Why Australian Telco's Plan To Shape BitTorrent Traffic Won't Work

New submitter oztechmuse writes "Australian Telco Telstra is planning to trial shaping some BitTorrent traffic during peak hours. Like all other telcos worldwide, they are facing increasing traffic with a long tail of users: 20% of users consume 80% of bandwidth. The problem is, telcos in Australia are already shaping BitTorrent traffic as a study by Measurement Lab has shown and traffic use continues to increase. Also, the 20% of broadband users consuming the most content will just find a different way of accessing the content and so overall traffic is unlikely to be reduced."

Comments

Pareto, I hate you.

[Lisias]

I don't like this measure (it's what my provider does to me), but it works.

I have a limited amount of data each month to use at my full connection's bandwidth. When I overflow it, my bandwidth is throttled down.

This consumption can be monitored using my cable modem's MAC (or my phone's imei) , and the values are settled by contract.

Speaking frankly, It's a shit. Now and then I must restrain myself from downloading (now) that HD movie. But, hell, this works as a measure to prevent this situation.

Re:Pareto, I hate you.

[fuzzybunny]

There are issues with quotas.

Providers have been known to blatantly lie about your bandwidth usage.

It applies arbitrary limits even when non-downloaders need burst traffic on occasion.

It does not credit you for unused bandwidth.

It tends to cost users far in excess of what a provider's actual incremental costs are for adding capacity.

If you pay for bandwidth, you should be able to use it. If a provider advertises a certain amount of bandwidth, they should be capable of, barring exceptional circumstances out of their control (it's a given that you need to plan a bit of excess usage) delivering the contracted services, basta.

Re:Pareto, I hate you.

[vlm]

If you don't like it, then build your own fucking network. I hate people that think they are entitled to full utilization of a network they don't own just because they pay a monthly fee.

Here let me fix that for you

I hate people that think they are entitled to full utilization of a network they don't own just because they pay a monthly fee based on advertising claiming they have unlimited access.

The standard /. car analogy is I bought a car based on the advertising assumption that I could drive it any time I want 24x365. I'd be pretty pissed if I found my garage empty one day and it turns out they've been renting it out to 3rd parties behind my back, after all most customers don't use their cars 24x365 and its industry standard in the crooked fine print to profit off renting customer's cars to 3rd parties, etc etc.

Re:Pareto, I hate you.

[rtb61]

The car anology is. If I slow down all pick up trucks 24 hours a day, it will improve traffic jams between the hours when children finish school and people go to sleep and that other big burst, the first hour or so of work between say 8:30am to 10:00am. Of course what the fuck does slowing down pickup trucks say 10pm to 7:30am have to do with rush hour traffic apart from ensuring all those pickup trucks are still on the road during rush hour.

The reality is, it is all a lie, to enable overloaded oversold networks and of course via collusion with other major ISPs to ramp up profits. Also if at all possible to force through ISPs being the major content publishers (no throttling on their sales) getting a major percentage of all content sales.

Re:Pareto, I hate you.

[LordLimecat]

Paying $X per Y gbps means, practically, that you are paying $X for (Y * day * 30) GB of traffic. Divide that by your subscribers, and you have a cap per user.

There is, practically speaking, only a semantic difference between paying for X gbps and paying for X GB during a set period.

Re:Pareto, I hate you.

[vlm]

A better analogy would be advertising "unlimited refills" but you really only get unlimited refills on the 3rd tuesday of the month only at 2:15am and only if no one else wants unlimited refills at the same exact time, and by unlimited we really meant that we don't limit how much we advertise refills or how much you can ask your waitress for a refill, but we do in fact positively not guarantee you'll get any soft drinks in your cup at all, although we will of course bill you for the full amount. Also you're not allowed to take us to court because the contract binds you to arbitration with a mediator of our choice who happens to be a friend of ours and who only mediates in person 2000 miles away from your home only one day per year that being the first business day after easter, if you make an appointment 2 years in advance and agree to pay all our legal costs, no matter if you win (snicker, as if that'll happen) or lose. But yeah, aside from that, its unlimited, uh huh uh huh yeah.

Dont need to reduce overall traffic

[jabuzz]

The problem the telcos have is not the total volume of traffic but to use a car analogy the "rush hour" effect. If by traffic shaping they can push the 20% to move some of their downloading outside the peak times, then it means they don't have to buy bandwidth that is going to sit unused 90% of the time.

If the 20% all did their downloading overnight it would not be a problem.

Re:Dont need to reduce overall traffic

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Bittorrent is designed as a slow backgroung grind, distributing things. That it works fast, kind of, sometimes, is due to mighty infrastructure investment. IF you really NEED that movie in half an hour that damned bad, go to Best Buy or a Red Box.

Not acceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the US, Australian broadband plans are tightly capped with data limits, we are paying for a certain amount of GB per month. If the ISP want to restrict the capacity for a user to fully utilise that pre-paid allowance, they should at a bare minimum refund the unused balance at the end of each billing cycle. I will fight this in the consumer tribunal if they every throttle my traffic based upon which protocol I am using.

Re:Pure Greed

[kevkingofthesea]

20% of people do 80% of the work. 20% of the people do 80% of the innovation.20% of the people use 80% of the bandwidth.......Seems to be how the world works.

So much so that it's got a name.