First European Provider To Break Net Neutrality

Rik van der Kroon writes "Major Dutch cable provider UPC has introduced a new network management system which, from noon to midnight, for certain services and providers, caps users' bandwidth at 1/3rd of their nominal bandwidth (Google translation; Dutch original here). After the consumer front for cable providers in The Netherlands received many complaints about network problems and slow speeds, UPC decided to take this as an excuse to introduce their new 'network management' protocol which slows down a large amount of traffic. All protocols but HTTP are capped to 1/3 speed, and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well. So far UPC is hiding behind the usual excuse: 'We are protecting all the users against the 1% of the user base who abuse our network.'"

Comments

What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

'We are protecting all the users against the 1% of the user base who use our network.'

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they mean that they are making more money by not paying as much for bandwidth.

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

In Belgium, UPS which was recently bought by Telenet (both UPC Holland and Telenet Belgium are in fact owned by Liberty Global - check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Global ) have been doing this for years now. They provide 25Mbps downstream and 1.25Mbps upstream but most of the time the downstream is capped to what appeared indeed to me as 1/3 of the advertised speed. I had this doubt for quite some time now and this article only confirms it. Are there other users from Belgium who could confirm that? Anonymous for obvious reasons.

Re:What they mean:

[Romancer]

Kinda like the old overbooking of flights.

I used to see the excuse:

We overbook our flights to save you money because some poeple don't show. So for that 1% that hurt our business we have to lie and sell you a service that we cannot possibly deliver on.

Just like the ISPs that overbook their network by selling a service that they could never deliver if all the poeple decided to show up at once and try and use their tier of 10/1.5 or whatever they pay for every month.

So the bet that not everybody will use the service doesn't pay off when some people regularly try and use what they have purchased. They get turned away at the gate or get 1/3rd of the service they paid for or even just get cut off. All for paying for a service and thinking that they have a right to use it.

Re:What they mean:

[Goldberg's Pants]

What I find funny is if my ISP did that, capped stuff to 1/3rd the speed... It'd still be twice as fast as the DSL service I paid the same price for a little while ago.

Re:What they mean:

[TheCowSaysMooNotBoo]

well, in 2007 some customers complained, and later it was confirmed (search for "capping", both links are Dutch). However, Telenet isn't talking about it. I wouldn't be surprised if they did however.

Re:What they mean:

[dmartine40]

I'd go back to the DSL if my ISP did that, even if it meant slower connection. I do not buy the "we're protecting you from the bad guys by cutting back our service" nonsense. I really would not find anything funny about it.

Re:What they mean:

[Mashiki]

Funny that. Is the 1% P2P users, or is the the new breed of people watching video's online? If I remember the last graph that Teksavvy tossed out of their current breakdown of net traffic, people watching streaming media of all types accounted for around 50% of their net traffic.

Re:What they mean:

[Delwin]

That's why I'm glad that my cable company is quite upfront: They tell you not only what speed but how much bandwidth (in GB/Mo) you have. If you go over that they can and will lower your speed to something that allows only web browsing.

The fact that they told me that up front (and I chose my plan based on my own usage history) makes me quite content even with the caps.

Re:What they mean:

[Idiomatick]

If they overbook your flight they give your money back. If ISPs paid back w/e % you had taken away we'd see less complaints.

Re:What they mean:

[slamb]

I don't think that's accurate. For starters, your description of the airline's policy is wrong:

We overbook our flights to save you money because some poeple don't show. So for that 1% that hurt our business we have to lie and sell you a service that we cannot possibly deliver on.

They sold the tickets to those 1% and get the money whether they show up or not. A more accurate statement would be "we overbook our flights to (save you money and/or make more profit) because we can - 1% of people don't show up, and we can get paid twice for those seats if we lie and sell you a service that we cannot possibly deliver on.

Second, overbooking doesn't make the top 10 list of things that airlines do to make people mad. Why? They ask for volunteers and offer incentives to be bumped. If no one jumps, they increase the incentive. Even on a small plane that's the last chance to get home before Christmas, someone will volunteer once their price is reached. I would be pissed if I were involuntarily bumped, but so far they've been smart enough to make that not happen.

In contrast, this ISP is saying that they sold 3X as much bandwidth as they should have, and they are just not going to deliver with no compensation. WTF? How is that possibly acceptable?

Re:What they mean:

[genner]

If they overbook your flight they give your money back. If ISPs paid back w/e % you had taken away we'd see less complaints.

or they book you first class on the next flight.

Re:What they mean:

[Ambiguous Coward]

its kind've irrelivant too this discusion, dont' you think.

You dam grammer/spelling/e.t.c. nazzies.

Re:What they mean:

[Mashiki]

They're aiming for douchebag of the week award. To think, it's only Sunday. Amazing how time flies when you're having fun, smiling, singing, and imaging what the world would be like without idiots.

Re:What they mean:

[Mr Z]

Fun facts: If everyone in your neighborhood with a land line picked up the phone right now and tried to make a call, probably only 10% to 20% of them would succeed. If everyone in the average American suburb all hopped in their car and tried to get on the road to the nearest Interstate, it'd be gridlock. Traffic would move at speeds no where near the posted limits. We're surrounded by shared resources with capacity that reflects typical usage with a reasonable amount of head room for "normal" peaks, but is far from being able to support the maximum theoretical demand.

Airlines overbook because a certain %age of customers don't show up, and that %age is large enough and stable enough that it makes sense to do so. When too many people do show up for a flight, the airline pays penalties (in the form of travel vouchers and upgrades), so there's incentive to be conservative in the practice. Everyone benefits overall, though. More people get flown from point A to point B. If the airlines sell more seats on a given flight, then they can charge less per seat too.

ISPs are no different. They purchase bandwidth based on a model of "reasonable" network usage and how many subscribers they have. The major difference, though, is that it's very easy for someone to fall well outside the "reasonable" traffic usage. It's quite possible for 1% of the users to take up the majority of the network bandwidth. And I can see this being considered "unreasonable," and the ISP taking steps to make sure that the other 99% of users have a reasonable experience.

What I don't like is that ISPs can advertise something as "unlimited" or as running at a certain speed, when it clearly is limited, and the advertised speed is only a peak speed available in small doses. At least airlines are required to disclose their overbooking policy.

Re:What they mean:

[Old97]

I wish I had some mod points to give you. Spot on.

Re:What they mean:

[Spazmania]

I'd like to be able to go to a local park and hike the nature trail. If the trail is cordoned off for a race every once in a while, I'll skip it then. If it's cordoned off for a race every weekend, that's a problem. I'll expect the park rangers to reject requests which too frequently occupy the park's resources to the exclusion of people like me.

1% of the network's users take action with protocols like bittorrent which fully occupy the network to the exclusion of folks who just want to check their webmail and stocks. Hour after hour, day after day. If have zero problem with the premise that residential usage is unlimited until you're in the top 1%. At which point you accept the cap or buy the small business version. I find that eminently fair.

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

The abbreviation "etc." is short for et cetera. It is not an acronym as your spelling "e.t.c." implies. The et in et cetera is Latin for "and," which is why you sometimes see it written as "&c." The ampersand is supposed to be a highly stylized rendering of et as a single glyph.

Other grinders in your post:

1. "its" should be "It's". (Missing capitalization and apostrophe.)
2. "kind've": What is this a contraction of? "kind have"? I think you meant the idiom "kind of."
3. "irrelivant": Great spelling of irrelevant.
4. "too": Wrong homophone. You meant "to."
5. "discusion": Missing an 's'.
6. "dont'": Slide that apostrophe over to the left one, eh?
7. The first sentence should end in a question mark.
8. "dam": I don't think your sentence has anything to do with impounding water.
9. "grammer": It ends in "ar".
10. "nazzies": Not only misspelled, it also should be capitalized: "Nazis."

I'm disappointed. There's amazingly 5 whole words that you didn't bungle in your post. You'll have to try harder next time, to ensure every word of your post has a grammar, spelling or punctuation error.

Re:What they mean:

[Jared555]

What happens if the next flight is overbooked? Eventually you would have to have a plane dedicated to the people who have been waiting.

Re:What they mean:

[techno-vampire]

Actually they don't have to unless you ask. You see, what you bought wasn't a ticket for a specific flight from point A to point B, although that's how you think of it. What you bought was a ticket for a flight from point A to point B, and you also made a reservation to use that ticket on a specific flight. If for any reason you can't make that flight, you can always make a reservation for a later flight on that route and use the ticket you have. I learned that decades ago when circumstances (not involving the airline) forced me to reschedule.

Re:What they mean:

[Jared555]

And of course, everyone in that 1% has to be someone abusing the network.... There is no such thing as a household with multiple people using different computers wanting to watch legal videos.

Something that always amazes me is that a university with 20,000 students on a 100mbit (or sometimes less) line can manage to do network shaping, etc. correctly but ISPs in even small towns cannot.

One major thing that the university I go to does: you have to OPT IN to file sharing access. No big deal, you just say I need it for whatever legal reason and they activate it.

This would also reduce the random kids connecting to file sharing networks (their parents, in theory, would have to activate it).

It would also reduce the number of people who break into some unsecured wifi network to download because there wouldn't be as many networks that had the ability to file share.

Re:What they mean:

[Jared555]

Bandwidth is the speed. GB/Month (unless you are referring to the maximum amount your connection can transfer at it's highest speed) is typically referred to as transfer.

Re:What they mean:

[Kjella]

Sounds like somebody's been flying business or full-flex economy. The regular tickets definately either don't let you do that at all or against a high fee.

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually advertise that you can download movies so much fatser than you can with adsl...
So if you actually use what you pay for... and download movies, it's not abuse, but use.

the fact that they limit the speeds to 1/3 of the sold subscrition is a rip-off.

Re:What they mean:

[ZeroExistenZ]

We have that in Belgium too. Once you're over your bandwidth "allowance", you pay extra; or in parts of 5/5GB (which you need to readjust before the end of the month or you'll get rebilled as you're "altering your plan") or something as x /x KB.
Once users get through their monthly usage, they are presented to "continue surfing at broadband speed" (most expensive and per KB's), "expand monthly usage" or "continue at 56K".

People overpay alot for it with this system, some plans only have 20G which isn't too much for a month. If you take into account you pay 20 for "1 Mbps | 1GB" up to 60 for "25 Mbps | 60 GB" (current exchange rate between and $ is 1 to 1,4)

Re:What they mean:

[Hadlock]

According to the grammar rules of your "dialect", wouldn't it be "bleed's", not "bleeds"?

Re:What they mean:

[commodore64_love]

No what would happen is that they'd just keep pushing everyone backwards, until towards the end of the day some guy who was supposed to leave at 11 p.m. gets to ride on the near-empty midnight plane instead.

It's kinda similar to how the doctor's office works, shoving everyone backward in time but still managing to see all his patients' that same day, even if the last patient doesn't leave until 2 hours past the official 5 p.m. closing time.

Re:What they mean:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

No what would happen is that they'd just keep pushing everyone backwards,

What they actually do is ask for volunteers at each flight that are OK with being bumped. If you are bumped one flight someone else at the second flight may accept being bumped so you can fly, or you can accept being bumped again for additional compensation. Of course if they think that chain might occur they start out asking for people willing to be bumped a whole day or so to avoid the extra cost of multiple compensations.

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT. HTH. HAND.

Re:What they mean:

[Jarik C-Bol]

it would be very very very quiet, and there would be no lane changes made without turn signals.

Re:What they mean:

[commodore64_love]

Well technically "bandwidth" is the width of your line in terms of frequency. I don't know what it is for cable, but for my DSL it's somewhere around 500 megahertz with the bottom 8 kilohertz set-side for the voicecalls and the rest used for data.

50 kbit/s is the *bitrate* that's available over an 8 kilohertz-wide phoneline. Higher bitrates for DSL or cable.

And the GB/month would be the maximum data allowance, aka data cap.

Re:What they mean:

[antdude]

Which company is this and where?

Re:What they mean:

[commodore64_love]

>>> /grammar nazi

In my dialect we just abbreviate this as "ass"

Re:What they mean:

[Mr Z]

For a subscriber to use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth, such a bandwidth peak would have to be a sustained bandwidth peak.

There really should be different plans to cater to the hard-core users vs. the typical users. You have your average web surfer browsing You-Tube occasionally, or downloading the latest stuff off of iTunes or what have you, and then you have the hardcore folks that are streaming HD non-stop. Makes sense to me that you'd want to move the latter guys onto a different plan with different rates.

ISPs should not call something "unlimited" when it is indeed limited. If there's a bits-transferred cap or some other cap (ie. 10Mb/s peak, 3Mb/s sustained, for example), they should be up front about it.

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

If 1% of your customer base was abusing (which I guess means violating your terms of service?) your infrastructure, would you:

      A> Warn them then kick them out
      B> Warn them then throttle their connections
      C> Implement a policy like this

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

Now everybody pays the same, allthough this 1% who you say use the network need more resources than the other 99%. To make this work on average the standard user pays more than what he is using, and the power users are actually paying to little for what they use.

What would you say if the ISPs would offer two contracts, one with traffic management for the 99% and one without for the 1% who use their network? Naturaly the second one would be more expensive. I personally don't think there would be much sold of the second version. Most heavy users setup their boxes to download at night anyway.

Re:What they mean:

[hedwards]

That's just the thing. They don't ever admit to overselling their bandwidth nor do they typically acknowledge that the 1% that are "abusing" the bandwidth are using the bandwidth that they were promised. What we really need is a set of truth in advertising regulations here. I don't personally think that the ISP necessarily needs to be able to cover everybody at all times with 100% of their promise, but there should be agreed upon quantities provided.

It's like a number of other industries, overselling bandwidth is just another form of leverage, and there should be similar rules applied to ISPs in that regard. If they were required to publish such information as when caps if any come into play and provided some sort of reasonable plan for those that need or want more, it would be a very different matter indeed. It's very difficult for markets to function when one side is permitted to keep such things secret, depriving the customer of the ability to make an informed decision.

I have no idea as to how many people would, but it's a good start towards a reasonable solution.

Re:What they mean:

[hedwards]

Around here, the cable company is complete crap. There are very few regulations compared with DSL and they don't even keep an eye on the quality of service they're providing. They could quite literally not provide any service all month if you didn't tell them and still expect to be paid.

Perhaps it's different where you live, but around here the cable company is a government granted monopoly with very little competition to make it keep costs down and service of quality.

In case people didn't figure it out, the company here is Comcast.

Re:What they mean:

[hedwards]

That hasn't been true for a very long time. Something like 2/3 of net traffic is spam, malware or DDOS. It might be that 50% of legitimate traffic is video and such, but the lion's share of bandwidth goes to cybercriminals.

Re:What they mean:

[Romancer]

"I don't think that's accurate. For starters, your description of the airline's policy is wrong:"

I don't think so.

"They sold the tickets to those 1% and get the money whether they show up or not."

No. They get a portion of that money since almost every one of the major airlines have missed flight policies that charges the customer the difference between the ticket price they paid and the "ticket desk price" for the next flight if they want in addition to a standard change fee if the airline charges one. South West does not have a change fee so you only have to pay the difference in what you already paid and the new ticket. If you can fly out a day later the difference is pretty small. In the neighborhood of 20 bucks from PHX to SEA.

This is very similar to the ISP method of just delaying your data since you still get it, just a bit later due to their capping or limiting. Although not really the way they advertise, price or sell their plans.

"Second, overbooking doesn't make the top 10 list of things that airlines do to make people mad. Why? They ask for volunteers and offer incentives to be bumped. If no one jumps, they increase the incentive. Even on a small plane that's the last chance to get home before Christmas, someone will volunteer once their price is reached. I would be pissed if I were involuntarily bumped, but so far they've been smart enough to make that not happen."

Fair enough. They offer encentives to take the edge off. I personally think that it's not really voluntary, since if no one agreed to it, they would have to cancel the last purchased ticket (unless it was 1st class :)

Re:What they mean:

[techno-vampire]

Well, as I say, it was years ago; probably about thirty. Things may have changed, but if so, I'm not aware of how things are done now.

Re:What they mean:

[AmberBlackCat]

That's fine as long as there are more than one cable company in case you don't like the terms they give you. But some of us live in America.

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're one hell of a pedantic asshole, uh?

Re:What they mean:

[Bai jie]

WTF? How is that possibly acceptable?

Because there isn't any real competition.

Re:What they mean:

[noidentity]

ISPs are no different. They purchase bandwidth based on a model of "reasonable" network usage and how many subscribers they have.

Read the summary again: they aren't throttling all traffic for a given protocol; they're throttling traffic based on what site it's to. This nicely sets the stage for the next phase: charge said sites to un-throttle traffic. Fortunately said sites can play the game too and put up a special page to users connecting from this ISP explaining that the site is slow because the ISP is making it so, and that they can get better service by switching ISPs.

Re:What they mean:

[Goateee]

There are already alternatives like the one you mention, just buy a company type ADSL line. If you want a whole 3Mb/s garanteed however, it will cost you way more than you would like to pay for a home line. If the rates where unchanged, the garanteed speed would more likely be around 1% of peak speeds.

Re:What they mean:

[LordVader717]

Whether or not they have the capacity to fulfill all of their commitmants in a worst-case scenario isn't relevant. Just look at the business model of insurance companies.
What matters is that they can deliver what they advertise under normal circumstances without causing damages to their customers.
Overbooking planes makes a lot of sense for airlines. And for many residential ISPs, overselling bandwidth is their business model. They buy bandwidth from telco companies and sell it to home consumers. Slap up a website and an email server and that's their business. You can buy fixed bandwidth, but that's much more expensive.

The difference is how airlines and ISPs handle the "exceptions". Airlines will upgrade people to first class or offer discounts.
ISPs OTOH are often reluctant to invest in network infrastructure. So it's often more effective to block the minority of customers who actually use what they advertised. Wheras most airline customers come off equal or better, ISP customers who have their bandwidth capped will still be locked in a contract and are unlikely to get a reduction.

Re:What they mean:

[Goateee]

What kind of 20,000 student university still uses just a 100mbit line (or even less)? I'll go ahead and assume its not a technology oriented one. At my university there is a similar opt in if you need to use more than 60GB/month.

Re:What they mean:

[LordVader717]

One major thing that the university I go to does: you have to OPT IN to file sharing access. No big deal, you just say I need it for whatever legal reason and they activate it.

In other words, they're not net-neutral. They can get away with it because they're not selling full internet connections.
It's also different for a university campus which has a couple of thousand connections with cat-5 cable with a central infrastructue, versus an ISP which has an extensive network of customers mit thousands of network nodes and terrible line-quality. I'm certainly not one to defend ISPs, but it's not a very fair comparison either.

Re:What they mean:

[slamb]

Whether or not they have the capacity to fulfill all of their commitmants in a worst-case scenario isn't relevant.

When I said "they sold 3X as much bandwidth as they should have", I'm not talking about a wost-case scenario. I didn't mean "they oversold their bandwidth by 3X when they should not have oversold at all." That's not realistic. I meant they oversold to the extent that users are regularly unable to use more than 1/3rd of their nominal bandwidth. They are not meeting their commitments during conditions they can (and probably have) predicted.

Re:What they mean:

[Minozake]

I don't think anyone in history has used a 100mb line.

Re:What they mean:

[Mashiki]

You're going to send me to my happy place...

La la la ... lets have some milk!!

Re:What they mean:

[slamb]

No. They get a portion of that money since almost every one of the major airlines have missed flight policies that charges the customer the difference between the ticket price they paid and the "ticket desk price" for the next flight if they want in addition to a standard change fee if the airline charges one. South West does not have a change fee so you only have to pay the difference in what you already paid and the new ticket. If you can fly out a day later the difference is pretty small. In the neighborhood of 20 bucks from PHX to SEA.

As far as I know, airlines have policies like that for change with advance notice (in which case they could potentially resell the seat even without overbooking), but not for just having missed a flight - you're stuck paying then.

I recall having this conversation with a Northwest (I think) telephone agent when I phoned them immediately after going into a ditch on the way to the airport - she said if I hadn't called, I would have been charged the full ticket price. I still had to pay a change fee, so if they were overbooked or managed to resell the ticket in the few hours before the flight took off, they got paid by two people for the same seat.

Fair enough. They offer encentives to take the edge off. I personally think that it's not really voluntary, since if no one agreed to it, they would have to cancel the last purchased ticket (unless it was 1st class :)

If they actually did that, it would certainly not be voluntary. I think from a PR perspective, they'd be smart to offer well in excess of the ticket price for getting bumped if that's what it takes for that to not happen.

Come to think of it, I've been moved off a flight before. They called me the day before, told me that they were oversold and wanted to upgrade me to first-class on a different (earlier, I think) flight at their expense. I said yes. Though they'd singled me out and suggested it, it was still voluntary, and I was happy about it.

Re:What they mean:

[Romancer]

They have policies for both advance notice and missed flights.
They also have policies for connections, customs, linked flights and late cancelations which are under 1hr for most.

From: http://www.airsafe.com/complain/bumping.htm

Overbooking and Involuntary Bumping on U.S. Airlines
U.S. airlines are allowed to overbook flights to allow for "no-show" passengers. However, if passengers are involuntarily bumped, airlines are required to do ask for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for compensation. Most involuntarily bumped passengers are subject to the following minimum compensation schedule:

-There is no compensation if alternative transportation gets the passenger to the destination within one hour of the original scheduled arrival.

-The equivalent of the passenger's one way fare up to a maximum of $400 for substitute domestic flights that arrive between one and two hours after the original scheduled arrival time or for substitute international flights that arrive between one and four hours after the original scheduled arrival time.

-If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally), or if the airline does not make any substitute travel arrangements for you, the compensation doubles to a maximum of $800.

So the most they would have to pay (in money not PR) would be $800. Even if your ticket was $2000 they are only required to refund you $800.
They also have sections for voluntary bumping but it's pretty much between you and the airline and not a regulation.

They would most likely try and go out of their way to keep you happy but allowing the situation to begin with is a bet against people using their services 100%
Sometimes I'm sure they lose out to keep some customers happy but it's not the same as honoring the purchase of a flight when it's advertised at a certain price for a certain time. Small print notwithstanding.

Re:What they mean:

[RulerOf]

[waste karma]

Alas sir, pick a gender. You're referring to a single person. As such, "they're" isn't an appropriate pronoun.

I only point this out because the original nazi's "bleeds/bleed's" comment was actually pretty funny.

Cheerio.

[/waste karma]

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

Often I WANT the plane to be overbooked because I have nothing in particular to get back for that evening. I often volunteer right when I get to the gate just in case. If it's overbooked, I essentially get my next flight free for a minor inconvenience. Overbooking is something I very much want airlines to do as long as they keep their current policies.

Re:What they mean:

[X0563511]

... and because you said "OK" when you agreed to the contract terms.

The smaller the print, the more important it is, folks!

Re:What they mean:

[X0563511]

Goatee said 'mbit' not 'mb'

And anyway... I have. I get to play with them all day long. Gigabit and/or fiber is a wonderful thing.

Re:What they mean:

[johannesg]

There are some major differences between all those shared resources you list, and those of ISP's though:

1. With ISP's, you pay for different speeds. If you pay for (say) 1000kb/s but it is known in advance that you will only ever receive 333kb/s, that effectively means they have just raised their prices by a factor three.

2. Rather than giving everyone _at least_ one third of their paid-for speed, and then spreading the remainder evenly over the various customers, you are simply capped. In fact I suspect that even that promised one third of the paid-for speed is on an "if available" basis.

3. The phrase "abuse" is thrown around lightly, and there is a clear undertone of "illegal". These are probably the kind of people downloading illegal movies and childpr0n all day long! Cap them, before they do even more harm! Or... Maybe they have subscribed to a legal movie download service? One that competes with UPC's own TV offerings? (UPC is actually a cable TV provider, that also does internet on the side!)

Simple fact: UPC is advertising certain speeds, but not delivering them. And it's not even because of oversubscription (as in the examples you gave), but simply because they don't want to.

Re:What they mean:

[Dan541]

That's true.

However with ISP's I don't max out my line all the time, but I could if I wanted to. It's me who gets to decide when and how I use the service I paid for.

The same applies to phones, I can makes calls anytime I want for as long as I want. Sure if everyone in the area did it there would be a problem but that has never happened and if it did the phone company would have to improve their service or faces severe penalties.

Re:What they mean:

[Dan541]

The bad guys of course being people they collect money from.

Re:What they mean:

[dintech]

Just like the ISPs that overbook their network by selling a service that they could never deliver if all the poeple decided to show up at once

Add banks to that list too.

Re:What they mean:

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is that it is no longer 1%. With the advent of YouTube, BBC iPlayer, Spotify and all the rest suddenly the average person is using a lot more bandwidth.

These guys are not the first in Europe to start throttling certain sites, British Telecom has that accolade. They slow down connections to BBC iPlayer so you get a lower quality video.

I'm not sure if slowing down certain sites is more or less evil than just slowing down your whole connection like Virgin Media do. The VM was is certainly more annoying, not least because when the capping period ends at 9PM everyone has their download manager scheduled to kick in so the whole network grinds to a halt for an hour or two.

Re:What they mean:

[Jared555]

Last I read I think it might have been ?OC3? but this is in an area where you can't get 100mbit for $10-$40/mbit and there are NOT 20k students on the system at any point in time (or even on campus).

Re:What they mean:

[Jared555]

Correction: it is now a 180mbit link + a 1 gbit cogent link as well as a 1 gbit link dedicated to internet2.

The other document was outdated. Still, considering the number of systems (hundreds if not thousands of systems in computer labs plus thousands in dorm rooms) it has to be an interesting task to deal with.

Re:What they mean:

[eiapoce]

1%? I don't know anyone that doesen't use intensive bandwidth services on daily basis. Think about youtube addicts, Skype with video or not (Brings my 7mbit to knees), download sites and of course Peer to Peer. The Peer to peer part is nice, it's kinda of like masturbation, everybody does it but noone admits it.

For the 99% they claim is not using those services then they are miking a lot of golden cows since those are not using the network at all but still they pay for it. Let's put a bullshit tax on these claims and the internet would be fully paid by RIAA and Telcos press releases.

Re:What they mean:

[DaVince21]

Now that I think about it, my ISP does the same (it's called Online, it's also in the Netherlands), or at least for torrents (haven't seen any traffic above ~600KBps when I'm supposed to have ~1500).

Re:What they mean:

[BigZee]

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. To some extent it also shows that sighting an analogy doesn't always work. In reality, the ISP's know that certain times of the day they will have more demand than they can fill. Rather than ensure they can fill the peak demand, they simply don't buy the necessary bandwidth for the peak. I think that internet service is much better compared to other utilities such as electricity or gas. These companies have to be able to ensure that they are able to cope with the peak demands. At least, they have to be able to deal with the regular peaks and this is what the ISP's are failing to do.

Re:What they mean:

[Niznaika]

That's what you get when there's no competition involved. As far as I know in Belgium there's only tele2 in various shapes and sizes.

Re:What they mean:

[bickerdyke]

We're surrounded by shared resources with capacity that reflects typical usage

They purchase bandwidth based on a model of "reasonable" network usage

(Emphasis mine)

You already spotted the difference in your analogy yourself. Typical is completly differen from some arbitrary reasonable.

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, as I say, it was years ago; probably about thirty. Things may have changed, but if so, I'm not aware of how things are done now.

Yep, I believe they no longer use bi-planes anymore, and there's this new fangled thing called the jet engine.

Re:What they mean:

[h4rm0ny]

Anonymous for obvious reasons.

What obvious reasons? What is wrong with a customer posting information about their service?

Re:What they mean:

[L4t3r4lu5]

Oblig. Penny Arcade ref: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/5/1/

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

And if gridlock is happening regularly, they expand the roads. If people start getting busy tones, they complain and the phone lines get upgraded. When's the last time you saw indefinite rationing of phone or roads? Those pizza delivery guys are abusing our (road) network!!

Re:What they mean:

[sjames]

That's the problem. The issue of the 1% that "abuses" their connection can be handled easily by configuring their routers for a fair queuing system based only on the customer's IP address. Ideally the queue will honor QOS on the packets within that customer's queue. That way, each customer has an allocated amount they can get no matter what and can borrow from idle neighbors.

Funny how NONE of the ISPs want to use the best practices and well understood methods of congestion control in spite of their claims that they just want to manage traffic for performance reasons.

Re:What they mean:

[Nathrael]

Just replace "plane" with "tour bus".

Re:What they mean:

[DJ Particle]

I actually bought the Business Class version for this very reason. Comcast's cap for residential is 250GB transfer. For Business Class it's (as of late 2008) 12TB. And it costs the same as well if you're only buying Internet. (yes, if residential customers only want internet without a "bundle", they charge the same price as if it was Business Class, but with the lesser cap) People were starting to get wise to this, so they started asking what your business need is. In my case, I run a website for my comedy music ventures. That was enough to get accepted. :)

Re:What they mean:

[onceuponatime]

Telenet is another rubbish company. They block all the ports 1024 as a matter ofd course. These people should be sued to high hell for missleading sales as they are not selling internet rather only http service.

Funny how one rubbish company is interested in another rubbish one. The willingness of UPC to screw with their client base is no doubt one of the contributing factors as to why telenet were interested in buying them.

Re:What they mean:

[onceuponatime]

LIberty global? What an ironic name for a companies that provide just the opposite in their internet service.

Re:What they mean:

[Anonymous Coward]

There would be blood in the streets if the agriculture industry adopted this business model. I would certainly stab people to death for a loaf of bread that we both paid for.

Re:What they mean:

[slashdotjunker]

The major difference, though, is that it's very easy for someone to fall well outside the "reasonable" traffic usage. It's quite possible for 1% of the users to take up the majority of the network bandwidth. And I can see this being considered "unreasonable," and the ISP taking steps to make sure that the other 99% of users have a reasonable experience.

I was with you up until this paragraph. I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Is it unreasonable for someone to fall outside the reasonable traffic pattern even though it's very easy to do that? Or is it unreasonable that 1% of the users take up the majority of bandwidth?

And how does the airplane analogy make any sense in this context? I have never missed a flight in my life. Should the airlines kick me off my next flight to bring me in line with everyone else? Must I be forced to conform with the aggregate statistical profile? They sold me a ticket. If I show up at the airport ready and willing to travel they damn well better put me on that plane. No discussion, no argument.

Likewise, if the ISP sells me bandwidth and I show up ready and willing to use that bandwidth then they better deliver. That's it. There's no complicated argument here about the social good or the aggregate statistical profile of bandwidth usage. I am an individual with my own needs; I'm standing right here, ready to use the bandwidth you promised me. Hand it over. That's not a request.

Re:What they mean:

[viracochas]

Unlike a road network though it's a relatively trivial matter for an ISP to increase their overall bandwidth. It wouldn't maximize profits but it is a matter of buying more servers and leasing more backbone.

Re:What they mean:

[ZeroExistenZ]

There used to be UPC, which offered a very competitive package (Unlimited bandwidth within Acceptable User Policy) once they got their act together. (Just look for forums for UPC - Chello).
They were very local though and are now taken over by Telenet.

Dommel seems to be a new player with a very competitive package, I've signed up for their package recently and am curious at their quality of service :)

Re:What they mean:

[Minozake]

http://bisnotb.com/

Re:What they mean:

[Minozake]

"M" vs. "m" also makes a difference. Namely, "M" = "Mega", "m" = "mille". So, therefore, "mb" stands for "millebit", or one thousandth of one bit.

Re:What they mean:

[shnull]

i been telenet user since day one and yes, during day hours i have experienced caps, mostly for downloading or torrents, they deny it ofcourse, but torrents only reach full speed after midnight, which is afaik not something hardcoded in the programs themselves, certain sites like rapidshare also get caps since the speed is definitely better after dark. Maybe they're trying to breed internet vampires. Telenet packages are ridiculous btw, the biggest pack they have would let you surf 14 hours at full speed, and then you would be over your montly bandwidth limit. I'm checking scarlet or dommel next

Re:What they mean:

[badkarmadayaccount]

Here's a bunch of words for you:
Multicast, multihoming, caching proxy, SCTP
TCP just don't cut it these days, time to upgrade.

More intelligent ways

[tsa]

There must be more intelligent ways of handling this. For instance, someone who downloads more than so many GB a day can be throttled or capped individually. That shouldn't be too hard, I think.

Re:More intelligent ways

[Denihil]

That's a great idea, if the idea in place wasn't merely a front to cap torrent networks.

Re:More intelligent ways

[Goldberg's Pants]

I download a TON of stuff. I would happily accept a speed throttle.

Of course if they charge you by gigabyte over the cap they make more money than just throttling you.

Re:More intelligent ways

[Anonymous Coward]

More than how many a day do you propose? My monthly limit from UPC is 100GB and since I receive the bill, I would like to use the allowed traffic at the advertised speed I am paying for.

Re:More intelligent ways

[stonedcat]

What's to stop me from using port 80 for things other than http?
Not a god damn thing that's what.

Re:More intelligent ways

[ImYourVirus]

Well if they only give you 100gb and charge you more for over, then why the hell would they want to throttle you, if anything they'd want to give you a faster connection to make you more likely to go over and thus make for money for them. This kind of business strategy is shite, thankfully in my area things are opening up and you have more choices to pick from who you want to be with, though if they all do it then you don't really get a choice, but it's unlikely they'd all try to do it at the same time.

Hopefully one of these days soon they'll (providers) figure out that were not fodder for their meat grinders, just so they can make more money (read bonus's) when a customer has choices and you treat them wrong, they'll usually go somewhere else, I know I would. Just my 2 cents.

Re:More intelligent ways

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped looking for logic in Benelux companies long time ago. Unfortunately I mean all of them.

Re:More intelligent ways

[Mr Z]

True, but deep packet inspection will reveal whether your traffic is http or not. If nothing else, this implies you'll need to encapsulate your favorite protocol over a series of http requests, since I imagine "long" http requests might also get slowed.

Re:More intelligent ways

[turbidostato]

"For instance, someone who downloads more than so many GB a day can be throttled or capped individually. That shouldn't be too hard, I think."

For instance, they could be compliant with the fucking contract we both agreed on that says 24x7 X bandwith upload Y bandwith download. If they can't stand by those terms (that, contrary to me, they were absolutly free to choose), then they can change for their next contract agreement or upon renoval at termination of mine. Then they could be not blatant liers and stand for their contracts so I can freely choose among providers on good faith and knowledge. That shouldn't be too hard, either.

Re:More intelligent ways

[Jared555]

Packet inspection. Unless of course you encrypt the data 100% both ways but then they just block port 80 because you aren't allowed to run a web server.

People talk about using TOR, etc. for P2P but at least last I checked they specifically request that you NOT use TOR for those purposes as it puts too much strain on the network.

Re:More intelligent ways

[VoltageX]

That's how it's done in Australia. On my current plan, I can download 40gb during "peak" times, and 110gb during "offpeak" times, after which I'm capped to 64kbit Some ISPs also count uploads in this quota.

Re:More intelligent ways

[AmberBlackCat]

I think they'd be less heinous if the cap were only activated when the network reached its capacity.

Re:More intelligent ways

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not going to use DPI, it's too slow and inefficient to use for all of an ISP's HTTP requests.

Re:More intelligent ways

[tsa]

They are not 'blatand liars,' because the contract clearly states that there is a fair use policy, which means they have the right to interfere in case of heavy use of the network. All providers in the Netherlands have that, so it doesn't matter where you go.

Re:More intelligent ways

[Mr Z]

Across the board? Probably not. Across the 1% of peak bandwidth users, perhaps stochastically? Much more doable.

Re:More intelligent ways

[bickerdyke]

As long as they advertise unlimited access that policy shouldn't be worth the paper it is printed on. The same goes for the neo-german word Flatrate.

Re:More intelligent ways

[DJ Particle]

Unless of course, TOR only says that to cover their butts and they know damn well it's used for that purpose ;)

Re:More intelligent ways

[turbidostato]

"They are not 'blatand liars,' because the contract clearly states that there is a fair use policy"

And what's the unfair part on using the service in the terms chosen and advertised by the provider? (24x7 X upload Y download)? What is unfair is advertising something and then capping it to 1/3 because a percentage as meagre as 10% of its users are using it by the full contract terms.

The provider may have legal grounds to defend its position but the fact that they advertise what they have not the slightest intention to acomplish makes them nothing but blatant liars.

Re:More intelligent ways

[badkarmadayaccount]

Make 'em short requests then. Who gives a fuck about overhead? They forced us to do this. BTW, is there an upstream equivalent of mod_gzip? Compression may cut down on overhead (so that my stuff runs faster, of course), and make DPI barf.

First? really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tiscali have been doing this for yonks

Re:First? really?

[DaVince21]

1. Yonk
British Slang, Measurement of Time;
1) The unit of 'Yonk' is known to be exactly 3 Months and 13 Days.

And if you mean yank, this article is about the first European ISP to do it.

I use UPC

[bhima]

I use UPC in Austria. I don't think this is anything new. They been fucking with my bandwidth for ages.

Re:I use UPC

[Nick_13ro]

I use UPC in Austria. I don't think this is anything new. They been fucking with my bandwidth for ages.

Here too. They're the worst ISP in Romania. Practically nobody else does this here. If they did they'd end up with just as few clients as UPC has for internet access (and they have quite an extensive infrastructure).

Re:I use UPC

[Elbart]

Austrian UPC-Victim here, too. No proper usage of anything not-http since March. It's a disgrace.

Re:I use UPC

[JaredOfEuropa]

UPC stinks, I have held off on getting Internet service from them and this now turns out to be a good decision. Here in the Netherlands they are well known for their digital TV cable service, which uses a proprietary protocol (i.e. you have to use their set top box, which eats donkey balls), and which is way too expensive if you want all of their three poxy HD channels. I am praying for the EU to follow through and force competition between cable operators. At this time UPC is the only choice besides getting a dish.

Re:I use UPC

[Nathrael]

Hm...I'm using Chello which is owned by UPC, but never had any problems with it since I've got it a few years ago apart from a short time two months ago where they had some trouble with one of their hubs which caused *all* traffic to be blocked for an hour or so every day. Which of UPC's products are you using? Also...could you recommend an Austrian provider that's better (we're currently considering upgrading or changing ISP for reasons unrelated to this)?

Re:I use UPC

[bhima]

I started with iNode and UPC bought iNode. I think maybe they still use the "iNode" name for their DSL offerings?? So anyway I have the largest DSL package, with the VoIP package. I hate them and I wish they would die in a fire.

I would like to use 24e and get glassfiber. They are laying out a lot of fiber in Graz as (I think) they somehow related to the Grazer Stadtwerke... but alas the property managers of my house have no interest in making this happen, despite the fiber being within 50 meters of the house. Other than that I have no recommendations.

You use that word...

[jmknsd]

I thought Net Neutrality was to prevent ISPs from filtering and controlling content, not protocols and speeds?

Re:You use that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

Net Neutrality means that the ISP doesn't filter or even hinder any packet, regardless of protocol, source, destination, or contents.

Re:You use that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Net Neutrality was to prevent ISPs from filtering and controlling content, not protocols and speeds?

It seems more and more people are just lumping everything they don't like from ISPs into the term Net Neutrality, perhaps because it's becoming a buzz word amoung techies. To my mind, your definition is the correct one, but I could be wrong.

Re:You use that word...

[Darkness404]

Definition of: Net neutrality (NETwork neutrality) A level playing field for Internet transport. It refers to the absence of restrictions or priorities placed on the type of content carried over the Internet by the carriers and ISPs that run the major backbones. It states that all traffic be treated equally; that packets are delivered on a first-come, first-served basis regardless from where they originated or to where they are destined.

From http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=Net+neutrality&i=55962,00.asp (yes, I know I probably could have found a better site, but didn't feel like Wikipedia would have enough credibility for this AC). This violates net neutrality because HTTP is being favored over FTP, P2P, and a whole host of other protocols.

Re:You use that word...

[avilliers]

Technically, "net neutrality" refers to the traffic being completely agnostic about what a packet is--phone, video, http, etc.

Most of the insidious scenarios painted by the loss of neutrality do relate to content filtering--ie, Comcast makes a deal with Amazon and gimps the connections to, say, Powell's dodgy enough customers just think Amazon is the place to shop.

If it's really as described in this case, for bandwidth management, I personally don't think it's all that scary. There are issues about transparency, and for some users this might mean their ISP isn't providing sufficient bandwidth anymore. But IMHO it's not automatically different than simple changing the maximum bandwidth available to a customer.

On the other hand, if a AT&T gimped VOIP to knock Skype out of business, or Comcast filtered video so you needed their cable services, you could get filtering-by-protocol that was just about as evil as the content filtering.

Re:You use that word...

[sznupi]

But that definition talks about major backbones, about enforcing such rules on wider scale; it doesn't fit this scenario, sorta fits to what jmknsd says.

Yeah, I think he's right - while not a correct behavior, let us not put this into "net neutrality" bag. If only because it trivialises the issue of net neutrality to "those damn leechers soaking everybody's bandwidth" (if you think about it, those pushing for "real" net neutrality breaches would very much like that...)

Re:You use that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

This violates net neutrality because HTTP is being favored over FTP, P2P, and a whole host of other protocols.

No, it doesn't. Net Neutrality deals with the origin and destination, not the protocol. An example of violating Net Neutrality principals would be an ISP blocking access to YouTube unless an additional $5/month service fee is charged.

Re:You use that word...

[Dragonslicer]

Technically, "net neutrality" refers to the traffic being completely agnostic about what a packet is--phone, video, http, etc.

No, it absolutely does not. Net Neutrality only refers to filtering or throttling based on source or destination. Prioritizing VoIP traffic over BitTorrent traffic is not a Net Neutrality issue. Throttling Vonage's VoIP traffic to make your ISP's VoIP service more attractive is a Net Neutrality issue.

Re:You use that word...

[Dragonslicer]

I thought Net Neutrality was to prevent ISPs from filtering and controlling content, not protocols and speeds?

That's true, but if the summary is accurate (I know, I know), they appear to be throttling certain HTTP traffic because the site supposedly uses too much bandwidth.

Re:You use that word...

[Quothz]

No, it absolutely does not. Net Neutrality only refers to filtering or throttling based on source or destination. Prioritizing VoIP traffic over BitTorrent traffic is not a Net Neutrality issue. Throttling Vonage's VoIP traffic to make your ISP's VoIP service more attractive is a Net Neutrality issue.

I agree. The redefinition of network neutrality to include traffic type is a marketing scheme, no more. It allows providers to say "Net neutrality is not bad. We use it to slow down abusive users." This makes the debate about a straw man - it's harder to object to this behavior than real neutrality violations. By making the debate about peer-to-peer and streaming traffic taking bandwidth away from other users, they sidestep the real issue of giving privilege to certain content providers over others.

Again: The people who want to define network neutrality to include this behavior are not on your side. They want you to use that definition so they can control the debate. If they win the debate, we the netizens lose, and we lose a lot.

This is an important issue that could well help direct the culture of the technologized* world for a long time - possibly centuries, but certainly decades. Do we want content approved and delivered mainly by large central providers, like with television, or the free-for-all we have today? I choose the latter.

* Don't you think it's time we stopped saying "industrialized"?

Re:You use that word...

[Nemyst]

I disagree. It might not be scary, but it is still a totally dirty practise. If I pay for 10mbit/s, I intend to be able to use it at any time for any reason. Otherwise, don't sell me 10mbit/s! Sell me what you can provide, anything else should be considered as misrepresentation.

Re:You use that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem really comes into play when you end up not getting your advertised speeds.

If I pay for 3 meg service and the ISP purposely limits my speed to 1.5 megs or slower, then they are purposely not delivering the speeds they advertised. Now if it's just a condition of the network, then that's another story. But they really are stealing from you by promising one thing to get your money and doing something that violates that promise after they get it.

I don't have a problem with them prioritizing protocols either. As long as the speeds and services are as advertised. IF that was true and the customer received what they paid for, then it would be impossible to any ISP to gimp out Skype or Vonage or make Amazon appear to be the whip.

Re:You use that word...

[R2.0]

"Technically, "net neutrality" refers to the traffic being completely agnostic about what a packet is--phone, video, http, etc."

No, NO, NO

"Net Netrality" is, technically, treating all customers and providers neutrally - that is to say, not giving someone's packets preferential treatment over someone else's. It has NOTHING to do with protocols but being agnostic over where a packet comes from or goes to.

Your definition is for Quality of Service, or rather lack of QOS. No one cares if FTP or Bittorrent is throttles in favor of VOIP, as long as that throttling is without prejudice and as needed. Unfortunately, it's people like you getting "confused" (to be charitable) who get the issue muddied. Either that or you are a shill for the bandwidth providers.

What the company in question is doing is ham-handed and clumsy, but it is NOT a violation of Net Neutrality because they are throttling those protocols for everybody, not just "bad people". I think their method is stupid and pointless, but the "outrage" shown by TFP and the first posters plays right into the bandwidth providers hands.

Re:You use that word...

[Idiomatick]

From the summary god damn:
"within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well."

Sounds like it fits the bill perfectly....

Re:You use that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Technically, "net neutrality" refers to

It doesn't "technically" refer to anything. Neutrality is an extremely vague concept; anyone insinuating that some specific meaning (i.e. their preferred meaning) is somehow the "true" meaning is engaging in propaganda.

Some actions are clearly not "neutral", e.g. intentionally degrading traffic to a competitor to below the "default" level of service.

At the other end of the spectrum, it would be hard to consider simple round-robin scheduling as anything but neutral (although it isn't necessarily a good idea).

Between the two is a huge grey area. You can make a reasonable case for charging according to the "distance" between endpoints, or charging per byte or per packet, charging extra for packets with certain IP options, etc. You can certainly argue for charging extra for packets with specific ToS flags (providing that they are actually honoured in some way); charging less for packets with IPTOS_LOWCOST would hardly be contentious.

FWIW, my view (which, BTW, I'm not claiming is some "official" definition of neutrality) is that neutrality doesn't include discriminating based upon port numbers (IP is host-to-host; ports are a transport layer concept), or based upon different IP addresses which share a common routing entry. OTOH, I don't have a problem with fair-queueing algorithms which calculate "fairness" over hours or even days, rather than seconds.

Re:You use that word...

[noidentity]

I thought Net Neutrality was to prevent ISPs from filtering and controlling content, not protocols and speeds?

From the summary: "[...] within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well". This is targeting specific sites, not protocols.

Re:You use that word...

[The_Quinn]

I've never understood the point of Net Neutrality.

It's smacks of egalitarianism: schools must treat every student the same, work must treat every employee the same. Nobody should get too far ahead, or too far behind. Whack down all the tall daisies until all of them are as short as the shortest one.

People should be free to come up with new and innovate ways of providing network services that their customers want - and either make a profit doing so, or fail by not providing them, whether that involves shaping the traffic, or not.

Let's get away from being paranoid "bit police" - bowing down before a primitive totem of some Egalitarian network religion.

Re:You use that word...

[rastoboy29]

You don't consider throttling certain sites censorship?

Re:You use that word...

[laughingcoyote]

This violates net neutrality because HTTP is being favored over FTP, P2P, and a whole host of other protocols.

No, it doesn't. Net Neutrality deals with the origin and destination, not the protocol. An example of violating Net Neutrality principals would be an ISP blocking access to YouTube unless an additional $5/month service fee is charged.

Which, if you RTFS, you'd see they are:

All protocols but HTTP are capped to 1/3 speed, and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well. (emphasis added)

Re:You use that word...

[laughingcoyote]

"Net Netrality" is, technically, treating all customers and providers neutrally - that is to say, not giving someone's packets preferential treatment over someone else's. It has NOTHING to do with protocols but being agnostic over where a packet comes from or goes to.

You mean, like this type of behavior described in TFS?

All protocols but HTTP are capped to 1/3 speed, and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well.

Re:You use that word...

[Dan541]

It is also to prevent them from controlling protocol.

Re:You use that word...

[AmiMoJo]

If your ISP throttles YouTube down to a speed where you can no longer watch a video without waiting half an hour for it to buffer (hi Virgin Media), then that pretty effectively blocks their content.

Re:You use that word...

[bcmm]

You pay an ISP to take your traffic to other ISPs, who take said traffic to their own paying customers (either other home users or big companies).

Without net neutrality, your ISP can then charge the other ISP or it's customers to send and receive the traffic you've already payed for (this is the massive fucking flaw in the claim that these companies are "stealing all the ISP's bandwidth": it's already been payed for).

Imagine that, in an attempt to "come up with new and innovate ways of providing network services that their customers want - and [...] make a profit doing so", your mobile phone (cellphone) provider started dropping your text messages to certain customers of other networks (because you were "unfairly" sending too many messages to them), unless customers of those other networks payed them for the service you've already payed for. Would you complain, or would that be too "egalitarian"?

Furthermore, ISPs which are not neutral will not be out-competed by sane ones because in many situations they are not in genuine competition, and because the large ISPs would be free to cut them off as punishment.

Re:You use that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

How is limiting speed for certain protocols not filtering and controlling content?
Aren't different protocols used for different content?
That's how the filtering and controlling is done: by limiting speed or blocking certain protocols.

Re:You use that word...

[Asic Eng]

If it's really as described in this case, for bandwidth management, I personally don't think it's all that scary.

It just seems a shame that in the future every protocol will use port 80.

Re:You use that word...

[Caue]

you consider a lack of highway prejudice against a certain village with one hundred people just because this ONE guy wants to drive his ferrari at top speed?

Re:You use that word...

[bickerdyke]

This violates net neutrality because HTTP is being favored over FTP, P2P, and a whole host of other protocols.

So what....

Waiting 1 minute for a webpage to load is worse waiting 5 minutes longer for your DVD-Iso-torrent to finish.

All I'm asking for is to be honest and upfront with that! You could even prioritize ALL http-traffic and market it as Surf-Accelerator(tm) I'm sure that would give you the perfect batch of customers for that low-price-Plan. Then maybe go for a premium-plan with a torrent-accelerator...

All these "unlimited until you actually start to use what you paid for" is a clear example of One-size-fits-all going terribly wrong.

Re:You use that word...

[$1uck]

Net neutrality isn't about filtering content based on type but based on who/what. If video is watchable on ESPN or comedy central but not on youtube then you probably have a gripe. If all all video becomes unwatchable, that's just an issue of not enough throughput. Hell... if your ISP blocks all video content, its being neutral (still sucks, but they're not breaking network neutrality).

Re:You use that word...

[sjames]

They DID indicate that they cap certain websites that are bandwidth intensive. That's content based control.

Re:You use that word...

[sjames]

I do find it interesting here that while Comcast is applying caps and otherwise crying about overused networks they are ALSO stuffing my mailbox full of offers for VoIP service.

In unrelated news...

[lalena]

Torrents updated to now support P2P over HTTP.

Re:In unrelated news...

[Renraku]

It's really not a joke, I suspect something like this will happen.

The only way they'll be able to completely stop torrents and warez downloading would be to cut off internet access entirely.

Never underestimate nerds who want to fix something, even if they have to resort to TCP/IP over Carrier Pigeon.

Re:In unrelated news...

[Dyinobal]

Never stand between a nerd and his porn.

Re:In unrelated news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you want a face full of nerd jism.

Re:In unrelated news...

[oldhack]

Might as well. It seems to me, their real problem is they oversold their bandwidth, and the proper thing to do is to reprice bandwidth usage. Stop bullshitting the customers with promise of bandwidth they can't deliver.

Yeah, that would suck in marketing aspect. Again might as well. If a company actually uttered a truth, it just might shock some of us into death by heart attack.

Re:In unrelated news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your ACK just shat on my car.

Re:In unrelated news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing blocking inbound port 80 won't solve. What, you think they'll let you run a web server?

Re:In unrelated news...

[ArtemaOne]

The real trick is to allow only encrypted traffic, and pipe it through a VPN port, makes them think you're connected to work.

Re:In unrelated news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they'll just do deep packet inspection to figure out what's a torrent, and block that.

And if you encrypt it, they'll throttle encrypted traffic back to dial-up speeds so you can still get your banking done but it's useless for torrents.

And if businesses complain, they'll sell an unthrottled "business class" connection that business can afford but end-users who want to torrent cannot.

It will happen.

Re:In unrelated news...

[nateb]

That would be RFC 1149, for those that are interested.

Re:In unrelated news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Never stand between a nerd and his porn.

I move this be modded insightful rather than funny.

There's got to be a better way

[Adrian Lopez]

Couldn't they instead perform a kind of load-balancing based on the actual bandwidth being consumed by each customer, regardless of protocol or destination? As far as I'm concerned, that's the only way to do QOS without violating the principle of network neutrality.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[anarche]

Limit the number of packets by IP address?? Since the IP address of the computer shouldn't be changing in the middle of a session that could be tracked. The implementing of it may slow the network as a whole.

Of course spoofing gets around this..

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Otterley]

Or, they could just charge by the bit, like every other utility (water, gas, electricity).

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Lennie]

Spoofing on a cable-network is not as easy.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Anonymous Coward]

That would make common applications prohibitively expensive and leave the network mostly unused while still not avoiding congestion at peak times. Unlike with "classic" utilities, there is no additional cost if you use the network off-peak, because there is no scarce resource that needs to be acquired and provided to the consumer. A per-megabyte cost is a bad fit for the cost structure of computer networks. Inter-ISP accounting often uses a metric called the "95th percentile", but good luck marketing something like that to ordinary users.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[samson13]

My personal favourite technical solution is to use some sort of IP hash based token bucket filter. Protocol and service agnostic which is good because any weird protocol based definition of fair would be outdated soon in this world. Doesn't rely on the client/server to behave in a fair way.

Basically everybody gets the same share of the available bandwidth. Since it is based on IP rather than tcp backing off it is relatively immune to P2Ps many connections causing it to unfairly back off. Also immune to short lived http connections not having enough time to settle. The heavy down loaders get their fair share of the bandwidth which is not necessarily true at the moment with the way P2P opens many connections and the way Naggle backs off tcp.

Most implementations have a concept of bursting so that if your link is quiet then you can get a burst for a few packets. Good for the interactive feel for normal browsing.

Good for the ISP in that while it consumes router resources they are limited by the number of hash buckets configured. It would be unfortunate if you were in a hash collision with somebody who was a heav user but normaly the hash is rotated every few seconds to limit this damage.

For the use of the real time protocols SIP/RTP etc then ISP could even honour packet tagging within your bucket. i.e. your voip wins over your P2P but somebody elses voip doesn't impact your P2P.. Currently packet tagging on the internet is pretty useless because the packets are competing against somebody elses definition of important.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[ponraul]

Yeah. That worked for Enron.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Otterley]

I think you mistook my comment to suggest a high per-bit price. There are lots of ways to charge for bandwidth utilization, the 95%ile method being one of them.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Otterley]

Enron's marketplace concerned long-haul pipes. The market for last-mile connections is quite different, and is where most of the congestion is, because telcos are cheap and laying new fiber to leaf nodes (i.e., homes and small businesses) is expensive.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Anonymous Coward]

95% percentile is not a "charge by the bit" metric and very different from the water, gas and electricity billing schemes. If "charge by the bit" isn't what you meant, why did you write it?

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they could accurately size their networks instead of massively over-subscribing them to squeeze the nth of a penny in profit.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Ichijo]

That would make common applications prohibitively expensive and leave the network mostly unused while still not avoiding congestion at peak times.

Electric companies charge by the kilowatt-hour, yet electricity isn't prohibitively expensive.

Electric companies also have a solution for the problem of peak usage: time of day metering.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[The_Quinn]

that's the only way to do QOS without violating the principle of network neutrality.

So violate network neutrality. There is nothing in nature that dictates every bit of every packet from every person must be treated identically.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Adrian Lopez]

There's nothing in nature that says ISPs cannot be forbidden from treating them differently. So what's your point?

Re:There's got to be a better way

[The_Quinn]

Actually there is something in nature that says ISPs cannot be forbidden from treating them differently.

In a nutshell, "forbidding" an otherwise voluntary relationship is an abrogation of freedom. Freedom is required for individuals to think and act to pursue their values, i.e. their lives.

So in nature, in order for thinking people to pursue their lives, they need freedom to think and act, which includes the freedom to create and sell services on non-net-neutrality networks.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they should charge me like I get charged for water. That would be great because I don't pay a single cent for water. That's the one and only good thing in Ireland. They at least know you can't charge people for water since it's a public resource and a necessity.

Metered charging for data would be absolutely insane. They already do that on mobile phones and the charges are absolutely out of this world for even light content like HTTP. There's no way the charges could keep up with the charging usage patterns on the internet. Do you think that people are going to be transferring the same amount of data in ten years? In five years? Even next year? The bandwidth demands are going to keep growing as the size of the content will grow. The files will keep getting bigger (Is that game you just bought off Steam under 100MB like it might've been in the late 90's). The video is going to be higher bandwidth as people want higher quality and better resolutions. Youtube already is now offering HD videos up from the extremely low quality videos they've had for all this time.

Do you really think that ISPs' tariffs will be able to keep up with that when the people setting the tariffs probably can't barely figure out how to open an email attachment? Do you think they would WANT to bother keeping up rather than just let the usage grow for a while and let their profits swell and then when the complaints mount just give way a bit but not nearly enough?

Have even thought your suggestion through for two seconds? No? Didn't think so.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[gnud]

There is nothing in nature that says thinking people ought to be able to pursue their lives. Exept you, me, and some random philosophers.

Like there is nothing in nature that says ISPs should be forbidden from treating packets differently based on source/destination. Execpt me and some random slashbots.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Adrian Lopez]

So in nature, in order for thinking people to pursue their lives, they need freedom to think and act, which includes the freedom to create and sell services on non-net-neutrality networks.

You could make a similar argument for why it is important for an ISP's customers to be free to connect to other computers through protocols of their choice without interference. After all, in order for thinking people to pursue their lives they need freedom to communicate and interact with others, which includes the freedom to communicate with others without having their connections crippled by ISPs.

Of course, neither your position nor my own is really supported by an appeal to nature, for nature is not concerned with fairness or justice. Besides... the fact is that nature personified would be far more cruel than it is just.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[The_Quinn]

You could make a similar argument for why it is important for an ISP's customers to be free to connect to other computers through protocols of their choice without interference.

This is very easy to accomplish through voluntary, contractual relationships. You don't need some bureaucrat to control everyone's behavior and tell them exactly what they can or cannot do.

Remember, the government is the one with the gun.

Re:There's got to be a better way

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they can. I work for a small ISP and we do exactly this:
When there is enough free bandwidth available, everyone gets full speed according to their plan.
In peak hours, when the link gets saturated, we shape the users in 5 minutes raster proportionaly to their plan (customers with cheap plan are shaped more) and their bandwith usage in last 30 minutes (If you saturate the link consistently for a long time, you get shaped more, if you just need to download a few megs video, you get full speed).

I think this method is working and is fair for everyone. I realy don't understand why someone would want to shape traffic based on protocol used or source the traffic comes from (aside from pissing off customers or force them to buy more expensive plan).

Argentinian ISPs

[Anonymous Coward]

Argentinian ISPs do this every fucking day since forever.

You never get the full bandwidth you pay for.

We enjoy our non-existent market.

Re:Argentinian ISPs

[Goldberg's Pants]

Was that really necessary? Yes, the story is about Europe, but has clearly been going on elsewhere for some time, but nobody cared, but now it's Europe everyones panties are in a bunch.

Re:Argentinian ISPs

[Kjella]

I'd say the primary reason to get things like that up in the media is the war over the "public meaning" of things. For example, I think in my country the consumer protection agency would be all over them and say "Well, if you're delivering Internet subscription at 1/3rd the speed, you have to advertise it as such. You can't say 'up to' but only on specific protocols, sites and on friday the 13th under a full moon". If they have to instead say "2Mbit Internet, up to 6Mbit on selected websites" it'll pretty much kill the advantage of promising something you're not delivering.

Re:Argentinian ISPs

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the Prime Meridian, a completely arbitrary line, goes through Europe, parts of Europe are in fact in the same hemisphere as Argentinia. You could even draw a couple of other lines if you wanted to include all of it.

Besides, other people's experiences around the world may be useful, at least so you can have an idea what's going on in the world. It is all the same Internet.

Re:Argentinian ISPs

[keeboo]

Argentinian ISPs do this every fucking day since forever.

Feel free to move to Brazil, land of telecoms which mutilate VoIP connections (so they can sell you their phone services), oversell bandwidth and may suffer network collapse for hours... And nobody gets punished, as usual.

As a bonus you'll get a unrepentant, hopelessly corrupt government.

Re:Argentinian ISPs

[agnosticnixie]

I fully expect a hypothetical panamerican union to do the complete opposite of the EU and just suck up to corporate cartels in telecomms :p (Canada, we just discovered 50mbps, and by we I mean "our ISPs' advertising drones just discovered they could sell these rates without actually bothering to provide anything close" - and Quebec's cable, publishing and media monopoly (same corp) is given a blank cheque by 2-3 provinces by now, out of 10).

And I already wanted to go to another ISP

[isama]

But it's a one year contract wich ends in a few months goddamn! a well, let's look for a new isp.

Move along now, nothing to see here!

Re:And I already wanted to go to another ISP

[dvice_null]

Are you sure contract can hold you, considering that it probably mentions also speed, which has now changed?

Re:And I already wanted to go to another ISP

[anyGould]

Most likely the contract, if it even mentions speed, will use the "up to" wording that all the advertising does. It lets them put a big honkin' number in front of you, while disclaiming any responsibility to actually reach within a county mile of that standard.

It's a pity that it doesn't fall under false advertising - while technically true, it's completely useless information for the consumer.

Re:And I already wanted to go to another ISP

[Goldberg's Pants]

You need a contract for internet access? Jesus. I can just call my ISP and say "Shove it. Cheers!"

Re:And I already wanted to go to another ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

will use the "up to" wording that all the advertising does.

Yeah or small print saying "actual speeds may vary".

I'd like consumers to start paying them "up to" the price they quoted for the connection.
"Actual amount may vary"

Re:And I already wanted to go to another ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

change of contract details is a valid reason for contract termination in the Netherlands!

Re:And I already wanted to go to another ISP

[tepples]

You need a contract for internet access?

I don't know about the Netherlands, but commitments longer than a year are fairly common in parts of the United States where neither the phone company nor the cable company provides high-speed Internet access. Instead of cable TV and cable Internet, they have satellite TV and satellite Internet, or perhaps satellite TV and EVDO or HSDPA Internet.

Re:And I already wanted to go to another ISP

[isama]

Where do you live? I'm moving! :P

Nothing new..

[Anonymous Coward]

UPC has been fucking with the network speeds in The Netherlands for years. I left UPC 5 years ago for the Dutch ISP XS4ALL because of this..

A little cultural understanding here please?

[Vinegar Joe]

After all, where did the term "going Dutch" come from?

Re:A little cultural understanding here please?

[binkzz]

Actually, UPC is an American company, and they don't have a very good name in Holland for reasons such as this one.

Re:A little cultural understanding here please?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is mainly the English that gave the term 'Dutch' a negative connotation (due to the Anglo-Dutch wars), e.g. Dutch Courage.

Re:A little cultural understanding here please?

[Anonymous Coward]

AC awards binkzz with the 'understatement of the year award'.

trying to bring fun into this talk

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh ?
A Dutch provider messes with the network ?
What are they smoking ?

'We are protecting all the users against the 1% o

[Amarantine]

There used to be a time were Dutch providers had a download limit, but one by one they changed this to a FUP.

I can understand them doing this from a commercial point of view (a competitor's FUP sounds more interesting to potential customers than their own hard limit), but if you ask me, all a FUP does is attract people you don't want on your network, for exactly this reason.

Not filtering by destination

[Alain Williams]

At least they don't seem to be filtering by destination ... eg Disney paid something so they get priority of their bandwidth.

I don't like filtering by protocol: I would get pissed off if my ssh sessions were slowed down.

Re:Not filtering by destination

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not going to RTFA, but FTFS:
"and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well."

Re:Not filtering by destination

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlikely to happen. They don't know ssh even exists.

Re:Not filtering by destination

[sjames]

Actually, they say they ARE filtering by destination as well as by protocol. They don't (yet) say that they are hitting up destinations for fees, but I won't be surprised if/when they do.

Not capping, investing

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of finding bad excuses for bad/no investments in network-installation, they should invest in their infrastructure. However, I assume they want to do this so network-based TV or radio streaming are throttled as well, because they compete with their primary businesses. It is time for the EU to kick those infrastructure guy's a**** so they remember what their job is. Business is not their (for the public/people) to make as much money as possible, it is there to fulfill their dedicated role in a society. Therefore they have to provide a solvent infrastructure for all usages over their network.

BTW: If they sell a 6000 kb/s down and 512 kb/s up = 536 GiB a day = 1.6 TiB per month. If they cannot deliver the stuff they sold me, then I can charge them for this. It is not misuse of a network to use it in its technical margins. If they are only willing to sell special quotas then they should do so.

Re:Not capping, investing

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually have decent infrastructure.

The problem is that recently UPC started selling up to 120mbps (EUR 70,- per month) connections in a market were nobody can even come close to that. ADSL maxes out at 20mbps. In their advertisements they make that speed a issue.

In a market like this you can expect the kind of customers you draw in with an offer like this are the ones who actually want to use that speed. Knowing that, making such an offer anyway and then apply bandwidth throttling is nothing short of fraud.

Re:Not capping, investing

[ImYourVirus]

They want to cap me to 1/3, then I'm only going to pay 1/3 of my bill. Sure they want to blame (illegal) file sharing for the increase, but that's not the only thing that uses large amounts of bandwidth.

How about sharing homemade pictures, movies, music, free games, software, etc, not to mention playing games, uploading other types of files not via http, how about ftp, ssh, some other network, etc...

Some of the several games I play the maps can be 50 megs or bigger, the same goes with patches, hell I've seen some patches that are bigger than a couple hundred megs, oh and what about demo's and such, not to mention getting full games, like through say steam or some other provider, a demo I got was like 600 megs, and several full games are easily greater than 2 gigs, most being around 4 gigs or so, so gaming is easily an excuse (not that you should need one in the first place) for using high amounts of bandwidth and transfer.

At least they aren't complete idiots from what I read and don't throttle http, because then how am I supposed to watch my 10,000 youtube videos per day?

Oh and don't get me started on them investing in a better infrastructure, no no that'd cut into their precious bonus's to much, that's one reason right there that most if not all suits (read executives) will ever have any respect from me, because to them it's all about their bonus's and the grunts (read anyone below them) are only fodder for their meat grinders.

Re:Not capping, investing

[Jarik C-Bol]

you should go into the big room more.

Re:Not capping, investing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing new - Virgin Media in the UK (aka "Virgin on the ridiculous") have been capping "excessive use" for a couple of years. They cap usage at about 500 Mb per day, so anyone trying to download a Linux install disk gets their usage capped (at 10 - 20 % of their maximum rate) for up to 24 hours.
 
  Virgin persist in advertising their "service" as "unlimited", when it's nothing of the sort.
 
Virgin also advertise their cabled 'net connection as "20 Mb/sec" - in reality it's actually 5 Mb/sec with bursts to 20 Mb/sec on Virgin's own site but nowhere else!

Re:Not capping, investing

[stonertom]

I often download > 7GB in a day with no trouble with Virgin... Also I share a house, so it's not just me that's using the net

Re:Not capping, investing

[johnsie]

One of my colleagues in work got a letter from Virgin saying they were going to slow his internet down at peak periods because he was downloading stuff. This invalidated their contract with him so he left them and got a different ISP. I have been using NTL/Virgin for 9 years and have to say things went downhill when Virgin took over, but they aren't too bad if you stay legal. The cable is pretty good if you run a web server because your ip address hardly ever changes.

Re:Not capping, investing

[DaVince21]

It is time for the EU to kick those infrastructure guy's a**** so they remember what their job is.

a****?

...Acorn?

Re:Not capping, investing

[L4t3r4lu5]

I know nothing of their 20Mb service, but I've had 4Mb. After downloading 1GB of data, my downstream was capped at 512kbps for the rest of that 24 hour period (note that if I finished my distro download at 23.59, that meant 1 minute of capped use).

Right now I'm with AAISP, who offer ADSL2 in my area. I have 100GB evening, 2GB daytime useage per month at whatever speed I can get on my connection, frequently over 8Mb. I work during the day, so this works out very well for me.

Re:Not capping, investing

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn goddamn English!

Carrier Pigeon?

[Anonymous Coward]

We would prefer something involving swallows, and coconuts. Thank you.

You know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe there's something wrong with your infrastructure if 1% of your userbase can cripple it.

First EU provider?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this what plus.net has openly been doing sucessfully for a few years now

I *used* to be UPC customer

[Anonymous Coward]

In the short time that I've been UPC customer, I have been thoroughly dissatisfied with their service. Too many outages, and a paid helpdesk who weren't competent enough to do anything but reading from scripts. Quite the difference from when I was with XS4all- slightly more expensive, but what a difference. Competent people there (met them at HIP back in '97). Never needed the helpdesk as the connection *just worked*. Always. Now that I live abroad, I've got similar experiences. Goodbye BT- I hope you've learned that throttling my bandwidth by 95% isn't the way to go. Vote with your wallet, people- reward good customer service.

Re: 'We are protecting all the users against the 1

[Anonymous Coward]

FUP works, I'd say.

Well I mean, come on, if ten people leech all day and you and 989 others can't read slashdot anymore because of that. Obviously, it costs way too much money to upgrade the network for those 10 people. Then 990 people pay extra for those 10 people. That's not fair, is it?

Where Can I learn About This

[wizzerking]

Where Can I learn about bit Torrent using Http ?

Re:Where Can I learn About This

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK There is no torrent client out there that mimics the HTTP protocol (yet?). Of course there is nothing stopping you from setting the port for incoming connections to port 80 (or 8080, or 21, 23, etc http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers). This trick works for some ISPs but fails for others.

"Protecting" everyone from the one percent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. Sounds like a very democratic solution to the problem.

Christiane

[Anonymous Coward]

The German cable provider Kabel Deutschland has been limiting Bittorrent traffic during the evening hours for more than two years now. See, for example, http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Kabel-Deutschland-bremst-Tauschboersennutzer--/meldung/104734 .

all your

[Under_score 1]

These are + / - 1% of our customers use newsgroups and P2P fanatic. fuck my all your base shirt

No mistranslation of item 2)

[Anonymous Coward]

In case any of you were wondering, Google did not mistranslate step 2). They really do market this as a "speed improvement" for their customers:

2) These adjustments significantly increase the speed of the higher subscriptions when using newsgroups. According to our statistics, this affects around 1% of our customers who fanatically use newsgroups and p2p

In other words, only 1% of their users fully utilize the bandwidth that they pay for, and that's still more than UPC thinks is acceptable.

And to make matters worse, not only the highest plans are limited: also the 30/16/12Mbit links now offer only 1/3 of their previous speeds, and apparently some protocols (like FTP and Soulseek) only reach modem speeds (7kB/s).

The toobz aren't full

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again an ISP wants to protect the rest of us from those who "abuse" the network. Translation = those who actually use what they pay for. Unlimited access at the purchased speed. That's not abuse. It's using what you paid for. What people tend to forget is that all of the bullshit about needing to manage the bandwidth to protect the rest of us is just that. Bullshit. A significant percentage of the fiber already laid is dark. No one is sending any data over it. Why? Because the ISPs don't want to spend the money to buy the routers to light it up. It's easier to keep charging us sheep more and more money for a smaller and smaller slice of the pie.

NOT the first European ISP to break net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

This is NOT the first European provider to break net neutrality!

"Kabel Deutschland" (provides Internet over cable only) in Germany is doing similar things for some time already!

Mo-Fr they block Bittorent and other P2P traffic between 6 p.m. and midnight; on weekends, the whole day.

"Block" is not the right word - they make it slow to a crawl so that's nearly unusable.

Sure

[drhamad]

Sure, but /. gets all upset when Comcast/etc does that as well. Many ISP's either do that or have done that - and everyone gets pissed every time.

Re:Sure

[dmartine40]

We get pissed because we - as consumers - have this funny notion that we're entitled to high-speed internet when our ISP advertises and promises to deliver it. Now if it really is one percent of the users who abuse it, go after them, not everyone else. Now, if you go up to any of the consumers of these services, they'll tell you just like I am that they/we are not abusing the service. But let's be honest, those who do probably have a good idea they are offending. And I'm pretty sure the ISP has some way to determine where all the bandwidth is going.

Re:Sure

[drhamad]

No, /. (and most net-savvy user websites) gets pissy when they go after the 1% because after all, they agreed to X Mbps, they should get to use that 100% of the time.

Whether that argument is right or wrong, the two situations combined (the one in this article and the one I'm laying out in this post) equate to a catch 22 for the ISP. The ISP's only remaining choice is to drastically lower promised speeds, but that's a marketing disaster, and really a technical one as well, since most people do sometimes use the top speeds, but don't do so regularly - makes them happy to have it available when needed though.

Re:Sure

[turbidostato]

"Now if it really is one percent of the users who abuse it, go after them, not everyone else."

They point being that since it's the ISP the one that configures speed limits and router negotiation I can't see a way to abuse it but sort of cracking their routers and I don't think that's what the "1 per cent" they are talking about are in fact doing.

If they promise 24x7 X upload/Y download bandwith, they well damn provide that and there's no abuse when I in fact use what they promised me. If they can't stand by their promises then the proper thing is not doing them, not calling it "abuse".

Re:Sure

[laughingcoyote]

No, /. (and most net-savvy user websites) gets pissy when they go after the 1% because after all, they agreed to X Mbps, they should get to use that 100% of the time. Whether that argument is right or wrong, the two situations combined (the one in this article and the one I'm laying out in this post) equate to a catch 22 for the ISP. The ISP's only remaining choice is to drastically lower promised speeds, but that's a marketing disaster, and really a technical one as well, since most people do sometimes use the top speeds, but don't do so regularly - makes them happy to have it available when needed though.

Actually, I get pissy because I purchased a connection advertised as an "unlimited" connection at a certain speed. "Unlimited", as in, "without limit". When they then turn around and say "There's a limit", but still advertise the service as "unlimited", their advertising is not truthful.

If ISPs want to sell limited internet connections, they have every right to do that, but they should advertise them as such.

I also don't buy the "We build our infrastructure for anticipated usage..." bit. If this "1%" of users routinely exists, you factor them into your anticipated usage when deciding how much you need to build. Then, you build enough capacity for actual anticipated usage. You don't just ignore those users, hope they go away, and then be shocked and claim to need to throttle when your capacity doesn't meet your demand.

Re:Sure

[drhamad]

Well like I said, I wasn't passing judgment as to whether that argument is right or wrong. Just commenting upon it.

That being said, I challenge you to find a major ISP that currently says their service is unlimited.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

That being said, I challenge you to find a major ISP that currently says their service is unlimited.

Telia. Says so, and delivers.

(Yes, they have their faults. But not in this particular area.)

At least they do here in Sweden. As does every other ISP here that I know of. You might argue that Sweden has no "major" ISPs, but I don't have any experience with ISPs in other countries, so this is what I can speak of, for what it may be worth.

Re:Sure

[laughingcoyote]

Currently, Comcast still does, and only in a slightly less deceptive manner.

How long can I stay on line before I have to log out?

As long as you like. You'll never be timed out, and you never have to log out! That's one of the many benefits of being a Comcast High-Speed Internet subscriber. Your time spent online is completely unlimited, with no additional charges.

That's really true only if your connection is idle for the vast majority of the time you're using it. If you're actually, you know, using the connection for a good deal of that time, it's not unlimited at all.

Re:Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

It says your time online is unlimited, which it is. That's different than using 100% of you rbandwidth 100% of the time, which is the issue here. They don't care if you browse the web 24 hours a day.

Re:NOT the first European ISP to break net neutral

[JackassJedi]

Yes, this is true. I am a customer of Kabel Deutschland, and in the past, they've already admitted to doing it, but have now taken back that statement. However, there is clear evidence when using traffic monitoring that this is actually taking place. Sources (in German): http://www.klamm.de/partner/unter_news.php?l_id=5&news_id=35204&a_datum=20.07.2009 http://www.onlinekosten.de/forum/showthread.php?t=121367

Soo they oversell their network

[future assassin]

blame it on the magic 1% user and then punish their other customers by capping their bandwidth.

Re:Soo they oversell their network

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a punishment if you don't actually commit the offense (in this case, using more than your alloted bandwidth), or rather, even come close to committing the offense. Most people won't notice at all. They're not being punished. It'd be like saying that we're currently punishing you for murder. Clearly, we're not, as you're a freeman, since you haven't committed murder (or have just eluded capture).

The reason ./ has such outcry over this is that a majority of people here download all sorts of stuff (large amounts of which are likely illegal) and WILL be affected by this. Worse than losing their ability to download this material is the attention (and investigations) violations will bring.

Re:Soo they oversell their network

[IRWolfie-]

What a load of crap. The deliberate decrease in bandwidth affects all users. Why if you are using a non-http protocol (like multi-player games) should you experience a lower bandwidth (and presumably higher latencies)? this includes those who aren't the mythical 1% heavy users too.

So Just tunnel over HTTP

[colsandurz45]

Someone mentioned that they would be upset if their SSH sessions slow down. Well, just tunnel ssh over http http://dag.wieers.com/howto/ssh-http-tunneling/

Re:So Just tunnel over HTTP

[DeadBeef]

Given a couple of years of treating protocols differently, then _absolutely everything_ will evolve to have an option to tunnel over http.

This is a case where from the ISP perspective the 1% of users that use 99% of your backhaul are also the most determined to carry on doing it, so the obvious technical countermeasures will get implemented without much trouble.

The bigger worry with the net neutrality debate is providers slowing traffic by destination rather than by protocol, or more likely the reverse ie. traffic shape everything other than those in our list of 'business partners'. The only workable solution for the end user is to close their account, which is probably exactly what your ISP wants you to do in this case.

Interesting times.

Let the remuneration equal the service delivered.

[Anonymous Coward]

All users of UPC should send in two thirds of the money requested on their monthly bill.

That should put an end to the ripoff practices of that ISP fairly quickly.

Dutch ISP mini-review

[operator_error]

Compared to the US, I guess we're doing better, but these are my options as I currently see them in Amsterdam.

Everytime I change ISPs, it is to get more bandwidth for less cost. I'm just finishing a ADSL 2 year contract with Tele2 and was seriously considering UPC. Still am, but this news sucks. UPC also has extraordinarily bad customer service. Bad in a legendary way.

There are loads of ADSL ISPs offering 20mb down/ 1up, with phone & TV for 30 euros a month. UPC uses the city coax network and DOCSIS 3.0 I think, (claiming fiber, which is true i guess considering their backbone, but still). I was thinking of buying 60mb down/ 6up with TV and phone for 50 euros a month until this news. There is no other ISP using the higher bandwidth coax. Local ADSL seems to have peaked at 20 mbs down.

These lengthy contracts and the commitment DOES suck. At least once the 1-2 year period is over, it is possible to quit with a month or so notice.

FWIW, XS4all tries to compete based on privacy and is fairly libertarian regarding internet issues, but the price is also much higher. Since I'm mostly talking to our own servers, I'd rather buy internet in bulk.

http://se.tele2.nl/
http://www.upc.nl/totaalpakketten/
http://www.xs4all.nl/allediensten/toegang/adslbellen/ (note they 'give free' mobile internet for a year, then you gotta pay for that 2nd service, ouch!)

I really want more bandwidth upstream than 1mbs, but I really dislike UPC. I would really like to know if SSH is being throttled, the article isn't entirely clear about this.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[operator_error]

Forgot to mention, real-life speeds:

While I pay for 20 mps down, I'm lucky to get 10 mbs down. Usually around 7.5 mps download is average, and about .6 mps up. This is with Tele2 ADSL, but I think all Dutch ADSL is the same now.

Any other consumers out there willing to compare? At least ADSL can be bought cheap here.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[Tony Hoyle]

Sounds like your ISP is overselling its bandwidth.

In the UK it's the same sort of situation.. you can get up to 24Mbps* (theoretically.. most people get around 16 due to distance from the exchange) but not all ISPs are equal. There are some *really* cheap deals out there eg. £9.99 'unlimited' (subject to limits**), but if you go with such an ISP be prepared to deal with nonexistant customer support, huge latency and massive slowdowns especially in the evenings. Alternatively you can go with a more pricy ISP and pay £30ish but get excellent support and able to download at your sync rate at all times.

I have dual lines bonded so I'm not the typical user.. I pay £40 per month for that (my ISP throws in as many IPs as I can justify and routed ipv6 for that price as well).

* I'm excluding the 20% of people not on LLU exchanges here - out in the sticks you have 8Mb only.
** In this country Unlimited means the same as Limited.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[the eric conspiracy]

60 down and 1 up is a joke. There is no way that you are going to be able to effective use much more than 10 mbps down with only 1 mbps up.

And since when did net neutrality have anything to do with traffic shaping? Net neutrality is when all destinations are treated equally, not all protocols.

If you are on a net that has both tcp and udp traffic (the entire internet) you are already making protocol choices.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[Anonymous Coward]

They cap to 1/3 of the speed. So your 60/6Mbit connection turns into a 20/2Mbit connection. And with cable / coax you will get those speeds easily (something which isn't guaranteed with ADSL). So you are probably still beter off with UPC than with ADSL.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[dotwaffle]

Errr, what? Seriously, I'd do some research first - unless you're using really small TCP packets, you should easily be able to manage 20:1 if not 50:1. With a non-acknowledged protocol such as UDP, you can increase that to over 100:1.

Just because you're using a vastly inefficient method to download your "must-have" illegal TV-rips, doesn't mean we get to blindly accept your facts.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[operator_error]

There's a misunderstanding. One of UPC's package is 60mps down which I am considering is, 6 up. Just to be clear.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[turbidostato]

"Everytime I change ISPs, it is to get more bandwidth for less cost."

Everytime I chanhge ISPs, it is to get more *claimed* bandwidth *that it could be called "abuse" if I dare to in fact use it* for less cost.

There, corrected for you.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[KonoWatakushi]

Maybe you should do some research as well. TCP is self clocking, and the rate of acknowledgements influences the rate of the data. TCP was not designed with severely asymmetric connections in mind, and if the upstream is choked, your performance will be terrible. Even under good circumstances, you won't be able to make full use of your massive downstream channel without some tuning.

That aside, bittorrent is a lot more than a method to distribute illegal TV-rips: it also allows ordinary people to distribute perfectly legal content, which would otherwise require extremely deep pockets. The benefits of enabling individuals to do so far outweigh any possible lost revenue that the content industry might sustain. (Not that there is even a shred of evidence for such loss though. The actual fear is competition from user generated content; the content industry want to remain the gatekeepers of entertainment.)

The Internet is not a TV. A bidirectional connection is necessary to make the most of it.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[rdebath]

Very wrong.
Normal TCP over ethernet has around a 38 bytes Ethernet overhead, for 1500 bytes packets (with timestamps) that's less than 18:1 downstream vs upstream. DOCSIS is a little better with a 30 bytes overhead but it still doesn't get you to 20:1 unless you dump the TCP/IP timestamps.

With pure TCP/IP and all options stripped from the ACK packets you get about 38:1 (31:1 with timestamps). MPLS looks like the lightest physical layer protocol, bare TCP/IP over MPLS gets you about 35:1.

You can get higher ratios, in very special cases. If you have only a couple of TCP/IP sessions, and you're using PPP you may be able to use VJ-compression. It compresses a stripped IP header to maybe 4-5 bytes. If you're using PPP over MPLS you could get 100:1 in the perfect case, if you're lucky, maybe.

Back in the real world, with 1500 bytes packets, 10:1, maybe 15:1 is normally the highest ratio you should consider. A ratio of 20:1 is really pushing it and you'll probably have to reconfigure your IP stack to get rid of things like timestamps if you want the top speed.
As for a ratio of 60m:1m, with TCP/IP, yea, right.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[TheSunborn]

But you only need to acknowledge each ip package, not each ethernet package. And a ip package can be 64K. When I download using http with max speed, I get something like 4.5MBit down and use 2.6K up*, giving me a ration of download/upload at more then 100

*According to the linux network transfer monitor tool included with kde3/fedora 6.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[rdebath]

Sorry, those numbers give an average packet size of about 85k if they're TCP/IP. I expect they're payload bytes, I don't know of any ISP that quotes payload bps.

Still you are right about one thing. IF the server ignores the MTU discovery and always sends 64k IP packets the required number of ACKs drops right down. The packets will get instantly fragmented into 40-50 pieces that have to be reassembled at the other end but it should work.

It kills performance if you start losing the odd packet though. And anyone who does RED (random early drop) will really hate you.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review

[operator_error]

Now that a few days has passed, I learned of a glass fiber coalition building out Amsterdam. Already, people on the outskirts of Amsterdam can buy 20bm down AND up for less than 40 euros using Alice.nl. To reiterate, since my current contractual 20 down, 1 up is actually 10 down, .6 up, 20 down & up sounds really, really good! Also, not being stuck with UPC sounds even better! Aaaahhh, it is so very nice to find options in the marketplace. I still have to wait an indeterminate amount of time until my neighborhood is served, but there's hope.

http://www.glasvezelamsterdam.nl/

Brownnets

[Anonymous Coward]

What can Google NOT do?
I love my toilet 3

Nobody has control over the shit that goes through there, besides sewage treatment, and they don't care either way.

True, the bandwidth isn't the HIGHEST, but we'll get the shit we want, regardless.

Sorry for the horrible puns.

It's not strictly the first one.

[Hurricane78]

I know from internal sources*, that at the beginning to middle of the decade, Jubii was so successful in Denmark, that they were able to put the following rule on the providers:
Either you give us money, or your users won't be able to access our site.

Of course this was not strictly caused by the providers, but it was certainly not neutral.
___
* I don't think that it was ever a secret. (For obvious reasons.)

Re:It's not strictly the first one.

[wvmarle]

Whether you agree with the practice or not is a different matter, but this is not an issue of "net neutrality". Just a web site limiting access to paying visitors only. Whether those visitors pay directly to the web site or via their provider is less important. Net neutrality has to do with the network provider (your ISP) being agnostic to the traffic being carried. The ISP would in this case allow free access to Jubii, however Jubii blocks users that did not pay.

1. Illegal, 2. Breach of contract

[Hurricane78]

If I buy a DSL 6000 line with a flat-rate, I expect to get it. Period. No, I don't care for any "up to" clauses or "extreme traffic capping". People are expecting to get those 6000 kb/s and no limitations, they know it, and they specifically use that expectation to get you as a client. It's a scam, and they know it. Period.

The nice thing is, that now, you can end the contract, because they changed the terms. They can't simply change things afterwards, without you accepting them.

So goodbye UPC. See you in bankruptcy.

Re:1. Illegal, 2. Breach of contract

[the eric conspiracy]

If you bought a DSL 6000 line that actually guaranteed that service level it would cost you several times more than what you are paying now. The fact is that the internet gets much of economic power because of statistical use of the bandwidth. If everyone actually insisted on guaranteed service levels we would be back in the era of the switched circuit networks of the 1950's.

Re:1. Illegal, 2. Breach of contract

[dnaumov]

If I buy a DSL 6000 line with a flat-rate, I expect to get it. Period.

Sure you can get that, but expect to pay anywhere from 3 to 10 times the price of a regular consumer connection.

No, I don't care for any "up to" clauses

You should, it's in the contract you signed.

Re:1. Illegal, 2. Breach of contract

[sumdumass]

Even with the "UP TO" clause, as soon as the ISP limits your traffic to below that number, they have falsly advertised the service. There is no way in the world that you can get up to any amount of speeds when the ISP had you throttled to below it.

I see this all the time where people want to claim "umm, that's up to that speed, it isn't a guarantee of it". Well, if the up to speed is 6 megs and the ISP has it throttles to 1.5 megs, then they totally misrepresented what they sold because there is no way to get 6 megs with them puting the breaks on.

It's a different story if the network is congested or something outside of their direct control is limiting your speeds. But as soon as they take steps to do so, then they simply are not delivering what they sold. In any other business this would be considered fraud and I'm not sure why people are giving them a pass on it now. They would be severely pissed if they went to the car dealership and purchased a Corvette Stingray and was delivered a Ford Pinto instead. They would be completely pissed if they ordered lobster for dinner and received a burrito containing all the left over breakfast items and still had to pay for the lobster price. I simply do not see how people are willing to let this happen with their internet service.

Re:1. Illegal, 2. Breach of contract

[L4t3r4lu5]

Do you demand your road tax back when you end up in traffic on the motorway?

Woop woop! Car analogy!

That does not make sense

[Orion Blastar]

All protocols but HTTP are capped to 1/3 speed, and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well. So far UPC is hiding behind the usual excuse: 'We are protecting all the users against the 1% of the user base who abuse our network.'"

Well IMAP, SMTP and POP3 are not HTTP protocols, nor is IRC, or IM programs, or video game clients like Wow etc. I also assume Google Earth will be slower as well as Antivirus programs doing updates will be slower and OS updates will be slower as well. Forget VPN connections, they will be slow as well, so people working at home will suffer while what they do is 100% legal and required for their job.

This is a really stupid move and it will slow down more than just P2P File Sharing, which clever Dutch users will set the BitTorrent open ports to port 80 to avoid the slowdown and get around it anyway.

I think there are more than 1% of the users who use file sharing, and file sharing use is not always illegal, free and open source torrents for Linux distros are downloaded via BitTorrent, but now will be slowed. Musical Artists that are independent and submit FLOSS format of their recordings which were legal would be slowed down as well.

Re:That does not make sense

[tepples]

Forget VPN connections, they will be slow as well, so people working at home will suffer while what they do is 100% legal and required for their job.

VPN users can upgrade to business class service.

Musical Artists that are independent and submit FLOSS format of their recordings which were legal would be slowed down as well.

But how can Musical Artists prove that these recordings are legal?

Re:That does not make sense

[Orion Blastar]

Because they own the rights to the songs, the songs aren't based on a commercial song, and have a different pattern than RIAA songs and also lack a DRM copyprotection scheme.

Legal Torrents

Torrent sites that serve only legal torrents

Michael David Crawford Music unlike any commercial music at all.

Links to tens of thousands of legal free music downloads listed by Michael David Crawford.

See for yourself, some music was meant to be free.

Re:That does not make sense

[tepples]

the songs aren't based on a commercial song

Let me be more specific: How can a singer-songwriter prove to a judge that his song isn't based on the plaintiff's commercial song?

Re:That does not make sense

[Orion Blastar]

Usually the accuser has to prove that the song infringes on his/her own work.

Anyway different lyrics, different notes, different instruments used, doesn't follow the same pattern, doesn't use any sampling or riffs from the commercial song is usually good enough.

So then please tell me which commercial song or songs Michael David Crawford's songs infringe upon? They are piano playings and a modification in scales using computer algorithms to modify the music into a certain pattern that hasn't been used by any commercial recording yet. Mr. Crawford is ahead of the commercial recorders in that respect.

Re:That does not make sense

[tepples]

Usually the accuser has to prove that the song infringes on his/her own work.

And the accuser will be more experienced at doing so, having more money to hire lawyers than I have. I would prefer something I can do before I self-publish my recordings.

Anyway different lyrics

Judges don't care about lyrics. Case in point: George Harrison used different lyrics yet still lost a lawsuit.

different instruments used

Judges don't care about instruments. Case in point: George Harrison used different instruments yet still lost a lawsuit.

doesn't use any sampling or riffs from the commercial song

How can I tell whether I've accidentally used riffs from one of the fifteen million commercial songs out there (source: ASCAP and BMI's web sites)?

Re:That does not make sense

[Orion Blastar]

Legal Aspects of Songwriting might be able to help you out.

No longer Internet Service Providers

[thomasdz]

Some day, in the not to distant future, we will all be paying money to our HSP (HTTP Service Provider), FSP (FTP Service Provider), VSP (VPN-protocol Service Provider), etc. etc.
If I want to PING somewhere, well I guess I'll just have to open up an account with my neighborhood ISP *ICMP* Service Provider! :-)

Yes, I know the difference between "to" and "too"

[thomasdz]

notice to Slashdot grammer nazis:
yeah, I noticed that I spelled "too" with only one "o" as soon as I hit submit...so sue me... or, better yet, bring it up with the local OSP (letter "O" service provider)

Old news

[t0y]

This has been happening in Portugal for a long time. It starts out fine but after a few minutes the upload speed slows to a crawl.
Protocol obfuscation works to a certain extent as a countermesure but I stopped caring about it after I change e2k/bt to use port 80 exclusively.

Here's a list on azureuswiki hinting that this a widespread ISP policy throughout europe.

False advertising...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering why my torrents were slow all of the sudden... UPC is capping the bandwidth! I did not see that coming...
The most ironic part is that they advertise their fast speeds on TV to "download movies and music" faster.

This is not Net Neutrality

[Tweenk]

Someone's missing the point of net neutrality.

Net neutrality means: if I have network access, and some guy has network access, we can connect; the ISP treats my connection the same regardless of WHO I'm connecting with. It doesn't mean the ISP cannot differentiate the quality of the connection based on HOW we connect.

This is something else: they are varying quality based on HOW they're connecting to others (what protocol). Note that it's not an outright ban, only a rate limit in order to prioritize of HTTP traffic. The only problematic part is the throttling of upload-intensive services. However, it is not a net neutrality issue as long as they are throttling solely on the amount of bandwidth consumed by a service, rather than who pays them most money to have his service unthrottled.

Remember: Net neutrality is not about unrestricted BitTorrent for everyone. It is about the Internet not turning into cable TV. It is about stopping ISPs colluding with content providers so that they can charge you or deny you access to your favorite websites, in order to ram their own inferior ad-infested versions down your throat. It is about being able to connect to everyone without seeking permission of your ISP or paying extra. It is about Internet access being a binary variable: either you can connect, or you can't. No limited service plans where you can connect only to the ISP's webmail and search engine, and all other webmails and search engines are blocked unless you 'upgrade'. No 'premium sites' you can only use if your ISP has a deal with the content provider that you cannot opt into or out of.

If you are dissatisfied by your ISP blocking or throttling your favorite website or service, by all means complain. But do not conflate traffic shaping with net neutrality. It muddles an already complex issue, and harms our chances to win this battle.

Re:This is not Net Neutrality

[IRWolfie-]

"and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well" Capping particular websites sounds like a net neutrality issue to me...

Re:This is not Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should that matter?

I get your point, and I agree with you by large, however I wonder why it's a net neutrality issue to throttle by specific source/destination, and not when you throttle by different ports. The "How you connect"-reasoning feels flawed, since it's requires the same level of traffic inspection, it simply throttles by a different criteria.

But calling FTP a different way to connect than HTTP feels completely bogus. Converted to an AFK scenario it would be like a phone company saying "You can talk to who you want, but unless you're talking english you're only allowed to say one sentence a day to each other.".

Information is shapeless, and any medium can be transported through any other medium (as the TCP over Carrier Pidgeon example in another comment thread accurately pointed out).
In the end, who talks to who and how they talk to each other can't really be separated imo. You can't infringe on one without violating the other as well.

However, according to free market principles and all that the real issue would be them not accurately advertising the service. If the consumer was presented with the exact details of the throttling they could in theory decide for themselves wether they want it or not. (Of course this totally disregards the monopoly or oligopol situation in a lot of countries, but nevermind that.)

Still doesn't change the fact that it's a dick move from the ISP.
If speed is the issue, speed should be the criteria, not protocol.

When certain channels (HTTP protocol in this case) are prioritized above other, there is no longer neutrality in the providing of the internet service.
That _should_ make it a net neutrality issue.

And if it does not, then we need a new phrase to describe that kind of neutrality breach.

Short recap:
* INTERNET IS NOT JUST THE WEB *
If you are an INTERNET service provider, you're supposed to provide INTERNET access. And Internet consists of much more than TCP traffic to port 80 and 447.

Re:This is not Net Neutrality

[KonoWatakushi]

Protocol discrimination is an equally important issue for network neutrality, as it has the same result. While prioritizing traffic by protocol in the name of QOS may appear to be fair on the surface, it is anything but, and will stunt the growth of innovative and competing services on the Internet.

Think about it; how will a competing protocol, or any other innovative new protocol emerge when it is so disadvantaged? The most popular existing protocols end up with a natural monopolies on the Internet.

No one should be discriminating based on protocol, and certainly not modifying the payload or disrupting connections. Packets should be flagged with the appropriate ToS bits, and traffic management should be done on that basis instead. IPv6 also provides additional fields in the header for these purposes.

You should not compromise on your definition of Net Neutrality. Ideally, all traffic would be encrypted and authenticated, as anything less is just inviting abuse. Rather than "traffic management," the Internet infrastructure should be kept modern so that it can handle the increasing load.

Re:This is not Net Neutrality

[sjames]

...and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well

Sounds like differing treatment depending on WHO you connect to.

Re:Dutch ISP mini-review (mod up please)

[operator_error]

Thanks for the clear explanation! (I hope this gets modded up)

That always annoyed me...

[wisnoskij]

Everyone have heard the phrase: "1% of the user base who abuse our network".
But the strange thing is, the "abusers" are still using their internet at less-then or equal to their cap.
They pay for X Mbs/sec and when they actually use somewhat close to that amount suddenly they are abusing it?
So exactly how can you abuse a network while following the ruled laid out when you purchased the use of it?

I can confirm this

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I can confirm this:

At this hour (it's a little over midnight here), from my 24 mbit down / 2.5 mbit up UPC cable connection, I reach 7.2 / 1.8 mbit.
So the downstream is indeed capped to about a third.

Nasty policy. Still I won't cancel my contract, because I am paying 35 euros a month which includes unlimited landline calling and cable tv.

The internet is not just the web...

[russotto]

So, they are slowing down all but one port out of 65535 by 1/3rd... are they also going to reduce the price by 2/3 * 65534/65535? Didn't think so.

Look, up in the sky!

[Anonymous Coward]

It"z WHOOSH0RAMA-MAN

Re:Look, up in the sky!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love you.

Check your facts Tiger

[Anonymous Coward]

The local land lines in the US are REQUIRED BY FEDERAL LAW to support 80% of their workload at any one time, and their are strict dropped call regulations. The cellular network however is very very guilty of what you speak. They are only regulated to 50% of the load in the best of times, and their are no reg's on dropped call rates.

When did /. become sucha slow ponderous PoS ?? Page refreshes here and post time have gone thru the roof in the last month. I've been here for a loooong time and it HAS NEVER BEEN WORSE. Preview time runs almost 4 seconds for a refresh.

Re:Check your facts Tiger

[Mr Z]

Could you provide a reference? I tried digging through The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (available here). Looking through the combined 335 page behemoth (Communications Act of 1934 as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996), I couldn't find the needle in that haystack.

I've heard different numbers over the years for different parameters. For example, that some phone companies strive for "five 9s" service. That is, 99.999% of the time, when you pick up the phone, you'll get a dialtone. That service level though is still built assuming a given usage model. I've tried googling several different terms but have turned up no reference on the specific point of what the minimum capacity is for a CO relative to the neighborhood it serves, or between the CO and the next level up.

That said, my point still stands. If everyone in your neighborhood picked up their phone and tried to make a call, some non-trivial, non-zero percentage of them would not get through.

Re:Check your facts Tiger

[p1esk]

I don't know where did he pulled that info from. There are no federal regulations about over-subscription ratios, and carriers are not required to report data on the performance of their networks to anyone. You're correct - oversubscription ratios on class 5 switch (line to trunk) are up to 5:1 for business, and up to 9:1 for residential lines. That ratio can be dynamically adjusted depending on the load at the moment. There are FCC regulations regarding emergency (911) calls, and that service has a number of high availability requirements.

Re:Check your facts Tiger

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, many telephony companies use the Erlang B model, so based on some statistical averages (the numer of solid hours used by consumers every month, the percentage of calls in the busiest hour of the day - sometimes 15%, and the accepted blocked calls - sometimes 1%), they make an estmate of the needed uplinks.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_B#Erlang_B_formula

IAAVoIPN (I Am A VoIP Newbie)

Re:Check your facts Tiger

[Anonymous Coward]

some non-trivial, non-zero percentage of them would not get through.

That's probably correct. All of those who don't get through (or at least 99.999%) will get a busy signal indicating the type of failure that caused the connection to fail. I think that at least with old exchanges, you could have the whole neighborhood call each other (i.e. only people connected to the same exchange) and everyone could actually have a conversation at the same time.

Re: 'We are protecting all the users against the 1

[turbidostato]

"Well I mean, come on, if ten people leech all day and you and 989 others can't read slashdot anymore because of that. Obviously, it costs way too much money to upgrade the network for those 10 people. Then 990 people pay extra for those 10 people. That's not fair, is it?"

Of course not! They advertise that the 1000 of them could use the full advertised bandwith but then, when only 10% of its users is effectively using it, they call it "abuse" and break their contract terms. Yes: I do call that abuse.

Pah, I Look Down on Your Torrents With Scorn

[Flere Imsaho]

I'm going to get in serious trouble here, as the first rule of Usenet is, you do not talk about Usenet.

But torrents are so last year. Usenet (and I use Easynews) is damned fast - it maxes out my ADSL 2 every time.

And it's all SSL...

Re:Pah, I Look Down on Your Torrents With Scorn

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to get in serious trouble here, as the first rule of Usenet is, you do not talk about Usenet.

But torrents are so last year. Usenet (and I use Easynews) is damned fast - it maxes out my ADSL 2 every time.

And it's all SSL...

Paying for that with a credit card under your name, are you?

Re:Pah, I Look Down on Your Torrents With Scorn

[KazW]

Cheers, with certain providers you can change the port to 443(which they *hopefully* wouldn't slow down). I regularly see average speeds of 1.8-2MB/s with bursts to 3. One time 7, but that's the only time it's gone above 3, I was shocked and it was a sustained rate for about 2 minutes.

I'll name drop for Astraweb here just because they've been rock solid for me.

we cant possibly

[zcold]

upgrade our infrastructure, Ridiculous! Simply crazy I say!

Solving the rwong problem

[asdf7890]

We are protecting all the users against the 1% of the user base who abuse our network.

Hang on a minute. That 1% are abusing the network, which presumably is against the terms of service or some such. A logical person would suggest that they could protect the 99% of their users who are not abusive by kicking off the 1% that are? Like kicking the loud drunk of the train for the good of the other passengers (and the train).

Instead this ISP is punishing all the users on your network that use youtube or what-ever other popular site (which chances are is a fair majority of their users) while leaving the 1% unpunished (or, at least, no more punished than the remaining 99%).

The "X% of abusive users" excuse is complete crap. They know it. We know it. They just hope the majority of their userbase aren't clueful.

Re:Solving the rwong problem

[petrus4]

The "X% of abusive users" excuse is complete crap. They know it. We know it. They just hope the majority of their userbase aren't clueful.

Which, sadly, is generally a very safe assumption.

Artificial scarcity of bandwidth will come, and will be accepted by the same silent, ovine majority who willingly accept every other form of government or corporate abuse that is inflicted upon them.

First?

[Ant P.]

My ISP's been playing games with throttling my (overpriced, shitty upstream speed) connection for at least 2 years. They have a virtual monopoly because I live in the middle of nowhere, and I know some poor guy who lives near one of the worse exchanges whose connection goes to hell at the same minute each day.

VirginMedia started doing this 2 yrs ago in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

Their numbers are also BS. People are always complaining about being more heavily capped and if you torrent during a "managed" period you will never see the speeds you are supposed to be capped at and you will struggle to browse the web.

Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[tepples]

We have a transparent caching proxy to speed up HTTP video delivery. caching system. You mentioned that you watch thousands of videos on video sharing sites every day; we cache the most popular videos so that we can feed them to you faster.

How about sharing homemade pictures

Protocols other than HTTP don't have a well-defined takedown statute. So to save our behinds from being sued by the sculptors' union when you share photos of copyrighted sculptures without permission, we throttle other protocols.

movies

Using major label background music and/or characters without permission.

music

Subconsciously lifted from a major label song. Just ask George Harrison's widow. (Or what technique would you recommend to determine whether or not a given series of notes is copyrighted to someone else before you publish it?)

free games

Video game consoles don't have free games. In fact, they use cryptographic mechanisms to lock out the use of copylefted software.

software

Which violates patents on algorithms.

not to mention playing games

Most games need latency guarantees more than bandwidth guarantees. Limiting bandwidth allows our routers to respond more quickly to your packets.

uploading other types of files not via http, how about ftp, ssh

If you are using for purposes other than home entertainment, try upgrading to our business-class service designed for teleworkers.

Some of the several games I play the maps can be 50 megs or bigger

Then download them the night before you play.

several full games are easily greater than 2 gigs, most being around 4 gigs or so

Our service provides more than enough bandwidth to order the retail version and then activate it online once you have received it in the mail. If that's too slow, you can still download the game overnight.

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[ImYourVirus]

Either your just trolling or you really mean what you say in that post, either way I shall respond to you just to clairfy what I meant for those that (obviously) don't understand.

We have a transparent caching proxy to speed up HTTP video delivery. caching system. You mentioned that you watch thousands of videos on video sharing sites every day; we cache the most popular videos so that we can feed them to you faster.

Good so long as I can watch Like a boss for the 50th time today with no lag I'm good.

How about sharing homemade pictures

Protocols other than HTTP don't have a well-defined takedown statute. So to save our behinds from being sued by the sculptors' union when you share photos of copyrighted sculptures without permission, we throttle other protocols.

Homemade as in I took it with my own camera, or is a freinds picture, or I made it myself, I said nothing about copyrighted.

movies

Using major label background music and/or characters without permission.

Again I said homemade, as in I made it, I own it, I'm not talking about hollywood here...

music

Subconsciously lifted from a major label song. Just ask George Harrison's widow. (Or what technique would you recommend to determine whether or not a given series of notes is copyrighted to someone else before you publish it?)

Homemade you know what that means right?

free games

Video game consoles don't have free games. In fact, they use cryptographic mechanisms to lock out the use of copylefted software.

When was I talking about consoles? But since you want to, consoles do have demos which are free, but back to what I was talking about, are in fact games that are free not stolen, the idea does exist, now you've heard of it.

software

Which violates patents on algorithms.

Um there's free software around, trials, demos, donations, completely free, again nothing said about stolen.

not to mention playing games

Most games need latency guarantees more than bandwidth guarantees. Limiting bandwidth allows our routers to respond more quickly to your packets.

So what happens when I get sent so many packets that I either can't send and/or recieve them fast enough therefore causing me to lag, what then?

uploading other types of files not via http, how about ftp, ssh

If you are using for purposes other than home entertainment, try upgrading to our business-class service designed for teleworkers.

That is home entertainment, ftp so I can upload files to sites, ssh so I can login to other servers, like say for a website for both, just cause you do find that fun doesn't mean other people don't.

Some of the several games I play the maps can be 50 megs or bigger

Then download them the night before you play.

What the hell? Ok let me further explain, said servers also server the maps at random and can't always be downloaded independently, and if you idle on the server you get kicked/banned, how do you imagine I get them then, also in other said games, the games are at random times and can be any sort of map, what do I do then, these rules they are trying to enforce are completely arbitrary not to mention that their (or yours whatever the case may be) solutions to said problems are completely worthless.

several full games are easily greater than 2 gigs, most being around

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[tepples]

Either your just trolling or you really mean what you say in that post

The solutions that I provided are just as worthless as the excuses that an incompetent Internet service provider might give. Devil's advocacy is a common exercise of brainstorming to find counter-arguments so that their refutations can strengthen your argument. If it's looked down upon to consider how opponents are likely to reply, how can any argument be made strong?

Homemade as in I took it with my own camera, or is a freinds picture, or I made it myself

Copyright in your own photograph of a sculpture made since 1923 belongs to the sculptor, not you.

homemade [movie], as in I made it, I own it

If a homemade movie can be shown to be a homemade derivative work of something else that you did not make, you don't in fact own copyright in the homemade movie. For example, a video of your child dancing to copyrighted music isn't yours unless you dub in different music. See Derivative work.

Homemade [music] you know what that means right?

It means you made a homemade recording of some song, but you can't necessarily prove that someone else didn't write the song first.

but back to what I was talking about, are in fact games that are free not stolen

Can you show me some examples of these free, not-stolen games? Several popular PC games released as free software infringe at least one copyright or patent. For example, StepMania 3.9 includes music and graphics ripped from Konami's DDRMAX: Dance Dance Revolution 6th Mix, and Konami has taken a StepMania licensee to court (Konami v. Roxor) over essential patents on dance video games.

Um there's free software around

Any free software that can, for example, encode MP3 audio violates U.S. patents because Thomson has never licensed the MP3 patents in a way consistent with the free software definition.

So what happens when I get sent so many packets that I either can't send and/or recieve them fast enough therefore causing me to lag, what then?

You don't request as many packets from the servers. Most video games that I know of don't use a lot of packets; instead, like VoIP, they use fewer packets but expect them to arrive quickly.

That is home entertainment, ftp so I can upload files to sites

You can use HTTP POST, HTTPS POST, HTTP PUT, or HTTPS PUT to upload files to your host's web-based administration interface. Besides, SSH doesn't need a lot of bandwidth (just low latency) unless you're

ssh so I can login to other servers

HTTPS so that you can log in to your web host's file manager interface.

said servers also server the maps at random and can't always be downloaded independently, and if you idle on the server you get kicked/banned, how do you imagine I get them then

Servers that ban users who idle lose all their players once all major ISPs start encouraging their users to idle.

If you buy a game online through a retailer such as steam they don't send you a hard copy, only a digital one

Then don't buy through Steam; instead, buy through your local equivalent of Amazon and activate through Steam.

Not to mention that after I get said game, I have to download every map in the known universe just so it that one random instance I can play that one game with some other people.

Then play maps that use assets included with the game. These maps can be 50 KB, not 50 MB.

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[ImYourVirus]

Either your just trolling or you really mean what you say in that post

The solutions that I provided are just as worthless as the excuses that an incompetent Internet service provider might give. Devil's advocacy is a common exercise of brainstorming to find counter-arguments so that their refutations can strengthen your argument. If it's looked down upon to consider how opponents are likely to reply, how can any argument be made strong?

True

Homemade as in I took it with my own camera, or is a freinds picture, or I made it myself

Copyright in your own photograph of a sculpture made since 1923 belongs to the sculptor, not you.

Not sure about that one, but if I take a picture of the sky, or make something entirely new with ms paint or something or another, that'd be mine...

homemade [movie], as in I made it, I own it

If a homemade movie can be shown to be a homemade derivative work of something else that you did not make, you don't in fact own copyright in the homemade movie. For example, a video of your child dancing to copyrighted music isn't yours unless you dub in different music. See Derivative work.

What if there is no music? lol and fair use would probably preside there as long as you're not selling it or publically displaying it for everyone to see. But say I make a video of myself mowing my lawn, that'd be mine, lol.

Homemade [music] you know what that means right?

It means you made a homemade recording of some song, but you can't necessarily prove that someone else didn't write the song first.

Neither can they, if you wanna play that game.

but back to what I was talking about, are in fact games that are free not stolen

Can you show me some examples of these free, not-stolen games? Several popular PC games released as free software infringe at least one copyright or patent. For example, StepMania 3.9 includes music and graphics ripped from Konami's DDRMAX: Dance Dance Revolution 6th Mix, and Konami has taken a StepMania licensee to court (Konami v. Roxor) over essential patents on dance video games.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=yahoo+games&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g-e1g9

http://games.yahoo.com/all-games

Um there's free software around

Any free software that can, for example, encode MP3 audio violates U.S. patents because Thomson has never licensed the MP3 patents in a way consistent with the free software definition.

I'm pretty sure encoding is fine, its decoders that you have to pay for, but I can't exactly remember off hand.

ogg
xvid
pidgin
maybe something here "Free Downloads of over 14000 free software programs."

So what happens when I get sent so many packets that I either can't send and/or recieve them fast enough therefore causing me to lag, what then?

You don't request as many packets from the servers. Most video games that I know of don't use a lot of packets; instead, like VoIP, they use fewer packets but expect them to arrive quickly.

Quickly as in speed, if they cut that down then it's not gonna work very well, like I said I don't want to be stuck doing 1 thing at a time, I might be grabbing a game, up

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[tepples]

I take a picture of the sky, or make something entirely new with ms paint or something or another, that'd be mine

True, if you're prepared to prove to a judge that what you made is entirely new and not a derivative of the plaintiff's work.

But say I make a video of myself mowing my lawn, that'd be mine, lol.

Until the camera pans to show a copyrighted garden statue. Even if you take pains to cover up all sculptures that could be copyrighted, good luck making that kind of video not boring.

Yahoo! Games

These are delivered through HTTP and therefore not throttled.

xvid

Patented

pidgin

Violates the client software exclusivity clause in many IM networks' TOS.

Quickly as in speed

There are two kinds of speed: the "bandwidth of a tractor-trailer full of LTO tapes" argument favoring bandwidth, or the "nine women can't make a baby in a month" argument favoring latency.

yeah using https to login to a shell or a dedicated box would be just great! /sarcasm

The control panel included with a Go Daddy dedicated server or virtual dedicated server has a Java applet that tunnels Telnet over HTTPS, giving you an experience similar to SSH. Besides, as I tried to say before, SSH doesn't need much bandwidth, only low latency.

Well if you have limited slots on your game server and you don't kick people that just idle then how is anyone else suppost to play?

Then you make two kinds of slots on the server: one for downloading the map packs installed on the server, and another for playing.

Steam's policy doesn't allow to re-register a key that is in use if you to buy from a reseller like amazon or ebay

If you buy the retail distribution new in box, it comes with a key that has not been registered.

if they want to give me 1/3 of what I pay them for I'm only going to give them 1/3 of the bill they send me, seems only fair.

Then they can just drop you as a customer and then re-sign you up under the new plan that's technically a 2 Mbps plan, burstable to 6 Mbps under certain circumstances.

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[ImYourVirus]

Don't have to.

watching grass grow
Didn't say it wouldn't be boring, besides how about you cite how taking a picture of something else that is copyrighted makes the image not yours

Not all of them are, some are for download, next time read the list

They still offer it for free

Sure but the software is free

And what about the site with the 14,000 free apps on it, didn't say anything about that

Huh?

I knew you would say java, and java sucks, even though it's free, lol. And I'm not talking about lat, I'm talking about using it, and yes you can use ssh for file transfer which would require speed.

Slots cost money, besides the more slots you have the more load you put on the server, therefore costing you more money, and no you can't run two servers because that doubles your cost for no reason.

How do you know it's not been registered? Have you heard of a keygen? Or maybe they say it's new in box and they just re-shrink wrapped it.

That's fine, just don't say I get 6mb and then only give me 2mb as thats a jip.

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[tepples]

Your post was difficult to understand because you used neither complete sentences nor quote elements.

True, if you're prepared to prove to a judge that what you made is entirely new and not a derivative of the plaintiff's work.

Don't have to.

Until the day you get sued. I take it you have no contingency plan for how to defend yourself from claims of plagiarism, and without a plan, the first claim will likely bankrupt you.

besides how about you cite how taking a picture of something else that is copyrighted makes the image not yours

Citations can be found in the derivative works policy on Wikimedia Commons.

Not all of [Yahoo! Games] are [delivered through HTTP], some are for download, next time read the list

How are downloadable games downloaded, if not through HTTP?

xvid

Patented

They still offer it for free

Such an offer is illegal to make to United States residents or to residents of European countries that recognize software patents controlled by MPEG-LA.

[Pidgin violates TOS] but the software is free

Again, free, but illegal to use on the server owners' private property, at least on paper.

And what about the site with the 14,000 free apps on it, didn't say anything about that

I didn't read that site because I didn't have time to review it this morning. Because Slashdot is not a wiki, I have to make each post in one piece.

Huh?

How do you define "speed"? How would you increase the "speed" of producing offspring?

And I'm not talking about lat, I'm talking about using it

Waiting 30 seconds for a web page to even start to load is latency, and it negatively affects the experience of "using it".

and yes you can use ssh for file transfer which would require speed.

What makes SCP (file transfer over SSH) superior to HTTPS POST uploads?

Slots cost money

Please explain how "slots", which I took to mean simultaneous incoming connections to a server, cost money.

besides the more slots you have the more load you put on the server

If a protocol uses two "slots", one for map downloads and one for game state, how does this use more resources than a protocol that uses one "slot" for both?

How do you know it's not been registered? Have you heard of a keygen?

If the key is 16 digits and 10 million copies are sold, there's a 1 out of a billion chance of generating a key that activates.

Or maybe they say it's new in box and they just re-shrink wrapped it.

To avoid unscrupulous sellers, buy from a seller with a high positive feedback percentage, such as Amazon.com itself.

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[ImYourVirus]

1. I'm sure but I don't want to spend 20 mins to format it. I'll throw in some numbers to correlate if that helps you.

2. I'm sure they want to get at the millions of nothing that I have, considering the fact that it's going to be free, you are trying to act like everyone is out to get you and get rich, well sorry but that's not really the case, most people/companies aren't going to care if your not limiting their sales and your not making any money.

4. ftp, udp, basically any protocol

5. Doubtful anyone would be able to download it then, which is not the case, it's even on standalone players.

6. I guess if you don't use those protocols then you don't violate anything.

7. It's all good.

8. Borg maturation chamber

9. Then by your own defintion lat and speed correlate.

10. Because I can do it in the same window and requires no coding on my part to make it functional, like I said as well earlier I'd like to see it do 30 folders +subs and files with no java, flash or any other junk like that, drag and drop.

11. Well people connect to the server if there is an empty slot, so say you have 10 slots, 9 of said 10 slots are full, meaning 1 slot left, only 1 person can fill that slot, they connect to the server fill the slot and *then* they download the map, no one else can fill that slot, you actually have to be on that slot to start the download, that's how most games work, can't think of any that don't. Here is an example of pricing.

12. Uh because it uses double the resources?

13. That's what automation is for, if that number is even right, which I doubt, and it only takes one to get it right. Besides not all games are that big, some use numbers only, and some use letters and numbers, it all depends.

14. Maybe one of their employees did it, just because it's a business doesn't make them honest.

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[tepples]

You claim to have nothing to lose in a lawsuit. But the prevailing party can take your car, your house, and everything in it. Slashdot recently ran a story about a collections agency that confiscated and auctioned the possessions of someone who lost a lawsuit.

considering the fact that it's going to be free

Free software or free music can still be distributed for a fee. What do you recommend for those who prefer to feed their families through their art?

You appear to recommend FTP or various UDP-based protocols over HTTP for distribution of works. What advantage does FTP download of a video game have over HTTP download of the same video game? (FTP uses two "slots", as I'll show you later.) Or does Yahoo! Games use something other than FTP or HTTP?

DivX is on standalone players because player makers pay DivX, and DivX pays MPEG-LA. Xvid is not.

Then by your own defintion lat and speed correlate.

Which is why the ISP of the article can claim that limiting bandwidth improves "speed" if it improves latency.

You claim that FTP is more convenient than HTTP because it allows the user to upload and the site to receive an entire folder at a time. Devil's advocate: An ISP pushing HTTP over FTP would probably provide an extension for each major web browsers that allows the same, provide sample code in multiple major web programming languages to receive multi-file uploads (e.g. Perl, PHP, Java, VB.NET), and encourage users to use web sites that support the extension.

You claim that commercial hosting services for non-free video games charge by the slot, and splitting the server into download-only slots and play-only slots increases the price. Easy: use a different hosting service. If you are the user, not the host, play on a different game server that makes its map playlist available for download through HTTP.

You claim that putting 10 download-only slots and 10 play-only slots on a server uses significantly more resources than 10 download-and-play slots. In that case, why are you advocating FTP, which uses a control slot for each connection and a download slot for each file, over HTTP, which uses only one slot? Perhaps I don't understand your "slot" abstraction.

Maybe one of their employees did it

If an employee of a major retailer steals part of a product that you purchase, you can take up the issue with the major retailer, and the major retailer will refund your money and fire the employee.

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[ImYourVirus]

You're not paying attention to anything I say, I'm tired of repeating myself. Have a good day.

Re:Devil's advocate: Caching, copyright, etc.

[ScottyMuser]

Just going to respond to a few of these points, and yes, I know you are playing devil's advocate, just that either you are playing it badly, OR that the counter arguments that would be offered up are SO weak that even a kanagaroo court would throw them out if used in a legal style argument

You claim to have nothing to lose in a lawsuit. But the prevailing party can take your car, your house, and everything in it. Slashdot recently ran a story about a collections agency that confiscated and auctioned the possessions of someone who lost a lawsuit.

True, if you're prepared to prove to a judge that what you made is entirely new and not a derivative of the plaintiff's work.

THe point is, earlier you were saying prove that it is entirely new - that is NOT the point of plagarism/copyright infringement laws (ceratinly ASAIK in Europe) - the point is the plaintiff has to prove that you HAVE copied their work, not that you have to prove it is entirely original. The comment regarding therefore no worry is if you have NOT copied someone else work (for instance with a home video of you children, unless the plaintiff is a stalker) is to do with the side of the burden of proof.

considering the fact that it's going to be free

Free software or free music can still be distributed for a fee. What do you recommend for those who prefer to feed their families through their art?

You appear to have not understood the whole CONCEPT of Free and Open Source Software (at the very least), or understood that copyright only holds for a limited period of time. The large proportion of FOS developers feel it actually anathema to their whole project to charge even a nominal fee for their work. Those that do feel they should have *some* small recompense usually do it via the method of donations for truly satisfied customers. There are even those who DO NOT accept small donations ethically.

You appear to recommend FTP or various UDP-based protocols over HTTP for distribution of works. What advantage does FTP download of a video game have over HTTP download of the same video game? (FTP uses two "slots", as I'll show you later.) Or does Yahoo! Games use something other than FTP or HTTP?

Firstly, the majority of large programs offered for download the company ask to be downloaded either from a FTP mirror or via bit torrent as it doesn't suck the entire bandwidth from their webhosting, slowing the website (which is what the HTTP Protocol is for). If you do not believe that such large files should not be distributed over the web, than maybe you would like to talk to all the largest software companies in the world as they obviously do (ie. Apple make their XCode and X11 available over the web (via FTP), you can't order a dvd copy; 90% of linux distos ask you to download it via FTP or bittorrent; Windows Updates use SUP not HTTP, etc.)

DivX is on standalone players because player makers pay DivX, and DivX pays MPEG-LA. Xvid is not.

There are other encoders though that ARE FREE (and Open Source) - ffmpeg is a free encoder much like XVid, and unlike what you seem to think, does not break patents.

You claim that commercial hosting services for non-free video games charge by the slot, and splitting the server into download-only slots and play-only slots increases the price. Easy: use a different hosting service. If you are the user, not the host, play on a different game server that makes its map playlist available for download through HTTP.

Now you are forcing both the user of the game, the people running the server AND the company that MAKE the game produce the maps to d/l in http SEPARATE to the game itself for Online play? Are you just trying to dictate to EVERYBODY ELSE

Just curious

[TrailerTrash]

Is it really 1% of the user base consuming a huge portion of the bandwidth? That figure gets tossed around a lot, and I wonder if it's true.

We decry 1% of world citizens controlling 90% of the world's assets (substitute your favorite estimate for the 90%), and 4% of the world's people (USA) consuming a vast amount of the energy of the world.

Do we not care about the disproportionate internet usage because the /. community are the ones doing the consuming? Theoretically, without P2P, would the "experience" for Joe six-pack be better? Or not?

Re:Just curious

[johnsie]

I think I remember someone else talking about Joe six-pack... She tried to make the big time and failed miserably

Re:Just curious

[agnosticnixie]

Most of the network is taken by spam, not p2p, so the point is kinda moot and it's a big lie to justify playing cop/judge/executioner when the content providers are unhappy with local laws regarding their "IP"

Re:Just curious

[sumdumass]

I doesn't really matter that it's 1%. The problem is that you and I were sold a service at a network speed. Granted, it may have said speeds up to a certain limit but even that becomes bait and switch and a flat out lie when the ISP purposely limits speeds to any number below that.

The real issue here is getting what you paid for. Network conditions outside of the ISP's control can limit the speeds and that makes a case for the "up to" clause. But when the ISP limits your speed to 3 megs, then how in the world can you justify paying for the more expensive 6 meg connection knowing you will only get 3 megs because the ISP is limiting your speed?

With the ISP limiting the speeds, it shows that they clearly cannot deliver the faster speeds they are advertising. This is in effect, the very same thing as a car company saying their car will do 200 MPH or 321 km/h when it can only do 80 MPH or 128 km/h. It doesn't matter that an outside entity put up a speed limit below that, what matters is a misrepresentation of what you are purchasing.

Re:Just curious

[iamangry]

Yes, but isn't it everyone's dream to one day be part of "the top 1 percent"? I mean sure most people are ok with their position in wealth and interwebs and energy usage, but don't you think there's instances where some people want to be in that 1 percent? I know I do. And I'm getting a little tired of everyone who's not in that 1 percent pointing their finger and saying "not fair!" No, it isn't fair. If it was fair then it wouldn't be sought after. And it cannot be denied that a little competition is good for the game.

Net neutrality is a myth

[macraig]

We will never have actual network neutrality so long as the physical medium - the wires - is privately owned. Is that so hard for politicians to comprehend, or do they already and are just too afraid to talk about and deal with it (or paid off to keep their mouths shut)? Certainly the CEOs of the corporations involved know this full well, and they intend to keep the control we've allowed them. That control is their money-maker.

Re:Net neutrality is a myth

[skangas]

True. In my opinion, we should socialize the wires in one way or another. For example, we could transfer the ownership of all wires and equipment to a non-profit trust fund run by EFF. All money people are now paying for an internet connection could actually go into paying people to make the internet better, new equipment etc. instead of going down greedy corporation owners' pockets. Ah, but the dreams. It will be many years still until that's even a feasible option.

Re:Net neutrality is a myth

[agnosticnixie]

I may be repetitive, but yes, city/town/district or cooperative wires ftw!

I work in the airline industry

[Anonymous Coward]

We overbook our flights to save you money because some poeple don't show. So for that 1% that hurt our business we have to lie and sell you a service that we cannot possibly deliver on.

Transform that 1% into something like 10 to 20% depending on the route, and acknowledge that those are the most "juicy" route and you are onto something. The truth is that a lot of people complaining on overbooking misuse it themselves. The alternative is that instead of allowing to book and pay later a ticket (an actual valid way to reserve a place), the airline force you to pay upfront and make you lose the service.

Sigh...none of you understand...

[sonicmerlin]

Alright, I guess I'll explain the true problem with this situation. But first, allow me to post a link detailing Japanese ISP speeds and costs: http://stopthecap.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/chart3a.jpg

Yes that's right, KCN charges $58/month for (truly) unlimited 1gbps symmetrical connections.

Now allow me to quote a news release from a couple of months ago: "The next step towards ever breakneck speeds is commercialisation of 10 GBPs fibre optic deliver. Telecoms firm Oki Japan has successfully tested a 160 GBPs long-distance, high-speed optical connection that delivers the equivalent of "four full movies" worth of data every second. Oki expects it to be commercialized late next year maintaining Japan's bragging rights for some time to come."

No that's not a typo. That really is 10 GB per second. I just wanted to put things in perspective before discussing this European ISP.

Now here's the real issue, that for some odd reason none of you seem to realize. This European ISP is claiming that 1% of its users abuse its network, ruining it for everyone else. This has never been confirmed or reviewed by independent third parties. This ISP has never been forced by the government to reveal its actual network data. If you've been following the kerfuffle with Bell Canada as well as the "special access lines" issue in the US, you would understand just how ridiculous this scenario is. For example, when Time Warner attempted to implement usage based billing, caps, and overages, they talked about how "expensive" managing and upgrading their network was. They then turned around and reported RECORD PROFITS during a huge recession to their investors, and their financial statement to the SEC revealed the money they invested into their network had actually DECREASED for the last two years. That these ISPs can bemoan the expense of managing their network while making obscene profits and never revealing raw network data to the government or an independent third party is beyond preposterous.

Next, peak load and congestion are NOT managed by caps. Caps are meaningless restrictions on users, because congestion actually occurs at peak hours of usage. So Grandma watching her youtube video at 7pm is just as guilty of causing congestion as Mr. Bittorrent User. ISPs purchase bandwidth from backbone providers based on their users' bandwidth usage. They purchase bandwidth at the 95th percentile of peak usage. The idea that they would have to restrict bandwidth consumption by 1/3rd to meet consumer demand is completely illogical.

In addition, cable companies and telecoms engage in periodic "cycles" of upgrades to account for inevitable increases in bandwidth usage at their various nodes. They have to keep up with the increases in usage by "splitting" those nodes. When a provider decides to implement throttling of protocols, this allows them to delay upgrades for a single cycle. However, from then on they are essentially *stuck* with their throttling, and they are still forced to upgrade every cycle at the same rate as before. Throttling is thus a meaningless attempt to stem the tide of bandwidth consumption.

Furthermore, backbone and middle-mile providers consistently talk about how cheap bandwidth is becoming. The pace of the internet's expansion has slowed to an extremely manageable 30%/year (as opposed to 200%/year during the mid 90's). Bandwidth has become cheaper and cheaper because internet speeds increase according to Moore's Law (http://www.physorg.com/news151162452.html). Part of this has to do with improvements in router technology that occur as components shrink.

The issue is, and always has been, the last mile. For cable providers, however, "splitting a node" to increase bandwidth provisions to a particular area is not a large expense, especially when you're talking about a national provider.

The point I'm trying to make is that there is no evidence to back up this ISP's claims. When

First European provider to break net neutrality?

[Xest]

I guess they've never heard of a little country in Europe called Great Britain.

Yes, a country where net neutrality has been broken for nearly 3 - 5 years now. Not only that, but in the UK the government has declared no interest in net neutrality and has given ISPs the green light to do what they want.

Originally OFCOM, the telecommunications watchdog in the UK stated that it would be unacceptable if ISPs took it to the level of slowing down certain companies sites over others, but even that stance seems to have changed now as they appear to be considering allowing ISPs to hold the BBC to ransom forcing them to pay for the bandwidth they already pay their ISP for and their users already pay the threatening ISP for.

Britain is not unique in this respect in Europe either, it happens in many other countries here, I can only guess the submitter lives under a rock in his home country and now this has happened has woken up and started to take notice crying blue murder to the world. Unfortunately, the rest of us have been trying to fight the destruction of even the slightest hope for net neutrality in Europe for a few years now.

Isn't it great when people only cry out when something suddenly effects them? This is why things like this happen in the first place, because no one gives a shit about potential issues. If people across Europe had made a loud point about breaking of net neutrality earlier on it could've been stopped and wouldn't be creeping from country to country as it is now.

Not completely true

[SuperDre]

This is only one side of the story, some poeple claim their speed is capped, but there also a lot of people wo don't have those problems.. a lot of the people who claim their speed is capped forget that it's also possible the servers they are downloading from are beyond their bandwidth capacity.. Some usenet payservers blame UPC even though enough people who have other ISPs have the same problems, let's not forget those payed usenet servers aren't 'clean' themselves and earn a lot of money with their service which is only about providing illegal copies of movies/musix/games/software, and have little or nothing to do with the real reason usenet was invented for...

not surprised

[hcdejong]

UPC is renowned over here for their crappy customer 'service' (endless billing issues, impossible to end a contract, lousy support etc.), it's one of the most customer-hostile ISPs here.

time to p2p on port 80

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a problem with 1% of your users using all the bandwidth then cap the users. Traffic shaping as it just forces users to use non-standard ports to get around it. Anyone is able to set the ports that your p2p client runs on, so if you know port 80 is wide open and bypasses the restrictions put on you by your ISP why wouldn't you use that?

Not the first

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the first... ZON TVCabo in Portugal is doing this for years now.... :'(

someone needs to remind overzealous providers

[nimbius]

their actions can have repercussions unintended.

if the internet will always be slower than it can be, will we still have speed issues with some websites that mandate an upgraded pc? if not we'll probably see the new pc numbers drop to the bare minimum, and the microsoft curve of release-purchase cycle may diminish a bit as users start asking that pesky "why" question when faced with a new windows.

record labels may find people rethinking online purchases as music downloads could see just as much lag as just going to the store. Netflix and hulu users will probably see a steep decline as well, and open source communities could be hurt by torrent throttling too, all in the name of saving money on upgraded carrier infrastructure.

Nescias

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in the Netherlands there's a law that states that when a consumer buy's a service. This service has to be met in full, when the service terms are changed in such way that the service is worsened then the consumer has the right to void the contract. This goes for all types of service. For the Dutch: It's Burgerlijk Wetboek 7:16 tot 7:18 (maybe more articles)

Because UPC cannot make good on it's promise to deliver the advertised bandwidth, and because the terms of the service are now worsened, this means that all users are now able to void their contracts.

Also, UPC advertises with 120 MBps speeds where you can download movies, games, music and all such in full speed. Now these speeds are used to attract customers for these types of use. And these customers are the ones that suffer the most. So this is misleading, and this is a felony at the least. As a defense you can say that movies, music and all such can be downloaded in a not p2p way. But the only traffic that's not been capped is http traffic, according to their press release.

Another point is that the cap is done by inspecting the contents of packets, and this violates postal law. As that network packages can be seen as postal pieces, going from one user to the next and these packages are 'opened' to find out if the traffic in question is going to be capped. This is thus a violation of postal and privacy law. But you can say that the postal law does not extend to digital traffic, this is said in the constitutional law, article 24 or something in the neighbourhood. But it also does not state that it doesn't.

greetz,
Nescias.

Bell already do this in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Montreal (Canada) and the biggest ISP in my province slow down every connection they detect using peer to peer between 16h and 5h. We are caped at 40kbs instead of the 500kbs we pay for... It's in court since more than a year but nothing moving...

Clueless

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP has no idea of what network neutrality actually means. The cited case has nothing to do with commercially or politically biased censorship, and everything to do with managing system resources to ensure fair access for all subscribers. I'm sure the OP would be amongst the first to complain if (s)he were to fall victim of unfair resource assignment and congestion that results from inadequate bandwidth management.

The OP should consider attending Network Engineering 101 before posting ill informed tripe.

Nice rationalization...

[Benfea]

unfortunately, your rationalization completely ignores the fact that most ISPs are perfectly capable of providing customers what they paid for without resorting to things like this. That's where your metaphors catastrophically fail.

It's a nice can of legal worms...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you stop and think about it: ISP advertise and sell a rented "space" on their network. By cutting bandwidth, for any reason, they are effectively breaking their rental contract. It's like paying for a 3 rooms apartment and having the landlord using one of them for his personal use. This seems to be happening a lot, and not just in Germany.

Not a Dutch company

[Invalidator]

UPC may operate in the Netherlands and other European countries, however it is an American company (and always has been). The owner is Liberty Global based in Colorado, US: http://www.lgi.com/europe_broadband.html

heh... UPC... lol

[Eternal Annoyance]

UPC is already known as one of the worst providers in the Netherlands. Various consumer rights TV shows have already spent hours chewing on UPC (by the way: UPC also delivers cable television).

They are asking for trouble, as consumers can simply refuse to pay if they don't get the service they are paying for.

Your network can't cope? upgrade it so it can cope. And finally: make sure the users of your network are secure, zombies consume bandwidth too, you know.

Sledgehammer != scapel

[Anonymous Coward]

'We are protecting all the users against the 1% of the user base who abuse our network.'

So cap *them*, you fucking cunts?

Economics & Over Subscription

[smutt]

Seems like a lot of folks here don't really understand the reason why ISPs over subscribe and why it's necessary.

I wrote an article about this a couple weeks ago where I tackle that and other issues surrounding net-neutrality. Not to toot my own horn too much. But it seems a lot of folks are pretty out of touch with the real issues surrounding the debate.

http://metafarce.com/index.php?id=24

Peace,
Smutt

Always were rubish

[onceuponatime]

UPC were always rubbish. They block loads of ports as well. From one day to the next I had a working voip solution which broken when they blocked the H.323 connection service.

Antitrust says Tele2 in Italy does traffic mgmt

[quinta]

it's not the first one. Antitrust says Tele2 in Italy does traffic mgmt without informing consumers and fines them. http://blog.quintarelli.it/blog/2009/08/pratiche-scorrette-da-parte-di-tele2-telecom-e-sky.html

Business model

[psYchotic87]

1. Advertise a certain amount of bandwidth
2. Put a clause in the contract that allows you to change the advertised service at any time
3. Sell advertised product
4. Cap bandwidth to amounts clearly below what was advertised, on account of "1% of our users fuck the other 99%"
5. ?????
6. Profit!!!

Let's take this to my journal

[tepples]

Let's take this to my journal instead.

You can download illegal content without using P2P

[kulawend]

With the uprising of upload sites such as rapidshare and megaupload, getting illegal files through HTTP is becoming more common (and faster too!).