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Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

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Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#81

Post by wang_li »

jedberg wrote: post #71
jerkstate wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In those days it was typical for the costs of peering to be borne by the sender, relative to the traffic ratio. This changed when Netflix and Youtube decided to use their PR and lobbying strength to bring the negotiation to the court of public opinion - and normal people started referring to typical peering cost-sharing agreements using emotionally loaded words like "ransom"

The ratio requirements are a red herring. If your ISP says you get a certain bandwidth, it is on them to provide the appropriate pipes to get to where their customers want to go. How can the ISP on the other side of Comcast be responsible for maintaining ratios if Comcast's customers are the ones that are requesting the data?

>appropriate pipes to get to where their customers want to go.

This idea is nonsensical. What if I want to go to somewhere that is three times removed from my ISP. Comcast has zero capability to force some South Korean ISP that is providing services to some website to increase their bandwidth with their upstream who is peered with whoever owns the undersea cable that is peered with the company that peers with Comcast.

The alternative is that Netflix asks for 40 Gbps to Comcast and suddenly Comcast is obligated to provide 40 Gbps to every one of its customers.

What we've always gotten with an ISP is a given link rate to our ISP. Beyond that it's always been a crap shoot.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#82

Post by criddell »

jedberg wrote: post #77
criddell wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if Netflix were sitting on the end of a lowly T1, Comcast should provide Netflix with a more appropriate connection that can fulfill the demands of Comcast customers?

That's not a fair analogy. Netflix had the bandwidth available and wanted to connect it, Comcast just refused.

At the time, Netflix didn't have a deal with Comcast. There was a company between the two (Cogent?) that wasn't purchasing enough bandwidth for what they were selling. If you were on Comcast and watched Netflix via an Apple TV, it worked fine because for some reason Apple TV streams were sent via Level 3.

The end result was Netflix doing a deal to connect directly with Comcast, cutting out the middleman (IIRC).

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#83

Post by 14 »

crazygringo wrote: post #57

For both wired and wireless, it's time for legislation to address exactly what it and isn't permitted with regard to advertised speeds, throttling, and total usage -- both with respect to users, and with respect to peering. It's not just an issue of policy, but one of transparency too. It's a fact of life that more people will want to consume data than a network can support. So where are we going to make the cut? Dim…

It's a fact of life that more people will want to consume data than a network can support.

Is this actually true or is it just a matter of the isp not building the needed infrastructure required? Because if it is just an infrastructure issue then I would question why they choose to not expand to a better service. Is it because they can get away with providing crappy service as many people only have a single choice of what isp is available in their area? I highly agree with your final statement and it’s true people just want to know what they can count on and not play the guessing game.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#84

Post by nerdponx »

14 wrote: post #83
crazygringo wrote: post #57

For both wired and wireless, it's time for legislation to address exactly what it and isn't permitted with regard to advertised speeds, throttling, and total usage -- both with respect to users, and with respect to peering. It's not just an issue of policy, but one of transparency too. It's a fact of life that more people will want to consume data than a network can support. So where are we going to make the cut? Dim…

It's a fact of life that more people will want to consume data than a network can support. Is this actually true or is it just a matter of the isp not building the needed infrastructure required? Because if it is just an infrastructure issue then I would question why they choose to not expand to a better service. Is it because they can get away with providing crappy service as many people only have a single choice of…

It seems to be mostly true for most infrastructure (especially roadways), so it would be weird if it weren't true here.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#85

Post by usrusr »

crazygringo wrote: post #57

For both wired and wireless, it's time for legislation to address exactly what it and isn't permitted with regard to advertised speeds, throttling, and total usage -- both with respect to users, and with respect to peering. It's not just an issue of policy, but one of transparency too. It's a fact of life that more people will want to consume data than a network can support. So where are we going to make the cut? Dim…

> When I pay for a carrier, I want to know what I should be able to count on, and what I can't count on.

You can absolutely count on any wireless transmission happening on a shared medium. Inconveniencing one high volume user to keep up service quality for dozens of low volume user is a perfectly rational business decision. As for transparency: well, good regulation is not easy, particularly when support for trying is not very strong.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#86

Post by scrungus »

tcxgy wrote: post #44
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because in case of congestion the user watching video is abusing the system. Why do you think that a user that is using exactly the same amount of bandwidth as any other users (i.e., their fair share) is abusing the system? What would you say if some user was watching a video stream that used only half as much bandwidth as their fair share? Would that still be abusive?

Because in case of congestion (let's say everybody gets allotted 50 KB/s) you can't even watch video. Dozens of users trying to watch video at 50 KB/s aren't even watching video; they're just launching a DDoS attack. I'd be very happy to throttle them to 1 KB/s so I don't have to wait 10 seconds to receive a picture through Whatsapp. You're arguing against the laws of physics here, and you're arguing that stupid user…

>You're arguing against the laws of physics here and you're arguing that stupid users should be able to screw everybody else. No thanks.

i think there is a misunderstanding here. he's not arguing that ISPs shouldn' be able to bandwidth-discriminate based on customer. He's arguing that they shouldn't be able to discriminate on the type of data. what would it matter to the other users if they were slowing down the network by html5 video, VNC, or playing a game over TCP?

I don't know a lot about networks, but i think a potential solution could be to discriminate between high-bandwidth and low-latency transmissions. For a video game or something you would want to have low latency, but you wouldn't need a lot of bandwidth. on the other hand, video streaming requires a lot of bandwidth but doesn't depend so much on latency as long as it has a big enough cache. images are probably somewhere in the middle. this would allow low-bandwidth applications to be prioritized.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#87

Post by sixothree »

usrusr wrote: post #85
crazygringo wrote: post #57

For both wired and wireless, it's time for legislation to address exactly what it and isn't permitted with regard to advertised speeds, throttling, and total usage -- both with respect to users, and with respect to peering. It's not just an issue of policy, but one of transparency too. It's a fact of life that more people will want to consume data than a network can support. So where are we going to make the cut? Dim…

> When I pay for a carrier, I want to know what I should be able to count on, and what I can't count on. You can absolutely count on any wireless transmission happening on a shared medium. Inconveniencing one high volume user to keep up service quality for dozens of low volume user is a perfectly rational business decision. As for transparency: well, good regulation is not easy, particularly when support for trying i…

Strange that in 2019 YouTube is considered "high volume user".

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#88

Post by tcxgy »

scrungus wrote: post #86
tcxgy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in case of congestion (let's say everybody gets allotted 50 KB/s) you can't even watch video. Dozens of users trying to watch video at 50 KB/s aren't even watching video; they're just launching a DDoS attack. I'd be very happy to throttle them to 1 KB/s so I don't have to wait 10 seconds to receive a picture through Whatsapp. You're arguing against the laws of physics here, and you're arguing that stupid user…

>You're arguing against the laws of physics here and you're arguing that stupid users should be able to screw everybody else. No thanks. i think there is a misunderstanding here. he's not arguing that ISPs shouldn' be able to bandwidth-discriminate based on customer. He's arguing that they shouldn't be able to discriminate on the type of data. what would it matter to the other users if they were slowing down the netw…

Cool, so you're arguing for QoS. Thanks for supporting my argument.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#89

Post by sixothree »

jerkstate wrote: post #74
jedberg wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ratio requirements are a red herring. If your ISP says you get a certain bandwidth, it is on them to provide the appropriate pipes to get to where their customers want to go. How can the ISP on the other side of Comcast be responsible for maintaining ratios if Comcast's customers are the ones that are requesting the data?

How can Netflix claim to sell streaming video without paying for adequate bandwidth to stream that video?

Aren't comcast subscribers limited in bandwidth based on the rate they pay?

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#90

Post by jerkstate »

jedberg wrote: post #78
jerkstate wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can Netflix claim to sell streaming video without paying for adequate bandwidth to stream that video?

They had sufficient bandwidth. Netflix paid their ISP for sufficient bandwidth. Comcast just refused to connect to it, to the detriment of Comcast's customers.

Cogent (Netflix's ISP) and Comcast had a peering agreement which spelled out costs and ratios; Cogent sold Netflix bandwidth (probably very cheaply) that they could not provide without breaching their peering agreement. Cogent was unwilling to fulfill the financial terms of their peering agreement in order to provide the product that they had sold to Netflix. Somehow, people think this is Comcast's fault?
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