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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
Shaw cable on the western side of Canada also mangles packets. Check with Vonage to find out how Shaw is trying to cripple their business by dropping calls, packets, or just dropping the network connection for people using Vonage VoIP.
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This is somewhat "broken". If you can't use https or ssh with an internet connection, then that particular internet provider is little more than a glorified TV. If anything, ssh and https should be the highest priority.
There are reasons why p2p systems have started encrypting their traffic. Due to popular discontent with bandwidth throttling, they are trying to classify their traffic with a group of services that cannot be removed without breaking the functionality of the internet for that service provider. So their ideal solution to that is to break the functionality of their internet connection?
Okay, I can see (from their perspective) how you wouldn't want someone who is paying the same as your other customers using 500x the bandwidth that they use. After all, you're paying for the bandwidth.
So why not simply SEGMENT your network and put those heavy users on their own block? If you're that worried about P2P crap, they're probably sharing amongst themselves anyway. This would make it easier for you.
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 whole thing about the opposition to "Net Neutrality" is about extracting the MAXIMUM profit from the existing infrastructure with the minimum of technological advancement. Fuck that. We have the technology right now to make this a non-issue in almost every case. They just don't want to use it because there is a chance they can make more money by crippling the system.
I am a telecommuter and I have certainly noticed the bandwidth decrease for encrypted traffic; at any given time, for my job, I absolutely have to have roughly 15 citrix-application windows open at any given time, and the only way to access the metaframe server is via a VPN connection (as per corporate security policy). I have noticed major, major slowdowns; it's unfortunate that I cannot do my work properly as a telecommuter due to this new procedure of Rogers. Don't get me wrong, everything still works properly, the only thing is that with this slow down of my Citrix sessions (due to the traffic being encrypted), I have learned to live with a "Click now, work later" style application behaviour; it reminds me of using a 486 PC.
Use "brownouts" to shape traffic for "fair load" during peak times.
During non-peak times, when you can carry every bit at maximum speed, do it.
During peak times when you can't, then, for the next few minutes or hours, cap everyone at X bits per second, Y bits per minute, Z bits per 5 minutes, and so on so the leeches-of-the-moment get throttled down and people putting less immediate demand on the system don't notice any change. X should be as close to the normal maximum as possible. Y should be less than 60X or Z should be less than 300X, or both. This way, people just doing normal web browsing won't be impacted but I'll be slowed down if I dare to download all of kernel.org during a busy period.
If you combine charging extra for minimum guaranteed per-second bandwidth and charging extra for high-volume-per-month users with peak-demand throttling, then you can raise revenue and/or discourage people from demanding all-you-can-eat lobster buffet service at cup-o-noodles price.
Do NOT discriminate based on the content of the traffic, especially if you do not know what kind of content that is, i.e. because it is encrypted. That encrypted connection is probably me working from home thank you very much.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
When people complain about anything related to ISP surveillance, I always wonder how bothered they really are about security. If you're truly interested, you'll use an encrypted network, preferably an onion routing network, because you never know who is watching. My branch of civil rights activism is highly controversial and generally misinterpreted, so I always make sure that I route my traffic in an encrypted form through my ISP's routers
Sadly, some people really don't understand that the internet is NOT anonymous and that you must use other measures to achieve a reasonable degree of security.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
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!
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
And if they slow it all down, sue them for not providing the level of service they promised when you signed up. The whole unlimited, high-speed broadband thing is such a fraud anyway, it deserves to land in court -- preferably sooner, rather than later.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Michael Geist
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And just how are you supposed to to that?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
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.
No, not at all. The net neutrality debate is about whether ISPs can throttle content based on the content's particular source, not on the content type.
Throttling based on content type is called packet shaping, and it's been done in the US and elsewhere for many years. Nothing about the net neutrality legislation would affect that, and anyone who says otherwise is confused or trying to deliberately mislead.
Throttling based on source, where content of the same type from different sources receives different priorities, is what the net neutrality legislation is about. In other words, any ISP can choose to tone down streaming video traffic so that all their customers can use basic web and email services. No ISP should be able to block video streaming from Google but allow video to stream from Microsoft, just because Microsoft paid them money. (Unless that was clearly advertised to the ISP's customers before they signed up, that is.)
In this case, it sounds like the ISP is throttling all encrypted content, regardless of its source or destination, so the net neutrality concept doesn't apply at all.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
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.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
No. They want to ADVERTISE an "unlimited" package so that people will leave their graduated plans and come over to the "unlimited" provider.
Whereupon the "unlimited" provider throttles encrypted communications. And whatever else for someone going over the maximum of the "unlimited" plan.
[i]Most people want to have unlimited traffic even if they have no concept of the amount of traffic they need.[/i]
Not really. Most people would rather save a bit of money. So the companies use deceptive advertising.
I'm saying that we need to force them to get rid of the deceptive advertising. There's no TECHNOLOGICAL reason for it.
They can sell "unlimited standard usage" packages that throttle connections after 2GB/month.
They can sell "unlimited gamer" packages that throttle connections after 5GB/month.
They can sell "unlimited pro" packages that throttle connections after 10GB/month.
The reason that they don't is that they can save MONEY by being STUPID and selling a single "unlimited" package and fucking with the connections so that things such as encrypted sessions are dead slow. It's about them being lazy. That is it.
So why not offer GRADUATED pricing levels? 2 GB/month for $x. 5 GB/month for $2x. 10 GB/month for $10x.
Why not just pay directly for the bits themselves?
$1 per GB per month [say].
So that if you used 17.79 GB for that month, then your bill would be precisely $17.79.
It's pretty much the way the long distance companies have being doing it since time immemorial.
And if upstream bits are more precious than downstream bits, then bill accordingly: Say, $2 per upstream GB per month, and $0.50 per downstream GB per month [or whatever].
It's not at all clear to me why the free market [in the form of PRICING] can't take care of this stuff naturally.
wget http://autocast.ca/test.dat
Length: 10,485,760 (10M) [text/plain]
18:52:39 (539.62 KB/s) - `test.dat' saved [10485760/10485760]
wget https://autocast.ca/test.dat
Length: 10,485,760 (10M) [text/plain]
18:53:03 (560.59 KB/s) - `test.dat.1' saved [10485760/10485760]
No slowdown on https downloads at this moment from this location.
scp test.dat odin.canadacast.ca:/root/
test.dat 100% 10MB 97.5KB/s 01:45
scp odin.canadacast.ca:/root/test.dat .
test.dat 100% 10MB 602.4KB/s 00:17
No slowdown on that either.
Upstream rate is 97.5% of this cable modem's capability (800kbps)
This is on a saturday, at 7:10pm local time.
Not quite peak usage time of day but not 3am either.
This does not prove anything of course.
I've only failed to prove that there is traffic shaping, I have not proven that there is no traffic shaping.
Maybe I'll try again at a known peak traffic time.