US Telcos Are Slowing Internet Traffic To and From Popular OTT Apps Like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, New Research Finds (bloomberg.com) 168
The largest U.S. telecom companies are slowing internet traffic to and from popular apps like YouTube and Netflix, according to new research from Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Bloomberg: The researchers used a smartphone app called Wehe, downloaded by about 100,000 consumers, to monitor which mobile services are being throttled when and by whom, in what likely is the single largest running study of its kind. Among U.S. wireless carriers, YouTube is the No. 1 target of throttling, where data speeds are slowed, according to the data. Netflix's video streaming service, Amazon.com's Prime Video and the NBC Sports app have been degraded in similar ways, according to David Choffnes, one of the study's authors who developed the Wehe app. From January through early May, the app detected "differentiation" by Verizon Communications Inc. more than 11,100 times, according to the study. This is when a type of traffic on a network is treated differently than other types of traffic. Most of this activity is throttling. AT&T Inc. did this 8,398 times and it was spotted almost 3,900 times on the network of T-Mobile US and 339 times on Sprint's network, the study found.
So hammer the FTC with complaints. (Score:4)
Especially if you can point out that they are not throttling their own services such as the Direct TV app.
The reason for Net Neutrality was at the time all the Media Companies were forming ISP's before that ISP were separate entities.
Won't the FCC respond (Score:3)
Re:So hammer the FTC with complaints. (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the ISPs are trying to claim that the FTC doesn't have jurisdiction. They pushed for the FCC to push it off to the FTC and now are trying to push the FTC off. They also want the FCC to rule that states can't make their own rules. If the ISPs succeed, then they'll be immune to any regulatory agency.
Re:So hammer the FTC with complaints. (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Ars Technica, ISPs like Comcast have no problem destroying the equipment of rival ISPs. And I don't mean figuratively.
In that case, they already see themselves as above the law.
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He did. How many 'Ars Technica' are out there?
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Not quite Ars Technica but engadget isn't Fake News either.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/22/local-isp-claims-comcast-sabotaged-it-into-shutting-down/
Wrong tense (Score:5, Interesting)
The ISPs already got the Supreme Court to agree that the FTC couldn't regulate NN, and that only the FCC did. Unsurprsingly, they took advantage of this to start fucking with sites, including blocking mobile payment systems they didn't own. Surprsiingly, a few months later, the FCC did put NN regulations in place. Note, this all happened several years ago.
See also, why all the "things weren't so bad pre-FCC NN" comments were bullshit. Because the FTC was allowed to regulate them for a while, and it trended hellish when neither agency did
Re:Wrong tense (Score:5, Interesting)
We had de facto net neutrality regulations for 6 of about the last 7 1/2 years. And not was so bad that hardly anybody even noticed.
We also had Title II coverage when the internet was all done over phone landlines.
Which means that actually, during the majority of the history of the Internet in the United States, it was covered by one or another version of Net Neutrality.
When cable companies started offering Internet services, the FCC agreed to not try to regulate them as long as they voluntarily agreed to certain Net Neutrality rules. So while it wasn't a matter of law, there were conditions for FCC keeping its hands off.
But over a period of about 15 years or so, the cable company lobbyists chipped and chipped and chipped away at these provisions until by 2015, there wasn't much left.
That's why a separate Net Neutrality regulation was passed in 2015.
And it should have stayed there. This notion that they will all play like nice competitive capitalists given lack of regulation is demonstrable BS. They cheated on the rules even when they were regulated.
EFF has a very good history of Net Neutrality on their website.
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The telco's doesn't have there own "services" even AT&T's big network (LTE) does not control the DirectTVNow company and the other 3 carriers doesn't even have that much.
More than likely these supposed "researcher's" have no idea how to add LTE bottle-necking into there very limited study. There's a reason why streaming services gets throttled on LTE verses a wired home/office connection. Regular Mimo (LTE) just doesn't have the density on the front end radio's to handle modern heavy streaming service
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The telco's doesn't have there own
Read this far, burst into tears, closed the browser.
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You think this was "different" during Net Neutrality? Service throttling has been happening for a long time, and is needed for certain applications to functions properly. Traffic is being shaped all the time.
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>"You think this was "different" during Net Neutrality? Service throttling has been happening for a long time, and is needed for certain applications to functions properly. Traffic is being shaped all the time."
Indeed it is/was. But people are desperate to somehow make these things "Net Neutrality" issues because it fits with their agenda to show how the world is now ending.
Net neutrality had to do with slowing down traffic to or from specific places based on paid or other agreements with those sites or
Huh! No one saw this coming! (Score:5, Insightful)
And they had no plans for paid prioritization. [arstechnica.com]
I'm so glad that the ISPs and the Administration didn't lie to us. And I'm glad that this all benefits me, the consumer, and allows me to get my money's worth.
After all, paying $50 a month for 1.5 Mbps down/.25 up at AT&T and having people in Third World shithole countries laugh at my connection let's me know that America and our Capitalist system is the best in the World!
I can just vote with my dollars and have no internet connection. Because of our free markets, I have the same number of choices as a communist country - and the privilege of paying more for less service.
Trump! Making America Great Again!
Re: Huh! No one saw this coming! (Score:1, Troll)
Curious what exactly the trump admin has to with your lack of choice with regard to ISPs in your community? This is a problem that not only predates Trump, it likely predates Obama, Bush'43, and maybe even Clinton...
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Remind me, when was Net Neutrality rescinded?
Wireless vs. wired (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting that when the summary says "U.S. telecom companies", it assumes that we will all think wireless, rather than terrestrial. I wonder how the throttling compares on the two media....
(I do the bulk of my surfing on a terrestrial circuit.)
"terresrtial" (Score:2)
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"internet access is down".....there is an option. Non-existent problem solved ;)
FCC vs FTC (Score:5, Insightful)
FCC should be regulating to make sure that the telecoms are providing enough bandwidth and interconnection to meet the demand. Those are technical issues.
FTC should be regulating the business practices to make sure that telecoms which have regional monopoly power are not using that power to extend their monopolies or colluding to restrain trade in violation of the law.
Re:FCC vs FTC (Score:4, Interesting)
The states already have an agency which does exactly this. When the government awards a monopoly contract for some type of service, its operation and rates are monitored by a public utilities commission [wikipedia.org]. The PUC makes sure the monopoly company cannot abuse the monopoly by providing subpar services or charging excessive rates.
Because cable ISPs are awarded government monopolies, they are for all intents and purposes a utility. But because they're not called a utility, they're not regulated by the PUCs.
Re: FCC vs FTC (Score:2)
But because they're not called a utility, they're not regulated by the PUCs.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but PUCs *do* regulate cable companies, telcos and their ISP arms - the PUCs approve rate increases, for example.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but PUCs *do* regulate cable companies, telcos and their ISP arms - the PUCs approve rate increases, for example.
In California, for example, the CPUC only regulates the video services provided by cable companies. They have nothing whatsoever to say about data.
Ok it is slowed down but is it degraded (Score:2, Interesting)
That's the real question. A 1080 HD stream on Netflix needs about 5Mpbs. It can either constantly such 5mbps, or do peaks of 40mbps every 35-40 seconds. I've profiled that on my routers. If the carries are not slowing down beyond 5mbps which still deliveries the same full HD quality there is no problem - they are just optimizing their wifi spectrum. For all I know LTE likes steady traffic much more than peaks and then nothing in order to manage latency a bit better. Remember, when on LTE your voice calls a
My package doesn't include Bloomberg News (Score:2)
The answers are in the article and you could have read them with just a click
I could if my subscription package included Bloomberg News. But I don't feel willing to add yet another monthly fee for Bloomberg News just to participate in one Slashdot discussion.
Re: Ok it is slowed down but is it degraded (Score:1)
Fucking astroturfer.
If you'll log in, you won't have to type your signature at the bottom of each post.
No surprise (Score:2, Informative)
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Phone systems have to place priority on phone and emergency services
*cough* https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... [nytimes.com]
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The Internet is being run on wired land lines. That's how it works.
There's a difference between setting up dedicated bandwidth (say, via a protocol like RSVP) for an emergency phone call or telerobotic surgery (and, yes, space has been cleared for the latter on the public Internet) and confiscating bandwidth you've bought because you're successful.
Not confiscating because someone else needs it (I've pointed out elsewhere how to do weighted round robin and other fair service management) but because you're se
Re: No surprise (Score:2)
Oh you really think it's the emergency services that are causing this throttling? Too many forest fires perhaps?
It would have to be a really thin pipe in the first place for that to be true.
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Creating a rule like "All services are lower priority than phone and emergency services" is quite reasonably and is a good neutral QOS rule. If this is all they've done they we are in good shape. Hopefully we will not see rules like "My competitors streaming services are throttled but mine aren't."
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You make some nice points, but what happens when a cell tower or two in the area become saturated? Just maybe the data hogs get throttled first? Why would they care if you burn through your quota, they can just charge you for the overage without a care in the world. Someone sounds grumpy as hell.
I never mentioned latency, only priority content. So whose confused now? You think that just because you want streaming 'low latency' content, they will give that data priority over other web traffic? haha.
throttled or down converting? (Score:3)
T-Mobile's Binge On is throttling (Score:2)
If the AT&T feature you describe is anything like T-Mobile's "Binge On" feature, then it's throttling video to 1.5 Mbps, and the video provider is expected to detect that and switch the viewer to the SD stream.
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I have at&t fiber at the house and 3 at&t phones and only apps that slow down or go into SD mode are the at&t app for direct TV .. youtube netflix and pornhub i can open 4 HD streams and get 0 buffer or slow downs .. but god help me if i try and bring up a direct tv movie on tv or any device
att has TV and owns content. Verizon has cable (Score:2)
att has TV and owns content. Verizon has cable tv.
Throttling or bad peering? (Score:2)
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Weren't wireless companies allowed to exempt some services from NN? From what I have read about T-Mobile's technique is that because they peer with Netflix, etc, they limit the per customer rate over that peering connection. This is shaping, but it provides better overall performance on their network. The customers were able to get the videos they wanted, but the
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Well, yeah, that's my point. The traffic could be treated exactly the same, but the peering might be constrained. This is not a violation of NN.
It is a distinction without a difference when the ISP controls the routing. It is an old peering strategy to deliberately route selected traffic through or away from a specific peering or transit connection to achieve a desired result.
OTT? (Score:2, Insightful)
What the fuck does OTT stand for?
Over The Top?
Object Type Translator?
Off the Truck?
Serously, what the fuck? https://www.acronymfinder.com/... [acronymfinder.com]
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Over The Top - It's riding "over the top" of their infrastructure and therefore not an inhouse streaming service.
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Over The Top - It's riding "over the top" of their infrastructure and therefore not an inhouse streaming service.
That may be all well and good, but that's not funny at all!
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Over The Tubez, natch.
dafuq is OTT (Score:2)
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Found the astroturfer.
Not Buying It (Score:1)
Every time a YouTube starts spinning and then they show the message about your provider slowing things down, I switch to Porn Hub...runs sooth as a new shaven pussy, even at HD resolution.
More likely, YouTube's servers can't keep up and instead of investing in their infrastructure, they blame the providers.
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Bingo.
Not to mention all this shit is on somebody else's computer. Sorry, but AWS performance is dogshit compared to bare metal. Cheaper in the long run and at massive scale, of course, but you get what you pay for.
If you want bare metal at AWS, you can have it [amazon.com]. But with nvme drives and ehhanced networking that gives the VM nearly direct disk and network hardware access, there's not a whole lot of overhead in an AWS VM.
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What are you talking about?
Youtube is owned by GOOGLE and uses GOOGLE's CDN (googlevideocontent)
Furthermore since you mentioned AWS, Amazon prime video is handled by a purpose built and tuned network stack. So though I know you're not talking about prime video (I think), their video delivery product is arguably barer-metal than most.
8, 9th, 10th points:
Pretty sure pornhub is on a hosting provider or at least their datacenter is virtualized. CDNs are faster than bare metal because the edge node is closer
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I mean I could go on and on and on.
You kinda already did.
Re:Not Buying It (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, Pornhub.com isn't being throttled. Kind of a large gap in your reasoning there. Remember, YOU aren't being throttled. The web site is.
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More likely, YouTube's servers can't keep up and instead of investing in their infrastructure, they blame the providers.
This was a university study.
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And the students were not watching pornhub?
Fake news, I tell you!
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Or youtube is being throttled and pornhub isn't.
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Nope. Try switching away from AT&T's dns server and using a VPN, bam suddenly YT works great.
Re:Cause or effect? (Score:4, Interesting)
No.
The correct approach is to divide bandwidth rationally. If you've bought N% of the total downstream pipe, you are guaranteed to be able to use up to N% of the upstream pipe. What you don't use should be made available to those with extra demand. Apply at each router/switch. It's not an expensive algorithm.
No throttling, just a fair division of resources.
Throttling means providing a site with less than that N%. Throttling when popular means seeking to make a site unpopular. That's why you would do this. It does not mean sharing, it means confining. What I described would be sharing, but it isn't throttling. Even if you added RED.
In the case of video sharing sites, I have no sympathy at all with ISPs or with MPAA. They created this mess by blocking multicast and web caching to the home because they couldn't bill it. If multicast had been widely available then multiple people streaming the same thing at more or less the same time would not occupy any more of the net than one. If caching had remained in place, the bulk of the Internet would have remained clear.
This is a self-inflicted problem and the ISPs should sit down with the MPAA to figure out how to undo their mistakes.
Unusually for them, the vendors are almost innocent.
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I agree with most of this except this:
This is a self-inflicted problem and the ISPs should sit down with the MPAA to figure out how to undo their mistakes.
The ISPs are no less scummy than the MPAA, so your suggestion will not lead to anything of benefit for the general consumer. If anything, it would lead to some new profit-sharing scheme.
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No. Where is this throttling occurring?
If at the tower, well, these are the choke points to users. There's only so much capability. Stuck on an Interstate yesterday in a terrible traffic slowdown (due to an accident) I saw my data crippled from time to time. The density of users was several times more than designed for. Towers have only so much bandwidth.
If at the ISP gateway level, well, they are choosing how much to invest in peering.
How did this throttling manifest itself to users? Were YouTube videos d
Re:Cause or effect? (Score:5, Informative)
They created this mess by blocking multicast and web caching to the home because they couldn't bill it. If multicast had been widely available then multiple people streaming the same thing at more or less the same time would not occupy any more of the net than one.
Nobody blocks multicast. Multicast simply doesn't work like that: it doesn't mean that people can simultaneously stream Youtube or Netflix. That would only work if two or more subscribers would start the same video at the same quality at the same time.
Furthermore, multicast addresses are limited to 224.0.0.0/4, or 268,435,454 addresses. Not to mention that there is no global multicast infrastructure in place.
If caching had remained in place, the bulk of the Internet would have remained clear.
And who do you think is blocking caching? Hint: it's not the ISP. The ISP wants to cache, but in order to do so the content must be clear-text. Oh wait: everyone is moving to HTTPS, which cannot easily be broken.
Back in 2013 I was working for a large telecom equipment provider on a joint project with a large CDN provider to build a CDN/TIC solution. Youtube, Netflix and all major streaming sites were supported and cached. Until [b]they[/b] decided to break caching by switching to HTTPS.
Your ignorance in this matter cannot be understated.
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Ok, a pop quiz
1. What's the multicast address range for IPv6?
2. What were the years the mbone and 6bone went native on the backbone?
3. What is the relationship between the TTL and hop count on a multicast group?
4. What happens when you switch off multicast routing on an interface?
5. Who had the first IPv6 hub in the United Kingdom?
6. Who are the various authors of the major multicast how-tos?
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So far, no evidence the alleged ISP net tech is either working for an ISP or a network engineer. Still, plenty of time. The questions are carefully selected to examine the range of understanding in the specific area under dispute as well as the history of network engineering.
I'll add a few more. If there's no response by the claimant, then I might turn these into a drinking game.
7. Name the congestion control schemes relating to UDP that are also names of colours? (This is fair. If you're into drinking game
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That's easy. A.
Now, what is the airspeed of an unladen swallow?
Re:Cause or effect? (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody blocks multicast.
To be clear, every ISP blocks multicast transport between Internet AS's except in a very few special circumstances, and typically it is not routed within networks as well. It isn't that you can't bill for it, it is the inherent danger of multicast, and also multicast routing doesn't scale well.
Some end-user ISPs are considering using highly controlled multicast ABR to efficiently deliver live content to their own subscribers, but it is unlikely that multicast will ever be distributed across the Internet.
Multicast can be used to efficiently deliver popular non-live content as well (for example, see this paper [psu.edu]).
[FWIW I was involved in a multicast ABR trial]
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To be clear, every ISP blocks multicast transport between Internet AS's except in a very few special circumstances
Wrong. Multicast needs to be explicitly enabled and configured to function properly. What you're saying is similar to saying that all ISPs block MPLS at their borders.
It's not blocked. It's simply not configured.
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You're arguing semantics. My car doesn't support HDMI. Is it blocked or not enabled? (yes, it's intentionally a stupid analogy to go along with the stupid point)
Multicast can be supported on almost anything but it isn't, on purpose, because multicast is a great way to break far more than you're fixing most of the time. Plus it typically cannot be routed between subnets, on purpose again, because it's a great way to break far more than you're fixing. Again.
Plus multicast simply doesn't align with the us
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Some end-user ISPs are considering using highly controlled multicast ABR to efficiently deliver live content to their own subscribers, but it is unlikely that multicast will ever be distributed across the Internet.
As I recall, AT&T U-Verse uses multicast to deliver U-Verse TV content to their subscribers.
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Netflix has offered to colocate a cache box for various ISPs many times which would reduce their upstream traffic for popular movies to zero. Every time the ISP has demanded impractically massive payments for that rather than reducing their upstream costs. Apparently they only have congestion on their upstream when they want to use it as an excuse to demand more money or push their customers to a subsidiary.
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most turned down the offer due to Netflix was also hosting other providers content with the boxes and geting payed for it
whole " ITS FREE TO ISPS ETC" was a joke i believe slashdot even carried the story about it 2 years ago
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And that would harm the ISPs how? They would still be getting a break on the upstream that they claimed was oh so very expensive and congested.
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And that would harm the ISPs how? They would still be getting a break on the upstream that they claimed was oh so very expensive and congested.
Yup, this. They made such a huge complaint about peering agreements and cost as the focus.
Even if they had other content on the box, it still greatly limited upstream bandwidth (including for that other content!) and reduced those magical peering costs. It's not like the demand for that other 'scary' data goes away either...ISPs need to stop trying to play favorites and actually deliver the experience their customers are seeking.
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Yup, this. They made such a huge complaint about peering agreements and cost as the focus.
Even if they had other content on the box, it still greatly limited upstream bandwidth (including for that other content!) and reduced those magical peering costs. It's not like the demand for that other 'scary' data goes away either...ISPs need to stop trying to play favorites and actually deliver the experience their customers are seeking.
I have always assumed that ISPs want to limit upstream bandwidth of their consumer users to sell it to customers that provide content but there are other reasons for consumer customers to prefer asymmetrical upload and download speeds.
For what it is worth, my best home internet experiences were with symmetrical low latency technologies like SDSL even if I was not taking advantage of the higher upload speeds.
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No. Each TCP connection has it's own congestion control and the TCP algorithm for each connection is responsible for throttling itself.
So if I have 5 active connections from my machine to www.slashdot.org and one connection to tacotime.com; tacotime only gets 1/5th of the pie, not 1/2 of the pie.
There is no reason other than complexity that traffic shaping cannot aggregate separate connections to the same IP.
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No, If I want to use netflix there is no reason the ISP should get to denigrate it's performance vs youtube or any other video service. I the customer paid for the bandwidth and by treating different service differently they are no delivering what they sell. Of coarse they bury terms somewhere deep in their contract that basically say , we can do whatever we want but that doesn't change the perception they create. Nor does it change what I want, which is , access to the service I decide to access at the d
Think of the firefighters (Score:3)
Is all traffic really "created equal"? What if the firefighters [slashdot.org] or police need to send a video of something they are working on — and the local tower is faced with the dilemma of whether to drop your or their packets? They can't analyze the stream's content (even if it weren't encrypted), but they do know the endpoints.
YouTube, being pure entertainment, loses...
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Is all traffic really "created equal"? What if the firefighters [slashdot.org] or police need to send a video of something they are working on — and the local tower is faced with the dilemma of whether to drop your or their packets? They can't analyze the stream's content (even if it weren't encrypted), but they do know the endpoints.
YouTube, being pure entertainment, loses...
What if the firefighters are using YouTube to distribute real time video coverage of the fire to themselves?
There are ways for traffic shaping to handle situations like these and give the customers exactly what they purchased.
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If there is not enough bandwidth at a particular tower, somebody is going to get throttled no matter how the victim is chosen or how you "shape" the traffic.
Starting with those, who stream from YouTube, seems like a no-brainer — and the firefighters and other public service/emergency customers have special plans available to let them have priority.
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Is all traffic really "created equal"? What if the firefighters [slashdot.org] or police need to send a video of something they are working on â" and the local tower is faced with the dilemma of whether to drop your or their packets? They can't analyze the stream's content (even if it weren't encrypted), but they do know the endpoints.
There are two solutions here.
The first is that emergency services can, should, and have been building a separate cellular network called FirstNet [firstnet.gov]. It has its own frequencies, so no need for prioritization at layer 2 or higher when we've already given them their own exclusive layer 1.
The second is that those that need higher performance can pay for a higher CIR. This is how it has been done with business for years, and I really don't see why this can't happen with residential services.
Sure, we'll give you "u
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As you know — or should know — resource-dedication means resource-wastage. That is to say, this "FirstNet" thing should never have been created.
But that's not relevant, because, as we know from that earlier article I linked to already, for whatever reasons, firefighters do use private cellular networks [slashdot.org].
That's the advantage of it being run by a private c
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The competition already does...
You seem to be under the false assumption that there is competition in wired high-speed Internet service.
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You are under the false assumption that this article is about wired Internet service.
How embarrassing... Remember to logout.
Re:Cause or effect? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not at all what throttling means, which I suspect you already know full well and are intentionally misusing in an attempt to confuse the issue. To "throttle" is to "suppress" or to "reduce the speed of" or to "decrease the flow of". It's an imposition on something that is capable of more.
To use some car analogies, when I press a car's accelerator to the floor so that it can't go any faster, that isn't throttling. That's simply the fastest the car can go. Nothing more. When too many cars are on the road and we're forced to slow down, that isn't throttling. That's simply a bottleneck resulting from there being more traffic than the road can handle. Nothing more. When a Corolla loses to a Corvette in a drag race, that isn't throttling. That's simply different products performing to their different limits. Nothing more.
But when your car is capable of X and traffic conditions allow for X, yet you're intentionally using the accelerator to drive it at less than X, that's you throttling your car.
Likewise, when a site is serving content as fast as it can and can't go any faster, that isn't throttling. That's simply the fastest the site can go. Nothing more. When too much traffic hits a link along the route and the traffic can't be routed at full speed, that isn't throttling. That's simply a bottleneck resulting from there being more traffic than the link can handle. Nothing more. When a 50 Mbps plan is slower than a 1 Gbps plan in a speed test, that isn't throttling. That's simply different products performing to their different limits. Nothing more.
But when you and the site are capable of X and traffic conditions allow for X, yet an ISP is intentionally forwarding packets at less than X, that's the ISP throttling your connection.
All analogies break down at some point if you stretch them too far, so this is by no means an exhaustive list of the ways that ISPs may engage in throttling or other shady behavior (e.g. ISPs intentionally divert traffic for some sites to links that are constrained as a way to throttle those sites, which would be like a cop always diverting you back onto surface streets every time you tried to get on the highway; or ISPs may intentionally throttle certain types of traffic, which would be like manufacturers installing devices that limit your top speed based on the contents of your car when you started it), but they at least hit the high points.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
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