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Ask Slashdot: How Can I Prove My ISP Slows Certain Traffic?
Long-time Slashdot reader GerryGilmore is "a basically pretty knowledgeable Linux guy totally comfortable with the command line." But unfortunately, he lives in north Georgia, "where we have a monopoly ISP provider...whose service overall could charitably be described as iffy."
Sometimes, I have noticed that certain services like Netflix and/or HBONow will be ridiculously slow, but -- when I run an internet speed test from my Linux laptop -- the basic throughput is what it's supposed to be for my DSL service. That is, about 3Mbps due to my distance from the nearest CO. Other basic web browsing seems to be fine... I don't know enough about network tracing to be able to identify where/why such severe slowdowns in certain circumstances are occurring.
Slashdot reader darkharlequin has also noticed a speed decrease on Comcast "that magickally resolves when I run internet speed tests." But if the original submitter's ultimate goal is delivering evidence to his local legislators so they can pressure on his ISP -- what evidence is there? Leave your best answers in the comments. How can he prove his ISP is slowing certain traffic?
Slashdot reader darkharlequin has also noticed a speed decrease on Comcast "that magickally resolves when I run internet speed tests." But if the original submitter's ultimate goal is delivering evidence to his local legislators so they can pressure on his ISP -- what evidence is there? Leave your best answers in the comments. How can he prove his ISP is slowing certain traffic?
They might not be slowing down specific traffic but instead just have a poor connection to those popular services and it gets saturated.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
For many years I've tested my connection on comcast.
If it's a popular or well publicized test site, comcast gives back great numbers.
On the other hand, if you use any of the various ways to obfuscate the address, or just use one comcast doesn't have on it's script yet, then you'll see MUCH lower speeds.
Yes, there are ways to verify that the obfuscation isn't causing the slowdown.
Short version, comcast slows you down unless they know they're being tested, then they give you a higher bandwidth. I've tested them for close to 10 years now, and it's always the same.
If your ISP has a constantly saturated peer that is in effect throttling. We have seen ISP's use BGP traffic engineering to try and push all netflix traffic through a specific peer and then let it saturate the links as a bargaining tool. This should not be allowed. Realy any link that's saturated anywhere inside an ISP or with peers and transit providers should not be allowed in the long term.
No sir I dont like it.
I'm paying $50/m for a 150/150 dedicated fiber with dedicated bandwidth in the USA, at my home. I get 150/150 to nearly every datacenter in the world at every time of the day. They literally advertise ~"We're not like that other ISP. We sell *dedicated bandwidth. You will never experience any slow downs...*Dedicated through out network and to our transit provider".
When I first got services from them, I talked to the manager of network operations, asked them how they could afford dedicated bandwidth. He said the cost of bandwidth isn't a concern. He said bandwidth is so cheap, they're not even going to get a Netflix CDN, even though it makes up most of their peak bandwidth. Managing bandwidth is more expensive than just buying it. It's plain cheaper just to give dedicated bandwidth than to ration bandwidth. I asked him about the company's position on CDNs in general. He said they had no plans to add CDNs to the network because it's not worth the money saved, but if they did, it would be to make services better, because CDNs can provide lower latency even if bandwidth is not an issue.
To give a better idea of the cost of bandwidth, talking to their network admin, he said they have 6 transit links, each one is provisioned so much bandwidth, that if 5 of the 6 links went down, their 95th percentile would be around 50% during peak hours. I asked him about DDOS attacks. He said that most DDOS attacks just get soaked by their nearly 10x more bandwidth provisioned than needed, but even in the cases where attacks are larger, they just buy more bandwidth for the duration of the attack. Only takes about 15 minutes to get their bandwidth increased.
I can stream 149.9Mb/s of UDP over my 150 connection with zero packets dropped over a several hour window that spans peak hours. At 150, I start to see some loss and at 150.1 I see an overall statistical number that nearly perfectly matches being 0.1 greater than 150. One month I decided to ping a datacenter in Europe, ~140ms away. 10 samples per second, for 30 days strait, 25,920,000 total packets, fewer than 100 packets dropped, min ping was 0.1ms less than the average, and the std dev was less than 1ms with a max of ~160ms. Mind you I was seeding about 100GiB of the most popular Linux ISOs on BitTorrent during this time.
Hell, my state Uni has at least 1Tb/s of transit. At least 2 100Gb links to each of Level 3, Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, Hurricane Electric, possibly others that I'm not aware of. Not to mention another several 100Gb links spread to different regional IXs, and 100Gb peering links to local ISPs. This info is over 5 years old now. I'm sure they've increased their bandwidth since.
Bandwidth is not expensive. Sonic.Net gave an interview where they said infrastructure and transit only represents 1%-2% of the cost of being an ISP. Your connection and the bandwidth it provides is a freaking rounding error on your bill and less than the sales tax. And that 1%-2% also includes maintaining and upgrading. Short of living in Alaska, national park, an island nation, or starting a new ISP, there is little reason for non-dedicated bandwidth.