is a chance they can make more money by crippling the system.......
The solution of course is for EVERYBODY to use encryption all the time for everything. Not only would that make ISPs unable to selectively enforce arbitrary levels of service, but it would also make the whole Internet more resistant to malware and spying by governments and corporations. I wonder whether this idea would work technologically? Governments most likely would make it illegal however.
All theory is gray
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