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

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

#171

Post by pathseeker »

sbr464 wrote: post #62
pathseeker wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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

I was looking into this same thing (rural with low subscriber numbers) a few years ago. The costs of 4G and equipment for it were obscene compared to putting up ubiquiti equipment on 5g band.

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

#172

Post by pathseeker »

sbr464 wrote: post #60
pathseeker wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

I didn't have to (USA). You were able to offer 900mhz, 2.4ghz, 5.8ghz without a license. There are regulations on total output power of a device, which comes from the antenna's dB gain and the output power of the wireless radio inside. I believe there are other higher bands that are unlicensed, but I didn't use those. I built a lot of the equipment using m0n0wall/soekris/pcengines gear.

>I didn't have to (USA). You were able to offer 900mhz, 2.4ghz, 5.8ghz without a license.

Ah, sorry brainfart on my part, I didn't realize you were doing standard wifi. I always think of 802.11A(C) space as just 5GHz when it covers basically all of 5-6GHz. (For anyone interested: this has a nice list of channels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels )

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

#173

Post by Tsagadai »

takeda wrote: post #26
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…

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.

All ISPs, as a rule, oversell. They oversell at a ratio of usage in part due to how networks are structured (8-10 times bottleneck bandwidth is seen as "good" service, source: I am in the industry). There are bottlenecks in almost every network. The problem is when they oversell at an unacceptable limit for regular usage. Bottlenecks can be mitigated but that costs money and like almost every rent seeking business there is no incentive to spend any money or invest until there is risk of a losing enough users to be unprofitable.

The economics of ISPs suck which means ISPs will suck pretty much as a rule.

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

#174

Post by close04 »

tptacek wrote: post #166
close04 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited - not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent. Best effort is when your taxi driver tries to take you to the airport as fast as possible but traffic gets in the way and you're late. When he stops in a tunnel and requests more money because he has to drive through his lunch break, or else he'll just inch forward that's not best effort. That's what I said before: squeezing for money. Rea…

I'm curious what the win condition for this argument is. Obviously, no appeal to semantics is going to alter the business model of a wireless provider. Are you really just after them changing the word "unlimited" to something else?

The guidelines ask specifically to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith - I can assure you what I'm saying is in good faith. "Unlimited" was just one of the misleading things that you can notice without peeking under the hood on the ISP. The throttling of data is another more pervasive one but harder to spot with the naked eye. And the way all this is presented when advertised is misleading at best, flat out lie more realistically. I made several mentions that were ignored in favor of the weaker interpretation of "semantics".

> saying nothing about the limitations or their true nature while selling an untouchable maximum and even a patently false claim of "unlimited"

> this is not network congestion, this is artificially limiting the speed

> they should offer a quality level at least "statistically"

> 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.

> Informing the users properly is the the least they could do. Today they willingly mislead consumers

Changing the word "unlimited" is just one thing that would help clear up the confusion that you are getting unlimited data. That's one of many things they could be required to at least disclose (if not discontinue completely) in a clearer way especially since these usually involve multi-year contracts based on that misdirection. Basically exactly what's expected or required from most other companies' advertisements.

I honestly thought this would feel like common sense to anybody...

P.S. AT&T or Verizon have the following lines in their offers:

AT&T may temporarily slow data speeds when the network is congested

During times of congestion, your data may be temporarily slower than other traffic

This is disingenuous as it implies that they never do it unless the network is congested and that they don't carefully throttle only specific types of traffic from specific sources. That has been proven a false claim repeatedly.

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

#175

Post by close04 »

tptacek wrote: post #167
close04 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm perfectly OK with being allowed to hit physical limits. Unless you're arguing that 100GB of traffic is a physical limit of the network. Or that a software limiting the speed to something decided by management is also a physical limit. I'd love to see someone try to make that case. As per the links posted above: > Santa Clara Fire paid Verizon for "unlimited" data but suffered from heavy throttling until the d…

The guidelines ask specifically that you not insinuate the person you're arguing with failed to read the article.

Thank you for the word of advice, I will genuinely try to keep the guidelines in mind for my future comments.

Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

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

#176

Post by nsomaru »

sbr464 wrote: post #68
nsomaru wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://…

Thanks! That seems quite expensive in terms of hardware needed and the license for VM Ware. Any thoughts on this (this is an investment decision for low cost housing in Africa)?

Also, is there a way to charge for traffic beyond a certain quota? There’s a product called Sputnik with some firmware you can download for various router brands which lets you run a hotspot/captive portal with billing

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

#178

Post by tptacek »

close04 wrote: post #174
tptacek wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what the win condition for this argument is. Obviously, no appeal to semantics is going to alter the business model of a wireless provider. Are you really just after them changing the word "unlimited" to something else?

The guidelines ask specifically to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith - I can assure you what I'm saying is in good faith. "Unlimited" was just one of the misleading things that you can notice without peeking under the hood on the ISP. The throttling of data is another more pervasive one but harder to spot with the nak…

I'm not responding to any particular interpretation of your argument. I'm asking an orthogonal question. I tried to fish an answer out of this comment, but couldn't find one. It's a simple question: do you expect a behavior change from the carriers, or a marketing change?

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

#179

Post by sbr464 »

nsomaru wrote: post #176
sbr464 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://…

Thanks! That seems quite expensive in terms of hardware needed and the license for VM Ware. Any thoughts on this (this is an investment decision for low cost housing in Africa)? Also, is there a way to charge for traffic beyond a certain quota? There’s a product called Sputnik with some firmware you can download for various router brands which lets you run a hotspot/captive portal with billing

The regular VMware vSphere Hypervisor is free, and works on most hardware. You could go used, or check delloutlet.com. (sub $1k) It doesn't need high specs at all. The reason I mention is that usually you end up needing other small services. Virtualizing allows you to have a single box and add VMs as needed. It's also easier to setup carp/failover later if the system grows and you need redundancy. Running an ISP is 24/7 so being able to have full console access, and confidently reboot services saves late night trips. It's been a while so am not familiar with the current hotspot products.

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

#180

Post by sbr464 »

pathseeker wrote: post #171
sbr464 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>If I did it again, in a very rural area, I would look into licensed 4G/5G vs traditional wifi. I was looking into this same thing (rural with low subscriber numbers) a few years ago. The costs of 4G and equipment for it were obscene compared to putting up ubiquiti equipment on 5g band.

Have you checked out LimeSDR? There are a few software defined radio platforms that also have an open source community. I was thinking along those lines.
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