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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.
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.
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.
You answered your own question.
The entire telecom industry is an absolute scam. Nothing comes close.
Go work in telecom for a while and you will be amazed. The focus is never on providing service or creating new products. It's always "how can we maximize return on our existing customers and infrastructure" and "how much can we leverage this incremental improvement"?
Invent something that costs 1/1000th of a cent to deploy and use? Let's price it at 10cents per use.
Handheld makers invent a technology that lets customers play music on their phones? How can we block them from loading their own music so that they must buy it through our storefront?
Convert your network to be digital, so now you can carry data as well as voice? Oh.. hold on there. It costs us less to move data than voice, but we should be charging 100-200 times more for this great new feature.
Don't let any ISVs run a service over your network. That's revenue that you should be getting from your customers directly. Yes, it would make our service more useful, but you can't have anyone else interacting with your customers.
I could go on and on for days (and I was only in it for four months!) It's an absolute scam.
Heath-care and banking are just blips on the radar compared to the telecom scam Goliath.