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Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

news.northeastern.edu

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Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#61

Post by tim333 »

gesman wrote: post #39

The problem is not with throttling per se (it’s a laws of physics after all!) but not disclosing and/or misleading customers to think there is an unlimited stable bandwidth and/or not disclosing in clear words when, how and how much throttling will be triggered. Do that - and the grief from both sides will be avoided. Without proper and clear disclosure both sides think the other side is an a holes

When I was in Thailand on Dtac they had a bunch of packages where you could choose your throttling rate, eg unlimited data at 512kbps or 1mbs, 4mbs etc. Or you could cap the data amount with the speed at max. It worked pretty well. 1 mbs unlimited was good for me - you could watch 360p video constantly if you wanted etc. Maybe 480p if lucky. And the cost was like $10/mo. I kind of miss that in the UK where I don't think any mobile networks do unlimited data.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#62

Post by sbr464 »

pathseeker wrote: post #59
sbr464 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a side note while I was reminiscing about the pain of being an ISP. Here's a couple photos of the tower for this project. I got frustrated with satellite internet, and bought a 140' tower from the scrap yard before it was chopped up for about $2k. Got a good deal on some Tranzeo 5.8ghz equipment from a cable company and the learning experience commenced. I think I was 23 in that photo. https://drive.google.com/d…

>Got a good deal on some Tranzeo 5.8ghz equipment from a cable company and the learning experience commenced. Did you have to get a license to operate on 5.8ghz in your country? If so, what was the process like to get one with permission to offer commercial service?

You can find a lot of info online, since it's one of the easiest way to start an ISP in a rural location. Google for WISP forums.

If I did it again, in a very rural area, I would look into licensed 4G/5G vs traditional wifi.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#63

Post by mcny »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #47
gsich wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix is the problem. Nobody is forcing them to implement a VPN check. Rights holder want this. Netflix just delivers.

I'm pretty sure if Netflix had their way they would not have spent resources on doing a VPN check.

Why do they have to enforce VPN check for Netflix originals? It seems that Netflix does not own rights for Netflix originals? Wouldn't it be easier to simply say some videos have restrictions but these videos do not?

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#64

Post by close04 »

mehrdadn wrote: post #44
takeda wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should either guarantee a minimum speed with unlimited data or cap on maximum amount of data use can use. Throttling based on content means you were overselling. As an user I prefer to be in control of which applications get to use the Internet that I'm paying for.

> guarantee a minimum speed with unlimited data How in the world would you guarantee that when you might not receive a strong/clear enough signal?

You don't have to guarantee a minimum speed but you have to advertise the relevant parameters that you can reach at least a certain percentage of the time. Saying just "up to" should only be allowed if you also use it for the pricing and the clients pay what they can. Saying "unlimited" should be allowed only with the dictionary definition. And all "limiting" conditions should be advertised the same way as the main offer, not small font on a buried page.

So the offer could look like this: "Up to 50Mbps, with 20Mbps offered at least 50% of the time between 06:00 and 22:00. Limited to 200GB/mo after which the speed is dropped to 1Mbps."

Also throttling and prioritizing types of traffic makes sense when you reach capacity. But if you suddenly find more capacity for someone paying extra by throttling others more or throttle indiscriminately and lift the limits for a price then you are not doing network management, you are are squeezing for money. And this should also be clearly stated when advertised and while doing the throttling.

As a customer paying the requested price I want some SLAs. I want to know what to expect for the service and be compensated for not getting it. I want to know realtime if my traffic or service is being throttled or not when I use it.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#65

Post by close04 »

belorn wrote: post #52
sbr464 wrote: post #25

Years back, I operated a small ISP to serve a need until cable broadband arrived in the community. I had to monitor overall usage and throttle clients frequently with high torrent/video usage. It was also an issue with hotspots in RV Parks/campgrounds where there was a higher ratio of video usage. There are technical limitations to spectrum/bandwidth, I'm curious why this isn't mentioned more in discussions like thes…

The article brings up that. The throttling was not done in order to ease congested network traffic. It is not a response to hotspots of high traffic, nor is it even classification of data types such as torrent and video usage. If you use Boost ISP and watching sports on NBCSport it will work fine but watching the same match later on youtube is not. If you sit at CSpire and watch a paid movie on Youtube Red you will g…

This kind of throttling is done to squeeze more money from anything crossing their network. All ISPs want a piece of the pie so they will charge at both ends anything coming in and anything going out to you.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#66

Post by chii »

pathseeker wrote: post #57
DougBTX wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument would go that if the radio has total capacity x and each user is allocated capacity y, then only x / y users should be allowed to join the service, otherwise it is "over selling". It is a super straight forward model, but obviously much more expensive to provide. I imagine most users would be happy to pay 1/10 of the cost to get a service that might drop to 10% performance in the worst case, as long as i…

What you're asking for already exists. They are dedicated business circuits. I get where you're coming from, but there is a reason that the consumer advertisements always say "up to X mbps". If ISPs didn't oversell, consumer Internet would either be unbearably slow or obscenely expensive. A guaranteed 1 gig circuit is on the order of thousands USD month. An oversubscribed consumer fiber provider like Google Fiber is…

> Are you okay with gyms selling more unlimited memberships than the number of machines they have?

Yes, but with a gym, you can switch if you keep seeing overcrowdedness. Not so with an ISP that has a monopoly.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#67

Post by mehrdadn »

close04 wrote: post #64
mehrdadn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> guarantee a minimum speed with unlimited data How in the world would you guarantee that when you might not receive a strong/clear enough signal?

You don't have to guarantee a minimum speed but you have to advertise the relevant parameters that you can reach at least a certain percentage of the time. Saying just "up to" should only be allowed if you also use it for the pricing and the clients pay what they can. Saying "unlimited" should be allowed only with the dictionary definition. And all "limiting" conditions should be advertised the same way as the main o…

> You don't have to guarantee a minimum speed but you have to advertise the relevant parameters that you can reach at least a certain percentage of the time.

But this still suffers from exactly the same problem, just in a statistical way. i.e., what if someone's frequently in a place that has poor signal? How are you going to predict what percentage of the time they'll be in such a situation?

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#68

Post by sbr464 »

nsomaru wrote: post #50
sbr464 wrote: post #25

Years back, I operated a small ISP to serve a need until cable broadband arrived in the community. I had to monitor overall usage and throttle clients frequently with high torrent/video usage. It was also an issue with hotspots in RV Parks/campgrounds where there was a higher ratio of video usage. There are technical limitations to spectrum/bandwidth, I'm curious why this isn't mentioned more in discussions like thes…

I’ve been looking to install WiFi internet for some tenanted accommodation (think 8 flats or so). As it’s an “included with rent” perk, I need a way to dynamically throttle based on number of clients and protocol. Is there a simple prosumer solution for this? My current path is leading me towards openwrt on a beefy router with some custom firewall rules.

You can install a separate box running pfSense to act as a gateway, configuring different rules/load balancing etc. It also has a plugin ecosystem to enable additional features. That would allow you to size the box and grow as you need. I usually virtualize it with VMWare on Dell Server hardware. That way you get good remote management via Dell idrac, and can make config changes/reboot without losing access.

https://www.pfsense.org/

On the access point side, if you want more granular control to handle congestion, Ubiquiti Unifi and their various mgmt platforms work well. I can't recommend their Security Gateway Appliance (frequent reboots), but the backhauls, APs and CPEs are solid. That will allow you to visualize utilization using a gui, and adjust limits per device/group easily. If you already have the APs, then a gateway device may be better.

https://www.ubnt.com/

I've found over the years, and in the datacenter, that running pfsense on server hardware is very reliable. You can run on a single board computer kit but the CPU doesn't hold up to heavier traffic/vpns etc, worse remote management.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#70

Post by zaroth »

chii wrote: post #66
pathseeker wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're asking for already exists. They are dedicated business circuits. I get where you're coming from, but there is a reason that the consumer advertisements always say "up to X mbps". If ISPs didn't oversell, consumer Internet would either be unbearably slow or obscenely expensive. A guaranteed 1 gig circuit is on the order of thousands USD month. An oversubscribed consumer fiber provider like Google Fiber is…

> Are you okay with gyms selling more unlimited memberships than the number of machines they have? Yes, but with a gym, you can switch if you keep seeing overcrowdedness. Not so with an ISP that has a monopoly.

The monopoly is a “natural” one in that there is only so much spectrum to go around and two companies can’t share it.

Oversubscribing is a vastly preferable economic solution in this case. Everyone who can pay a small amount gets access to the network, and most of the time they get the bandwidth they need.

Selling a limited number of tickets at a massively increased price, or selling a massive number of tickets each with a dedicated data rate that was almost always idle are both strictly inferior solutions by very wide margins.

That throttling is essential to network management is undisputed. There were even carve outs in the old NN refs for it. The problem is if the “throttling” is not just limited video streams in general during peak times, but actually just limiting just certain services’ streams.

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