Internet Slowdown Day: Leading web companies fight for ‘net neutrality’

[mashman]

Money talks... it's like the CEO who claims the new PC because he's the CEO. It has fuck all to do with who needs it most and the productivity gains with the equipment in the right hands. Fuckin idiots.

[Gremlin]

In reality the ISPs are already shaping traffic (perhaps not quite so common in the USA with massive bandwidth) but it's common here. We watched as Orcon implented their Sandvine shaper and watched performance drop overnight (Ok, initially they fucked it up and had circular routing until I pulled the on call tech out of bed at 5am). They implemented from bottom up, the cheap bandwidth to the expensive. Only the most premium bandwidth wasn't included (but could be now for all I know).

Why do you think we have some ISPs with really cheap internet plans, and others are more expensive? It's the quality of the peering they're paying for (and other factors obviously), and will take a longer slower route than the more expensive peering...

[mashman]

In reality the ISPs are already shaping traffic (perhaps not quite so common in the USA with massive bandwidth) but it's common here. We watched as Orcon implented their Sandvine shaper and watched performance drop overnight (Ok, initially they fucked it up and had circular routing until I pulled the on call tech out of bed at 5am). They implemented from bottom up, the cheap bandwidth to the expensive. Only the most premium bandwidth wasn't included (but could be now for all I know).

Why do you think we have some ISPs with really cheap internet plans, and others are more expensive? It's the quality of the peering they're paying for (and other factors obviously), and will take a longer slower route than the more expensive peering...

I do wonder why there are limits at all. I get the idea behind tagging and prioritising of the traffic as our network admin, once upon a while ago, was cursing the Bluecoats that were "scored". Once up and running and once the gremlins, heh, had been ironed out it worked great... although the caching was a PITA if I remember correctly.

Fair point. Someone's gotta use the older infrastructure.

[Gremlin]

I do wonder why there are limits at all. I get the idea behind tagging and prioritising of the traffic as our network admin, once upon a while ago, was cursing the Bluecoats that were "scored". Once up and running and once the gremlins, heh, had been ironed out it worked great... although the caching was a PITA if I remember correctly.

Fair point. Someone's gotta use the older infrastructure.

It's something like 90% of traffic being used by 10% of users. Upstream of users, you don't pay per GB. You buy a pipe (price depends on speed and size in mbits) and it's up to you how much you get through that pipe. That was also another thing Orcon did a few owners ago. We could never prove it, but we're sure they dropped the number of links they had, increased the contention ratio and probably saved a whack of dollars.

Realistically, the balance is giving everyone a fair go. Some only want a few GB a month, but it's the ones using hundreds of GB that complain they're being hard done (and usually complaining about the price as well). Why are there limits? It's like the motorway analogy. You can't engineer for smooth flow during rush hour and then it's quiet for 90% of the time. That costs a lot of money that no-one is providing...

[Akzle]

i fuken love 20year old copper lines and full cabinets.
Dial up is nearly faster...

[mashman]

It's something like 90% of traffic being used by 10% of users. Upstream of users, you don't pay per GB. You buy a pipe (price depends on speed and size in mbits) and it's up to you how much you get through that pipe. That was also another thing Orcon did a few owners ago. We could never prove it, but we're sure they dropped the number of links they had, increased the contention ratio and probably saved a whack of dollars.

Realistically, the balance is giving everyone a fair go. Some only want a few GB a month, but it's the ones using hundreds of GB that complain they're being hard done (and usually complaining about the price as well). Why are there limits? It's like the motorway analogy. You can't engineer for smooth flow during rush hour and then it's quiet for 90% of the time. That costs a lot of money that no-one is providing...

Porn then? lol. Sounds like a decent business move to me. Makes sure that which you sell is shit hot, then taper at ones discretion based on the traffic needs and reallocate that bandwidth to the next sucker, I mean customer.

Everything costs and is limited by money, but I'm sure TV and Radio will eventually fill that downtime and our fees will come down .