RSSCox experiments with an 'anti-throttling' alternative
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published January 28, 2009, 11:57 AM
While throttling is still being treated by some Internet users as an implicit form of discrimination, the nation's ISPs must find both a technologically and politically correct method of managing their traffic congestion problems.
The US' second largest ISP, by many estimates, remains the nation's second greatest blocker of Internet traffic believed to be related to BitTorrent protocol. This according to the most recent test data released yesterday by the Max Planck Institute.
But Cox Communications this morning says it's trying an alternate approach to managing the growing problem of Internet network congestion, in tests being conducted among broadband customers throughout Kansas and Arkansas. Prompted by an FCC investigation into throttling techniques by the nation's largest ISP Comcast -- also the US' greatest throttler of traffic, historically, according to Planck researchers -- Cox will be implementing a prioritization technique that will rush certain traffic according to type, rather than penalize other types.
This technique, states Cox spokesperson David Grabert in a statement to the Associated Press, reflects "the time-sensitive nature of the Internet traffic itself."
As Cox' Web site is informing its customers, the experimental technique "automatically ensures that all time-sensitive Internet traffic -- such as Web pages, voice calls, streaming videos and gaming -- moves without delay. Less time-sensitive traffic, such as file uploads, peer-to-peer, and Usenet newsgroups, may be delayed momentarily -- but only when the local network is congested."
This morning, the policy director of public advocacy group Free Press expressed skepticism about Cox' methodology.
"The lesson we learned from the Comcast case is that we must be skeptical of any practice that comes between users and the Internet," wrote the group's Ben Scott. "The information provided by Cox gives little indication about how its new practices will impact Internet users, or if they comply with the FCC's Internet Policy Statement. Cox customers will certainly want to know more about how the company is interfering with their Internet traffic and what criteria it uses to discriminate."
The Planck group's numbers indicate that, while throttling among all ISPs including Cox and Comcast has been on a decline since last April and has plummeted since August -- when the FCC started taking notice -- on occasion, Cox has blocked up to 40% of BitTorrent traffic. However, it may not have been blocking any such traffic using throttling methods since the beginning of this year.
you would think that the cable company would use the same protocol as DSL. There is two types of DSL Symmetric DSL refers to DSL technologies that provide the same bandwidth upstream and downstream ( cost more money ). Asymmetric (ADSL) is ideal for most homes and small businesses. Most of its two-way or duplex bandwidth is devoted to the downstream direction, sending data to the user. Only a small portion of bandwidth is available for upstream or user-interaction messages. This is what I have at my busness.
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|Just play the rolling brown-out game...or well, rolling entire-service throttling.
I know its not a great idea, the idea of any type of throttling, but just set up a system where you put different people on different hours where their entire service is throttled. It sounds radical, but it might work.
Obviously speed issues are not really a problem during the non-peak hours, those being from 12AM to 3PM, so you wouldn't throttle anything between those hours, but between the PEAK hours of 3PM and 12AM, just throttle different groups of people for 30 mins to 1 hour, kind of like rolling black outs achieves.
I mean there is not many other options out there:
-Throttle P2P -> does not follow net neutrality law
-Block P2P -> ditto
-Throttle certain websites (e.g. Youtube.com) -> again, net neutrality, besides pissing off everyone on the net
-Compress images -> doesnt really do much to reduce bandwidth
I guess the other thing they could do is act like a usenet server, except for the internet. Just store massive amounts of the internet locally. Requires a lot of storage, and should something go down, they are screwed, but this may work.
Another thing they might want to consider, although unethical (and something I would never go along with unless digital box rental prices were dropped to $0) is to eliminate analog cable tv, as it is a huge bandwidth burden.
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|they can investigate this, but not the riaa trying to force isp to give them private info, or monitoring the data itself
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|I agree, companies should not be trying to throttle or limit existing bandwidth, but should be turning profit into more profit by adding more bandwidth and more equipment to keep up with demand.
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|How do you "turn profit into more profit" by adding bandwidth... if the marked value of an internet connection is 40/month, adding bandwidth to accommodate the increased usage of things like skype, youtube, hulu, and bit torrent isn't going to change an ISPs gross income, unless they increase their price.
As more people start to fully utilize their internet connections, they the consumers get more value for their money. This is the real world not the fairy dust land of sunshine and lollipops, if the user is getting more value for their money, it is at the expense of the ISP who is making less profit and as a result has less money to invest in more bandwidth.
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|cox before you even think of tampering with the activity why not try adding more bandwidth.
fiber is very cheap ( novelty fiber optic christmas tree a few dollars).
just run more lines to handle the load.
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|"just run more lines to handle the load."
Running just one mile of new fiber can run anywhere from $80,000 to $500,000 depending on locale, terrain, and other conditions. (City usually costing more than rural, oddly enough, as I understand it)
So yeah, they can raise your rates to $6,000 a month to cover that cost, or the can find other means.
Of course, I wouldn't suggest limiting traffic and calling it "not throttling" as one of those methods. Sadly, iTard7 doesn't seem to have cornered the market on "Stupid".
...so far. ;)
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|Sure.. That is why I moved to U-Verse.. Cox stopped upgrading there network and ATT turned out to be fast.. Like comcast and the other cable vendors they will either upgrade or continue to lose market share.
Yes they have a biz and yes they need to make money. And spending money in R&D is apart of it. Cox has the speed within there network just not outside. They just need to up there connection maybe sell an upgraded service with no-torrent blocking. But to put content providers using torrent tech is not acceptable. what next block/degrade VoIP.. (wait they already do...outside there products)
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|"[city costing more]"
Cities have more pavement/buildings to dig under, more permits,
more officials to appease, etc per mile than Uncle Joe's back forty.
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|Throttling BitTorrent traffic is the least of what they're doing, piratebay is blocked. Many use the site for illegal uploads/downloads but I've used it for years downloading and uploading large (500-900Mb) technical videos from my company to my engineers around the world to observe and use, without charge from piratebay for this valuable privilege.
Cox is generalizing and interfering with internet traffic and should be slapped silly and fined by Congress for their social engineering.
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|"I've used it for years downloading and uploading large (500-900Mb) technical videos from my company to my engineers around the world"
Sounds like your company should be hosting it's own torrent site (not to mention a flagrant violation of the Cox ToS)?
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|Never mind The Tool. He's a corporate w.h.o.r.e. And a cheap one at that.
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|Same s***, different day, eh troll?
Someone needs to get some new material...
Of course *you* would think people should be free to use any service as they see fit, regardless of the actual ability or cost to that service to support it. Of course, you're also utterly clueless when it comes to things like the infrastructure requirements and cost of hosting those services, hence your fallback to the tired response, calling "corporate wh***!" to cover your own soul-sucking ignorance.
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|it costs these telecom companies pennies to deliver services though, well maybe a little more than a few pennies but not much, and yet some folks are paying 40$ a month for internet along with whatever their local and long distance telephone costs, some at around 105$ a month and thats just for landline along with internet. these companies can't expand their network? yeah... right, i can see why they would rather throttle than advance their networks and expand, sitting on all that cash
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|ROI.
Investing money in new infrastructure does not offer a competitive return at this point. The high cost and low return (until new users are signed and bandwidth throttling measures are once again necessary) does not make business sense until a certian point is reached. Obviously, that point has not yet been reached.
That $40 a month is likely still paying off their initial outlays (though the name of your ISp may change from day to day, the companies selling *them* the bandwidth are the one's setting the prices and recouping initial costs). I highly doubt the "huge reserves of cash" estimate, especially now with the grant money tied into the stimulus package for broadband.
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|man get the hell outta here they didnt even pay to lay what they got now.
we paid for what like 80% with are tax money
with all of the tax credits they got
get the hell over it
they have been sittin on the networks for years and have not done any thing with it but sat back and got paid
its just like my state they let the roads and bridges go and now there gettin a ton of money to get it all fix at a cost to all the tax payers
and from the fed gov too
sorta like agi **** off suck up all that money and then get a bail out and then go and party and blow 400,000 at a resort
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|"the companies selling *them* the bandwidth are the one's setting the prices and recouping initial costs"
Did you miss that part?
The companies that originally laid most of the infrastructure (not the back-bone, but city-wide/rural) may not even be around anymore but the companies that bought them, bought their debt (cost) as well.
..or do you think it's cheap to run fiber under city streets and sidewalks?
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|...growing problem of Internet network congestion...
And what happens when everybody starts streaming HD movies?
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|any throttling is pro-throttling...
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|"that will rush certain traffic according to type, rather than penalize other types."
Bull.
Example: A pipe has 2 types of liquid running through it. While both liquids flow at the same speed, pumping more of one type of liquid in it will leave *less* room for the other liquid, thus less of that liquid will reach the destination in any given time-frame. You aren't *rushing* the bits, you're widening it's lane, this shrinks the lane the other bits can occupy, thus limiting the amount of traffic that can flow through that lane.
You cannot rush one type without penalizing another without expanding your capacity. Pure and simple.
'Less time-sensitive traffic, such as file uploads, peer-to-peer, and Usenet newsgroups, may be delayed momentarily"
Ah... "delay" != penalizing. OK. They're playing from their own made-up dictionaries again.
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|And obvious (and obviously flawed) option is to suggest users voluntarily set a "low priority" flag. TCP/IP ToS or IP priority bits, or new proposals. It is in everyone's interest to let "background" tasks run effectively ni the network environment. If "they" (COX, any ISP, net engineers) are going to experiment, perhaps consider the social side as well as technical. A thought.
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