ISPs Hate P2P Video On-Demand Services 231
Scrumptious writes "CNET is running an article that highlights the problems associated with video on-demand services that rely on P2P technology to distribute content. The article points out that ISPs who throttle traffic on current generation broadband, and negate network neutrality by using packet shaping technology, are hindering any possible adoption of the services offered nervously by content companies. Many broadband consumers are unaware of how hindered a service they may receive because of the horrendous constraints enforced by telephone network operators. This was a topic widely covered in 2006 in the US, but is now practiced as a common method within the United Kingdom."
It's simple, really (Score:3, Interesting)
Or maybe this emerging set of content providers will band together fight the ISPs because they constitute a threat?
Then again, maybe a big media conglomerate will merge with AT&T to screw us all...
Re:No way (Score:5, Interesting)
However, video p2p services don't have to suffer this way. The service provider is being shit by not preferring local peers over distant peers. If they recoded their applications to take explicit measures to route the majority of traffic within an ISP's address block then it would escape traffic shaping and throttling which happen at the interface to the network.
So the ISPs wouldn't lose money, and the punters could watch their porn. So whose fault is it now?
Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Opinion Piece Based On Little Evidence (Score:4, Interesting)
But no evidence is offered to justify this statement. How do they know that ISPs are doing it to limit illegal sharing? Is it not far more likely that they're doing it to save on bandwidth. In which case, no-one's being treated as a criminal, they're being treated as bandwidth-hogs. An issue worth discussion, but an important distinction, I think.
They oversold, so they hate it (Score:5, Interesting)
Network need for consumers vary widely. Some happily browse news sites and that serve just text. Some are bit torrent users. High time ISPs charge consumers by MBytes of data transmitted. They can offer cheapo services for people with low bandwidth needs, may be even as a loss. Those who download bit-torrents and movies will pay for the bandwidth they actually consume. Once the revenue of ISPs depend on actual data transmitted, they too will encourage and help people who transmit/recieve lots of data. It will be a good thing once the ISPs wake up and smell the coffee I mentioned earlier ;-)
Even in India they are able to meter the data transmitted and charge by the Megabytes. So it should not be too difficult for the ISPs to do it. But some things India does are very hard to believe. The mobile phone rates are something like 2 cents per minute with free incoming calls. And the mobile phone companies have a 40% margin! My brother-in-law executes on line trades with a commission of some 15 Rupees, or 35 cents US. How can they do that and stil be profitable?
Truth in Advertising (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No way (Score:4, Interesting)
Not really a problem. I've been thinking this for a little while: ISPs need to raise their rates. This "illusion" they're fostering can be as damaging for them as it can be annoying for their customers, but marketing doesn't want to charge above some magic figure they've conceived because they think everybody will ditch them for the alternative (or just ditch broadband, a thought gives them cold sweats.) Seriously, capitalism means charging a reasonable rate for a reasonable service, not position a multi-million dollar company on the bleeding edge of survivability.
I think the average joe will go for it, too. A variety of services, such as phone , entertainment on demand, and information all can be had through one pipe, yet we're really paying for a lot less.
Before I get flamed to hell, yes I understand that most ISPs are money-grubbing idiots who want to protect a shitty business model. I still think most of us are paying a lot less than what we're really getting.
Re:ISP hate users that use bandwidth (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No way...Cox Comm in SD does it (Score:5, Interesting)
At my company we have have a single aDSL connection that we share through a NAT Linux router. When I started using eMule, everything was OK... until a coworker started using eMule as well, which made the internet connection practically dead for everyone in the office until we shut down the mules. We tried lots of tinkering with the connection settings (lowering the max number of connections, connections per minute, etc.) and eventually found out that many people shared more or less the same problem, but we could never solve it.
The combination of bit torrent + eMule also showed the same symptoms through the same router... but when tried through the same provider with a different setup (direct connection to a Windows 2000 workstation) it ran perfectly. I never found the reason to this problem, but evidence points more towards the NAT router and P2P connection handling than to the ISP.
I also had some problems when connecting to certain sites and certain POP3 servers (timeouts) which I eventually traced to the MTU size configuration, after the most painstaking diagnose you can imagine... modem connected to windows worked fine, windows through NAT Linux router didn't... this is a sort-of common problem with PPPoE connections and bad routers or heavy firewalling, which looks like your internet connection is acting up, but is probably your own fault or that of the server you're contacting.
Morale: There's lots of things that can go wrong with TCP connections, and it's usually very hard to diagnose since you hardly get a look at the full picture. ISPs are not always as incompetent or evil as we assume.
Real World Example (Score:5, Interesting)
All encrypted traffic is now throttled just because it's encrypted. All non-encrypted traffic is throttled if it smells like P2P of any kind.
If this hasn't happened in your neighbourhood yet -- just wait: it's coming, zone by zone.
Thank goodness for Usenet.
Re:Traffic shaping is net neutral (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with you in that giving priority to some types of traffic, VOIP then lower say actual web browsing, then lower yet, p2p downloads. Meaning all 3 packets come in, route VOIP to the next hop first, then immediately route the other packets.(yes I know there are other types of traffic, I'm just using these 3 as examples)
However I think they are talking about just overall artificial degrading of a type of traffic. Sort of like if traffic=p2p then lag=10ms. Artificially degrading a type of traffic is wrong, IMHO.
Can any of the router guys out there talk to the technical feasibility of these two types of traffic altering, or am I way off base?
Re:Says who? (Score:3, Interesting)
- Force content providers to pay to access the ISP's customers
- Charge extra for paid services (like VoIP) placed through any provider but themselves
The sole reason the big telcoms and cable networks are lobbying congress and running a TV FUD campaign is to give them the freedom to do these two evils. Simple non-discrimination against packet origins stops both, without in any way restricting the practices ISPs use to control traffic.
Re:ATTENTION!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have reasonably fast 6MPS downstream, but my upstream is throttled to a small fraction of that by my ISP.
That's a technical decision by the broadband industry. They set aside more frequencies for downstream because presumably most people don't need to do big uploads. On cable networks the upstream also needs to be a lower frequency to make it back to the head-end (the upstream channel is typically below cable channel 2) and this also tends to limit the bandwidth available.
What I don't understand is why nobody has bothered to release a "dynamic" DSL product. DSL works by taking whatever frequencies are usable (how high you can go depends on the length of the loop) and breaking them down into channels. Some of those are set aside for upstream, some (the bulk, in the case of ADSL) for downstream. Why not have a dynamic solution that re-allocates the channels for up or downstream depending on what you are doing at the moment (uploading or download)? I don't think this would work on a shared cable network but I see no reason why it couldn't be done for DSL.
but because of the nature of my job, I do often have to transfer large, uncompressed video files
Make your job provide you with a business-grade connection with higher upstream.
It's all about peering arrangements. (Score:5, Interesting)
ISPs in peering relationships want to get rid of packets. so generally, if you have two ISPs, A and B, and A is sending a lot more traffic to B than B sends to A, A is going to be paying B for the privilege of "getting rid of" packets.
If two ISPs are sending each other around the same amount of traffic, they have an even peering arrangement. Typically no dollars are exchanged in this scenario.
This means that when you, as a broadband customer, upload, your ISP has to "get rid of" the packets you are uploading and send them to other ISPs. If a lot of your ISPs customers generate tons of upstream bandwidth, the other ISPs that yours pairs with will start demanding some money in the peering arrangement, since they receive more traffic from your ISP than they send to it.
Heh, this is difficult to explain without it becoming confusing, but the gist is... Upstream bandwidth is expensive. Downstream bandwidth is cheap. In essence, those who generate traffic subsidize those who receive it.
This model sucks, but it's why we likely won't see more than a megabit upstream cheaply in the states anytime soon.
Re:No way...Cox Comm in SD does it (Score:3, Interesting)
"our" issue with p2p apps (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone earlier used an analogy: 'Let us say I run a restaraunt and have been selling "all you can drink" coffee but I had been providing only thimble size cups.' Good start. Our problem isn't that you bring your own cup. Our problem is that you're sitting near an open window, and ordering a dozen coffees at once. Large ones. And handing them out to everyone walking along.
We don't mind providing the bandwidth to our legitimate users, that's why we're here. We have a problem paying for bandwidth to provide services for people who aren't our constituents or customers. We're especially troubled by that because we suddenly become the focus of all those 4 letter groups that we love to hate here, who come knocking on our doors because they seem to think we're "enabling" copyright theft or "serving" it. And our lawyers, like every other lawyer in the world, don't like these discussions because they don't KNOW that what we're doing will be a slam dunk in court and then they get cranky with us.
So we don't mind the concept of p2p. I assume you're doing things legally because you're all moral people, right?
Re:ISPs vs Consumers (Score:1, Interesting)
I work at an ISP. We have 3x STM-1 connections from upstream providers. At the moment we have
contracted 370 Mbps of troughput from two telcos. We are paying after long and hard negotiations
about 30 USD per megabit.
We charge our customers 20 USD for 5 Mbps download and 2 Mbps download which they get almost
most the time. When the network is really loaded (weekends), they get at least 1 Mbps download
and 1 Mbps upload - which still costs them 20 USD.
So do you think it is not fair? I think not. They are paying much less than they would pay
to the upstream provider (which won't even happen because you can't get a megabit from
upstream provider... in fact you can, but costs of the link would make it about 1000 usd
per month).
That is how oversubscribing works. That how network traffic patterns work. People get what
they payed for most of the time. I think it is fair. Especially that when you get from
big polish telecom - TP SA a DSL line you pay 100 USD for 6megabits in/ 1megabit out.
But if ISP buys bunch of megabits they need to pay 80 USD per 1 mbit.
Is it fair?
The truth is that if we had to reserve bandwith for every user (even if she or he is not using it
up), we would need to charge people not 20 usd but 150 usd for 5mbit download.
So think again.
And last thing. We are shaping our customers and not throttling P2P. What our customer
does with his bandwith is up to him, it is not our bussines.