ISP Rant

[crazydog]

So I ranted a little about ISPs and their upload rates earlier...I thought I'd save it somewhere:

The reason that upload rates are so slow is because ISPs don't want to police people's usage
Most ISPs ToS don't let you run any kind of server, and instead of investigating and shutting them down one by one, they just cripple upstream speeds
It's a crappy way to do it and it inconveniences most people who would use it legitimately (like Ben), but it's a small price to pay compared to the ISP doing more draconian throttling.
There's no difference in uploading and downloading. It's on the same connection, just in opposite directions. It's a manufactured limitation.
I'm on a university campus, so the speeds are kinda skewed...45 Mbps down 2mbps up (as you can see they even do it here)
Not sure how I can get 45 Mbps when the LAN speed is only 10 mbps
My family at home gets 25down/2up IIRC
I mean, the "fastest" connection the ISP there offers is 50down/5up....a 45mb difference is totally stupid
And the ratio of down to up speeds is different...they offer four packages. from cheapest to most expensive the upstream is 8x faster, 12x faster, 12.5x faster, and 10x faster than the upstream
Now if you look at Verizon FIOS, they make a little more sense, at least in their middle package
25mbps up AND down
Sure it's expensive, but you're not going to get 25mbps upstream with any other provider for home service
Although their ratios are a lot more strange...15d/5u, 25d/25u, 50d/20u
It's ironic that Cox's 50/5 connection costs $35/more per month than Verizon's 25/25
but the sad part is FIOS isn't available everywhere
I'd gladly punch out 25mbps of my downstream for an extra 20mbps of my upstream and save $35/month in the process
I think 3 MB/s is enough
I never understood ISP monopolies
I mean, there's ONE cable provider and ONE DSL provider
That you can use at your household
How is that legal?
I mean, I understand that there isn't a monopoly in "The Internet", since you have those two choices, and dialup, and cell data via 3g/4g
But someone needs to slap the FTC and tell them that there's if a company (DSL) can't compete with another company (Cable) because their infrastructure is not physically capable of matching the speed of the other, something needs to be done to allow other companies to step in and provide compitition
Don't quote me on this, but IIRC, ISPs don't have to let other companies use their infrastructure, which is one cause of the monopoly. That's how railroads used to be until the government took over. You had to switch railroad companies because the tracks were physically different, so you couldn't stay with one company.

[Mustard]

That was both interesting and informative, thanks for sharing Crazydog.

[Frag_68]

Something to be noted though is that an ISP has to reliably guarantee a service that you pay for.  Since not everyone is going to utilize 25 up, they can allocate that bandwidth instead to download speeds and increase their profit margins.  Switches and routers don't care if it's up or down, it's all data traffic.  Your typical user has no real need for 25 mbps up but would much rather be able to get 20 of that tacked on to their Netflix download speed.

[verm]

Well said, sir. ISP "monoplies" are frustrating, but in the grand scheme of things an upload cap of 3-5 Mbps is the quickest blanket approach to keeping their "annoyances" to a minimum. Sure, there are legitimate reasons why you might need more upload bandwidth. But the truth is, when it comes to home users, today's majority of high-bandwidth uploading is malicious (e.g. copyrighted file sharing). The ISPs have it set in their mind that home customers will almost always be the consumer of data, not the creator or distributor (i.e. high downloads, low uploads) and that data centers will be the origin of high uploads since they're serving up all the content. Thus, they lock the bandwidth for more downloads than uploads for home users. It's lame, but ultimately it keeps their complaints down and their helps maintain their "image" as a quality, cutting-edge ISP to the everyday customer.

The interesting thing about all of this, is that newer tech solutions like "Web 2.0" pages, SaaS (Software as a Service), and cloud computing/storage, creates a dynamic. Take Dropbox or Carbontie as an example. Now I'm taking a large amount of local data and replicating it up to the cloud on a regular basis. Many of these services are decreasing the amount of data I need to pull down, but can also increase the amount of data I need to send back. If that model continues, you're going to see home users with less downstream traffic and more upstream traffic than what's being utilized today. I'd venture a guess that at some point, that will clash with the customer model ISPs use today. Unless of course (as Frag points out), you're streaming Netflix. Then the whole theory goes out the window I guess.  :\

Uh oh... looks like I geeked out.

[TheJuggler17]

I'm fairly unhappy with Comcast right now because in addition to changing my TV programming package so that the most interesting channel I get is The Weather Channel, they have placed a transfer cap on my internet.

With the payment plan that I have (49.99 / mo featuring 5mbps down and 3mbps up) starting at the beginning of this month I am charged an overage for all transfer in excess of 100GB per month.

100GB sounds like a pretty high limit at first, but when you think about it that goes very fast.
I do torrent and caps like this are aimed at downloaders or people who just use a lot of bandwidth.
If I download one movie in 1080p HD it is around 10GB, I'm a good bittorrent user and I always seed up to at least a 1:1 ratio but usually up to 1:2. So transfering that one movie is consuming 20% - 30% of my monthly allotment.

Honestly between general use, Skype, and TF2 I'm pushing it. I've been keeping track of network transfer recently and there are a lot of things that use bandwidth without me even noticing. What about automatic updates?
Antivirus, video drivers, windows updates - I have them all set to download and install automatically.
So by estimates based on recent observation, things like this consume 10% of my monthly allotment.

So now this makes me put careful consideration into every use of internet, it's now a limited resource - except it isn't. "I've only got 20GB worth of internet left this month, this youtube video or a cat playing piano had better be worth it."

I don't question leaving a light on when I go to work, or measure how much water my toilet uses and flush it as infrequently as possibe; I pay for the utilities and I use them.



Now you might be thinking how much are these overage charges really? It just started this month and I haven't inquired as to how I am being charged, I know it's some kind of tiered system.
What I do know is that my next internet bill is already going to be over $300. My rent is only $545 a month.
I'm being forced to get the next higher package or severely restrict my use of internet.

And as has been mentioned before, it's either Comcast or nothing in my area. They can charge whatever they want, make whatever changes they want, and remove as many services they want.

It's either that or radio, hobbies, going outside and talking to real people, volunteer work, community service - it only gets worse from there.




EDIT: also Verm definitely knows what he's talking about there.

With very high network speeds becoming more standard today, it has become very convenient and efficient to use network transfer rather than physical media.

In fact a lot of people say that Blu-Ray will be the last mass-consumed physical media. There will always be a place for physical media, but it is going the way of RAID drives and tape backup - just a backup for liability purposes.

And yeah I forgot about things like Netflix, streaming media is on it way to *replacing* physical media and in some ways even broadcast television.
Just a few years ago that would have been impossible for a majority of people, now it's pretty much standard.

More and more use of modern computers is relying and moving lots of information over a network - and why not, it's very efficient and very effective.
And what the ISPs are protecting here is their bottom line, they can charge the user the same amount of money for an increasingly limited service.


Also on the topic of illegal downloads and piracy - video game companies hate businesses like Gamestop and Gametrade a whoooooole lot more than they hate piracy. These are legitimate businesses re-selling their product, keeping people from buying new copies. That is a *much* bigger problem for them than a few people pirating it.

[verm]

Juggler... 5mbps down, 100GB cap... what region are you in? I'm in the Philly area and I get 20-21mbps down (though my bill has now said 6mbps w/ 12mbps powerboost for months). Regardless, I'll definitely agree - Comcast is lame. Period. But they've got alot of people by the balls, and they know it.

Oh, and good point about Gamestop, Gametrader, etc. I didn't think about them. But the ISPs' "strategy" to throttle bandwidth isn't about the impact to the music, movies, and games industries. They really don't care how much money those guys are or aren't losing. They just care about their expense of having to upgrade infrastructure to support more bandwidth. If they can leverage Johnny Law to defend why they don't want to upgrade their networks, they will. Even if it's five people in the whole country doing it. It's still illegal and thus, a justification (albeit a poor one) to do what they do.

[TheJuggler17]

Juggler... 5mbps down, 100GB cap... what region are you in?

I live in Morgantown WV, the local office is in Pittsburgh PA. And I am largely getting the speeds that I am supposed to get, benchmarks during non-peak hours reach 6mbps. The 100gb cap started at the beginning of this month (or rathar this billing cycle) and overage fees apply retroactively through the previous billing cycle.

I'm in the Philly area and I get 20-21mbps down

Well you suck then

Comcast is lame. Period. But they've got alot of people by the balls, and they know it.

Right, what else am I going to do - read a book? Because that's the only other option. I live in apartments so I can't install a satelite dish (satelite internet usually sucks but is at least an option) and I imagine a very small number of people in town are in a living situation where they can insall a dish, everybody lives in apartments somewhere.
So it's either Comcast or nothing - they know it and they use it.

(in regards to piracy)Even if it's five people in the whole country doing it. It's still illegal and thus, a justification (albeit a poor one) to do what they do.

And - a bit off topic but - the number of people pirating movies and games is hardly as large as some sources claim. Most blockbuster movies and popular games have a 1% - 5% piracy rate; there are notable exceptions to this but it is mostly the case.

This is not enough to elicit a significant response from the company producing this product, considering the losses it is not important enough to take too many drastic measures to protect the product.

However there are significant exceptions (up yours Ubisoft) that take piracy very seriously and place Orwellian DRM on their product to keep it from being copied. This usually only punishes the legitimate buyer as the pirate must circumvent the DRM to play the game.

In fact Nintendo pretty much came right out and said they don't care about illegal modifications to the Wii console in a press release. They take their protections against the problem in proportion to the severity of the problem. In their case - not very severe at all.



eh - sorry about being off topic but it's my thing ya know.

[WidowMaker]

Shit if Verizon ever capped it's bandwidth I'd be fucked. I download shit like it's going out of style and like others I use torrents alot and currently have a 20:1 ratio(I just leave the shit running) One of my sites Ratio: 19.255  Uploaded:1.666 TB   Downloaded:88.608 GB.

Also I totally agree with physical discs going the way of the dodo. I just put a media manager on my pc's which connects to my fios boxes. I can stream any content from any of my computers right across the network, wireless or wired, it doesn't even skip!! First I used to download, convert then burn, then bought a dvd that played divx and just had to burn, then a dvd with usb, just copy and plug in, now I can run everything right through the fios box. Granted that is not taking up ISP bandwidth but all these same concepts are everywhere.

I am thinking of moving to Florida and the area only has comcast. Only thing I am dreading about!!!!

Widow

[LTK]

I've had Verizon FIOS and Time Warner cable. Both companies are different sides of the same "EAT SHIT AND GIVE US YOUR MONEY" coin.

Fuck them both. (Only thing available, at all, in my area.) At least FIOS was really fuckin' fast when I first got it. lol

Cannot access offset of type string on string