Technology for Mortals

Check it out, now 7Mbps DSL from Verizon:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jLCZh5cj0eybNXZj-RQXwPIxNNAQD918KJU00

I don’t think that’s an FTTN service from Verizon since they’re focused on FTTH with FiOS. But 7 Mbps is still decent and it’s always good to see more speed options. At present time because I’m well beyond 12,000 feet, the best I can get is 3 Mbps sync rates which translates to about 2.4 Mbps actual throughput.

The basic issue we’re all talking about is: Who is going to ensure that the valuable and economically thriving open platform that the internet is, is going to continue thriving and be open?

The fear that fragmentation of the service surrounding internet access in slow, fast, good site, bad site lanes is going to harm the internet as we know it is not terribly far fetched.

The burden of proof to dispell these fears lays squarely at the feet of those who want to radically change the way we deal with the internet.

Also do not ignore that empowering users is an important concept. If you empower home network users to setup their own QoS on their routers, and teach their Real time and P2P applications to use QoS, no intervention of the ISP is required in order to render a better service, in fact, it would be harmfull.

Please do not ignore as well that there are many legitimate applications of P2P networks (like Steam, legal torrents, etc.) that essentially scale with their userbase. If you create an ISP ecosystem that makes use of P2P applications slow and cumbersome, you directly stiffle the next generation of distribution networks that underdog companies are building and using to deliver groundbreaking services (like valve)

I’m sorry, but your just naive on several fronts. the net neutrality primary concern is with tampering with user data, ie inserting adds, removing content from viewability, etc. Might as well get internet from china if net neutrality isn’t approved, because they’re likely to be just as kind, if not kinder than your isp in their censorship.
Now, back to your main touting point: non neutrality hurts combined services by allowing some applications to hoard bandwidth. This is true, but not for why you say. The underlying problem is not enough bandwidth to the home to support content. say you want to stream a hour tv show from some independent group. assume they get full bandwidth priority, which is a stretch in a non-net neutrality world. say its standard dvd resolution, and 60 minutes long, so compressed at high quality your looking at 300MB+ for h264 or divx. so, you need to dl .5MB/second to support constant playback, or 4mbits, the going peak speed for comcast’s middle of the road plan. your spouse/kid/significant other wants to watch something else? tough. want to skype your friend to collaborate on an article about what your watching? nope, no extra room. So why not pump up to 7 or 10 mbit, or the like? sure, you can do that. Except your not going to get what you paid for. why? ISPs over sell their actual network bandwidth. Infact, at current speeds, many, especially cable, are oversold. IE they can’t support everyone on their network using their full contractual bandwidth all the time. Now, this used to be realistic–people left their computers off most of the time, only browsed web pages, which mostly don’t require alot of bandwidth. but people increasingly want to game, fileshare, watch tv, videoconference, etc which is translating into larger amounts of constantly consumed bandwidth. this is especially true in av content because the current bandwidth doesn’t support live video to the user. so people compensate by streaming while their doing something else, which runs their section of the bandwidth at full capacity. now get everyone on a cable node trying to do that and you run into ISP hell: you can’t provide anywhere near the bandwidth you promissed. your customers are pissed that they’re only getting 1/4 or less of what they paid for. what do you do? two choices: 1) increase the backbone to support demand or 2) throttle/kill the most demanding bandwidth consumer. Number 2 costs alot less money, (next to nothing compared to the cost of laying new fiber for all customers) which is why ISPs are hitting p2p services. They don’t care whether your downloading notes from work, a family reunion video made by a relative across the country, the latest flavor of linux, a software title you bought online distributed through bittorrent, the latest livecd for your linux distribution of choice, etc. but that’s not going to be enough for long. A lot of people i know are starting to watch streaming tv broadcast from their producing studios website, like battlestar from scifi. Its a major bandwidth hog, just like youtube. It and gaming content is next on the hit list. Gaming is next because games are bursty and potentially cause random clogs in the network. If you understand how ip networking stacks manage bandwidth, you know that momentary clogs in the network cause them to step down their bandwidth use significantly and then try to slowly work back up. so loading a 10 kb webpage can take seconds on a heavily gamed network. I work for a college isp that already quashed p2p trafic, gaming content, and have just recently added in web streaming video to ensure quality of service for web surfing and email. why? we have plenty of in network bandwidth, but less than 100kbit/sec bandwidth per user to the internet. So when faced with the expensive option of buying more bandwidth, or the cheep option of traffic shapping the network, our bottom line made the decision. The large ISPs are pulling the same trick. The limit their dealing with is in the bandwidth in the network between your house and the major network trunks. but the most cost effective solution for them is the same as it is for us: control your user’s content. For them, it offers extra money, because they can also sell priority access to businesses on the web. its win-win for the ISP, loose for public buisness and customers. not to mention free speach and free usage.
The way I see net neutrality is this: I contract for a certain amount of bandwidth, be it per month or per second. whether or not I use it all is my business, What I do with my bandwidth is also my buisness, as long as it doesn’t infringe on legality. I don’t contract for someone to muck the hell with my data inbetween me and its destination. I buy bandwidth, the need to supply it, not monkey around trying to defraud me and every other consumer.

"Gaming is next because games are bursty and potentially cause random clogs in the network"

That is so far from the truth it’s pathetic. Games are extremely predictable, use very little bandwidth, and cause almost zero latency because of its isochronous behavior. I’ve researched and exerimented with this very carefully and I know this to be true.

"I’m sorry, but your just naive on several fronts. the net neutrality primary concern is with tampering with user data, ie inserting adds, removing content from viewability, etc."

You call yourself "informed" yet you exhibit almost zero grasp of the issues or the facts. Here’s the actual quotation from the proposed Net Neutrality legislation. For the record, I’m against any kind of tampering of user data, insertion of ads, removing content, blocking, etc. But Net Neutrality legislation has nothing to do with those things.

Markey proposal from 2006:
SECTION 201. NETWORK NEUTRALITY.
(b) IN GENERAL.-Each broadband network provider has the duty-
(3) if the provider prioritizes or offers enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type, to prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin of such data) without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service;

Snowe-Dorgan proposal from 2006:
(5) only prioritize content, applications, or services accessed by a user that is made available via the Internet within the network of such broadband service provider based on the type of content, applications, or services and the level of service purchased by the user, without charge for such prioritization;

Conyers-Lofgren proposal from 2008:
"If a broadband network provider prioritizes or offers enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type, it must prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin or ownership of such data) without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service."

Lastly, learn how to use paragraphs. It’s your best friend in readability.

[Moderator note: Censored for F bomb profanity. Nothing of value other than a one sentence slur]

@Host

Ah, so ISPs want to SUPPORT users in letting them choose their QoS?

All the better, so when can I expect my ISP to do my bidding and let ME define MY QoS policies on a suitable control paneel? Better yet when do

What I find the funniest in this entire discussion (and the comments, especially "an informed consumer") is that people who would choose to break the law and steal content over P2P networks try to hide their actions behind net neutrality.

The very concept of P2P isn’t an effecient distribution of data (because it fails at that, most torrents are incomplete or unreachable within a short period of time), but rather a means by which copyrighted and stolen material can be distributed and sidestep laws such as DMCA. By hitching their thieving fingers onto the net neutrality banner, they make out as if they are angels oppressed by "the man".

Wrong-o bongo. You guys (and girls) are actively using the internet to steal software, movies, and music. You all know that a direct FTP download would be more effecient (and thus better for the entire net) but you know you can’t do it because most of the material moving over P2P networks is illegal.

In the end, when they say "keep the net free" they are saying "let me keep stealing with impunity". It is two different issues and nobody should make the mistake of mixing the two things up.

Florian says: "Also do not ignore that empowering users is an important concept. If you empower home network users to setup their own QoS on their routers, and teach their Real time and P2P applications to use QoS, no intervention of the ISP is required in order to render a better service, in fact, it would be harmfull."

No, QoS on the home router can’t adequately deal with the DOWNSTREAM problem. QoS primarily deals with the transmission of data so in the context of your home router, that’s UPSTREAM.

You really need to get more informed about the problems of QoS.
http://www.formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/57/Default.aspx

Even when you throttle BitTorrent to 50% of your capacity and leave plenty of throughput available to gaming, VoIP, and IPTV, the latency caused by BitTorrent is very problematic. You need the ISP to implement the proper packet scheduling priority on the ISP side to fix the problem.

George Ou

"All the better, so when can I expect my ISP to do my bidding and let ME define MY QoS policies on a suitable control paneel? Better yet when do bloddy ISPs start bloddy supporting QoS tagged packages that users for long now could use?"

It would certainly be nice to have a control panel to allow you to designate downstream priority, but the Net Neutrality legislation would outlaw that because they forbid you from implementing QoS that designates the source. It also forbids you from charging for QoS if you read the legislation I quoted.

IPTV is a service that MUST have guaranteed bandwidth and guaranteed low-latency because people expect their IPTV service to work like Cable or Satellite TV. The last thing consumers want is to have their IPTV stutter and break up anytime someone in the home starts downloading content via HTTP, FTP, or BitTorrent (which causes the most downstream latency because it’s multi-stream). Google is lobbying the government to ban Broadband providers from prioritizing traffic which cripples the broadband providers from offering converged IPTV service.

The unfortunate side effect of these laws would mean that we won’t get converged service. What you’ll get is the Cable Broadband status quo which locks the lion’s share of bandwidth away for analog/digital TV distribution which is grossly inefficient. So by being petty and preventing Broadband providers from prioritizing their TV services, consumers get left with a permanent slow lane.

With converged IPTV and broadband on a single IP network, the user gets to choose by simply shutting off the IPTV set-top box which frees up all that bandwidth to the consumer. The user can also opt out of IPTV service all together though they wouldn’t get the volume service discounts of buying a bundled service but the point is that they still get to choose.

So you must ask yourself this: Do you want a permanent slow lane? Or do you want to have a slow lane PLUS a really fast lane that gets dynamically allocated to IPTV whenever you watch TV?

George Ou

First of all, I am no technical expert. But…here’s my issue with your blog entry

As I understand it, ISP’s have been given tax breaks(correct me if I’m wrong, but I did read about this somewhere) to put down more advanced lines that can handle the bandwidth that the demand new technologies create. I am currently in college, but as far as I can remember cable and DSL have not really made any leaps and bounds in terms of speed versus price in the last five years for the consumer. Atleast, my quality of service has not changed(it has remained tolerable, with the occasional hiccups). What I can’t understand is why these ISP’s cannot keep up with modern technology and do what they need to do to meet the demand. Instead, they pull shit like this in order to increase their revenue.

Mr. Ou, your argument is basically a compromise on what to do with a limited supply of bandwidth. Forget the shadiness of so many ISP’s currently advertising more bandwidth than they actually provide, but if you guys IMPROVE the backbone(as that other dude said) isn’t your whole QoS workaround unnecessary? Why do the ISP’s gotta be so cheap =(.

-hat

@George

You need to seperate concerns properly, which I don’t think you do.

Fine is:
- doing new products
- offering better service/network for more money
- build a network and charge for ac

"I (user) pay a 1mbit up/10mbit down broadband internet network connection,"

No you don’t. You pay for a SHARED line. You’re not paying for a dedicated commercial grade CIR (Committed Information Rate) business class line. When the ISP sells you bandwidth, they’ve told you that it’s "UP TO" a certain maximum bandwidth and you’re confusing that to mean the minimum bandwidth.

You’re changing the subject in to a bunch of rhetorical meaningless slogans and you’re not addressing the real concerns of the Net Neutrality legislation. Now if you’ve got the courage, answer the question and tell me if you want to ban prioritization or not and whether you support the Net Neutrality legislation I’ve quoted. Then when you’re willing to answer the question, we can then debate the issues.

George Ou

"First of all, I am no technical expert. But…here’s my issue with your blog entry

As I understand it, ISP’s have been given tax breaks(correct me if I’m wrong, but I did read about this somewhere) to put down more advanced lines that can handle the bandwidth that the demand new technologies create."

Yes I can see you’re no technical expert, but you’re not an expert on history either.

Then answer is no, there have not been tax breaks for the ISPs.

"Mr. Ou, your argument is basically a compromise on what to do with a limited supply of bandwidth. Forget the shadiness of so many ISP’s currently advertising more bandwidth than they actually provide, but if you guys IMPROVE the backbone(as that other dude said) isn’t your whole QoS workaround unnecessary? Why do the ISP’s gotta be so cheap =(."

If you think QoS is a supply issue, you’re flat wrong. As I’ve shown in my research

http://www.formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/57/Default.aspx

Just 20% utilization on the network can cause severe latency issues and harm the quality of service. If you’ve ever tried to game with a roommate using P2P, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

George Ou

I think the entire argument on whether or not the ISP’s have a right to setup QoS on traffic based on type is fundamentally flawed. The real issue is there simply is not enough bandwidth available on our current infrastructure to provide real time services such as VoIP, IPTV, and Gaming while supporting its current load from everything else (http, ftp, email, p2p, etc). So as it stands, ISP’s want to offer a band aid solution of QoS’ing and shaping network traffic based on type, instead of doing what is actually necessary to fix the problem; increasing available bandwidth.

I realize that the actual solution is an expensive one, and I fully understand why ISP’s don’t want to do it, but you’d be ignorant if you didn’t realize that all this battle is one over a solution that is temporary at best.

It’s an infrastructure problem first, and a QoS problem second. Ideally, and what is potentially in the best interest of the consumer (in my opinion of course) is what was suggested earlier; we are provided with a guarenteed amount of bandwidth, and it is up to us how we decide to use it (assuming ISP’s were capable/willing of providing an adequate amount of bandwidth).

"I think the entire argument on whether or not the ISP’s have a right to setup QoS on traffic based on type is fundamentally flawed. The real issue is there simply is not enough bandwidth available on our current infrastructure to provide real time services such as VoIP, IPTV, and Gaming while supporting its current load from everything else (http, ftp, email, p2p, etc)."

No Tristan, don’t assume sufficient bandwidth will eliminate latency and jitter problems.

See what happens when only 20% of a broadband connection is utilized by BitTorrent.
http://www.formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/57/Default.aspx

Even when you have more than enough bandwidth with 80% of a Broadband connection unused for VoIP, gaming, or IPTV, you can still run in to serious latency and jitter problems induced by applications like BitTorrent.

Secondly, you’d be foolish to assume that more bandwidth means lower utilization on the networks. Japan found this out when even having 100 Mbps fiber to the home for most homes didn’t solve the congestion problem. Their utilization was filled to capacity because you can never have enough capacity and people will always fill it up.

So before you start calling other people ignorant, educate yourself first.

George Ou

George, I am all for intelligent networks, converged pipes, IPTV, CDN, and so on and so on-all the things that can make the Net the best that it can be.

Leaving it to the so-called free market is to leave it to the monopolists, of all colors and stripes, and the gouging sure to follow, not to mention insuring a whole lot of have-not’s left by the wayside and out in the cold. Strictly speaking, we don’t have “free” markets. We have a few monopolists jockeying for position.

Loose talk favors calling the Net the Information Highway, or Superhighway in the case of alleged broadband, at speeds that come nowhere near those in Japan or South Korea. The very speeds that were promised and paid for by taxpayers and consumer citizens in the passage of the Telecommunications Act and never ever delivered anywhere.

So let’s do that, use that metaphor, that model. Let’s declare through simple legislation that “broadband” is the functional equivalent of the interstate highway system, and that it’s common carriage. Or that it’s the equivalent of the provision of electric power, also common carriage.

Furthermore, let the federal government establish a funding mechanism for building such a system out, far and wide, just the same as the interstate system. Perhaps we could start with the payments it received in the recent bidding “wars” for the public’s frequencies that were sold at auction, and a tax on the windfalls to all local broadcast stations now with multiple digital channels instead of their former single analogue channels.

I am infuriated at the continuing pretense that bandwidth is, or has to be, such a scarce commodity. All the better to charge us off the wall prices as Comcast has begun to do for it’s supreme speeds. We can solve all of this business by truly deregulating and not restricting access to communities to one cable company and one local telco, creating a real free market. Then watch them run.

Perhaps this is a bit tongue in cheek, but it looks to me these comm companies want to prevent their customers doing anything other than surf the web, view advertising.

The least expensive in my location is 33.00/mo. — yeah, right, to surf the web.

I think their problems is, they don’t really have a product at all.

Bryan

"Perhaps this is a bit tongue in cheek, but it looks to me these comm companies want to prevent their customers doing anything other than surf the web, view advertising."

Bryan, can you substantiate anything you said? What application does your ISP block? Oh that’s right, they don’t. You’re making this up. This is why is it so hard to have an honest and informed debate.

George Ou

As a network analyst of an ISP – its dam right that prioritization is a MUST!

Over the last couple of years at least – there has been an "evolutionary" step in the way in which the internet is used by the mass public. Streaming; VOIP and IPTV are/have become part of a users typical internet session. The typical user expects that whatever they look at or use; it must work.

Now as a ISP; improving the backhaul is an ongoing process – it never stops but it costs a massive amount of money and takes time to implement (perhaps the content providers youtube; iPlayer etc could help with these costs or at least place there content on local ISP servers!!). Regardless of this investment – P2P services are just so hungry that they consume whatever is available. P2P is, in my opinion, 99% illegal and statistically lowers the service of legitimate paying internet users – the guys who may suffer while “paying” to watch VoD content.

When we have (through testing) disconnected heavy P2P users or lowered/capped there download speeds (during peak hours only) – the performance of the masses of users on the same dle etc have improved considerably.

Why should the majority suffer for the sake of the minority who are most likely using the network for illegal purpose.

Hello George,

After reading your "Why BitTorrent causes so much latency and how to fix it" I am very pleased to see part of the solution might be I the hands of Bittorrent by improving there network " friendliness "
There is one thing that I find misleading in this article.

"…since P2P cannot deliver a good on-demand streaming experience beyond 300 Kbps or whatever the common broadband upstream speed is."

Please do not use bad math as it tends to spoil a otherwise good article.

The streaming speed of a modern P2P network is , given a high Seeder/leecher ratio your maximum DOWNLOAD speed.
P2P_Download_speed = MIN [( common broadband upstream speed ) x nr of seeders , Your_Max_Download_Speed ]

"That’s the problem with out-of-order delivery from a bunch of peers that may or may not be there unless it had several times more seeders than downloaders. Since the normal ratio is several times more downloaders than seeders, you simply can’t do high-bandwidth in-order delivery of video."

I do not see why you feel the need to disinform the public about the quality and speed of ILLIGAL and PIRATED content. What you say is if correct if you consider open bittorrent systems where everyone can join or leave as they want disregarding the community.

It is in no way true for closed systems.
Without advocating or promoting in any way such service, just taking a quick pick at the status section of a site Bittorrent site like http://hdbits.org I see :

Peers>>127,381
Seeders>>121,450
Leechers>>5,931
Seeder/leecher ratio>>>20:1

What This means in practice is that:

1. By being a closed community, the quality of the materials offered to be PIRATED and STOLEN is very high.

2. The high seeder/leacher ratio ensures that the downloaded take usually place at a speed very near of your maximum capacity.

3. Yes, you may not start enjoying your freshly STOLEN and PIRATED content until it is finished.

"This is why you’re not seeing YouTube take a dive in popularity and every instant-play site uses the client-server CDN delivery model."

Personally I do not see any frame in that YouTube competes in any way with Biittorrents. YouTube is in the legal casual entertainment market, "most" Torrent sites are in the full feature ILLIGAL PIRETED content market.

As for the use of the CDN delivery model by instant-play sites, I personally do not think that they use the client-server system because it can not be done with P2P, but more because building a Fully Auditable P2P network that has each customer become in turn a redistributor of copyrighted content is a considerable harder thing to do taken into account that you have to convince the big studios that it is save and works despite the fact that there content resides mostly at your customers location on hardware that you have absolutely no right to intimately inspect or control.

"The main reason P2P is so popular is because there is so much “free” (read pirated) content available. The actual usability and quality sucks compared to commercial video on demand services."

Yes, I totally agree with the first part. The high amount of PIRATED and STOLEN content makes the use of P2P so attractive. The usability in open Torrent systems sucks and the quality lacks any control.

For closed systems, the quality of the STOLEN and PIRATED content is strictly regulated by the community and it can compete anytime with the commercial systems.

Now that we have this out of the way, I can address an other issue.
I have a very hard time understanding what the problem actually is. People are talking about enabling things, and building a web for the future and a lot of positively sounding platitudes. I want to hear hard problems and I want to see how bleeds money because the Internet is the way it is now. I want to see the real problem so that the real interests may be seen clearly.

This is how I see it.

1. On current networks, Torrents even thou they use ILLIGAL and PIRETED content, from a quality and usability point of view ROCK.

2. On the current networks that are clearly empowered by Torrents and P2P , the difficulty and cost of running a legal CDN is very high.

3. The current networks are very inhospitable for things like IPTV. In my experience, Games and VoIP work fine and somehow manage deliver a good experience. ( That is if the game itself is good )

4. For the RIAA, Torrents = losing money

5. For the RIAA, IPTV = earning money

6. "network intelligence and enhanced QoS" are undoubtabley a way to make Torrents (that due to many factors have a considerable advantage over payed solutions ) , become considerably less competitive. By making Torrents suck, it will make it possible for IPTV to rock, and of course make a lot of money.

7. In a way, They parties that will benefit from a certain type of traffic will be able to BUY from the ISP bandwidth that the ISP has already partially sold to the consumer.

8. Who is to say that for me, the consumer, IPTV & games & VoIP are more important then Torrents ? The ISP together with the ‘whoever might make money out of other type of traffic" ?

9. Given the foreseeable shift of powers it will just motivate a huge community to figure out ways to bypass whatever restrictions "network intelligence and enhanced QoS" might throw at them, making the advantage gained by IPTV only a temporary thing, leaving as only real effect a system that is less open and where abuse by the parties that can gain something from it.

10. I do realize that giving up personal liberty so that somebody else may get rich is a think that at least part of the american people have gotten used to, but that does not make it less dangerous or plain wrong.

@George Ou

I wasn’t even suggesting to actually get the speeds promised (that the industry chooses to sell grossly misslabeled products is the industrys problem to solve).

I’ve been WAITING for the industry to sell en

George, let me start out by saying that you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone because of your personality. Nobody likes to admit that they’re wrong, especially to a giant prick.

There have already been cases of ISPs blocking applications that competed with what they considered to be their business interests, and they are fighting very hard to be able to throttle bandwidth to applications based on origin (i.e. not just BitTorrent), so the essence of what Bryan has claimed has been proven by the objections of the industries fighting Net Neutrality. Over and over again ISPs have claimed that streaming video (again, not just BitTorrent, your favorite Bogeyman) is using up too much bandwidth, and that allowing customers to actually use up to the bandwidth they were promised when they signed up will bankrupt them is a lie. By the way, when I say lie, I don’t just mean incorrect, I mean a deliberate falsehood in order to make personal financial gain.

You like to point out that when you sign up for an ISP they only promise "up to" a certain speed, but that doesn’t hold up in court, as evinced by the AOL suits of the late 1990′s. You can’t sue your ISP if availability and/or bandwidth dips below the maximum, but that maximum also has to be reasonably expected to be a speed that a user can reach, otherwise your contract is fraudulent, and to make it seem like any speed under that speed is okay because the contract said "up to" that speed is disingenuous coming from you, because you’re not ignorant enough of the industry to really believe what you say.

Well, I’ve responded to your question, but apparently, unlike the post you’ve denounced as not to your liking, you will not post it.Nice attitude. I’ll be watching you.Bryan

[Moderator note: Bryan, it's Sunday night and I have a family and life to tend to. Believe it or not, I don't sit in front of the computer 24x7 to monitor and approve my comments. Now if you want your posts to show up immediately, read the note on the side that clearly tells you that you have to log in if you want your comments to show immediately. This is more of a spam sanity check if anything.

You're free to criticize me all you like and your posts will show up immediately if you log in, but if I see you dropping F bombs here again, your comment will be deleted and you will be banned.]

"Bryan, can you substantiate anything you said? What application does your ISP block? Oh that’s right, they don’t. You’re making this up."

This forum could perhaps do with a bit less "lesson teaching," I should think. Your manner is also rude — the comment, "You’re making this up," regardless of its truth value is an obvious attempt at intellectual decapitation.

First off, I said, "tongue in cheek," and secondly, it should be obvious what I’m talking about given the context of this post. Do you work for Verizon?

I find the terms of use agreements of both major isp’s in my geographic location rather troubling. To sum, here’s an email I recently sent to EFF:

Hello,

I’ve recently shopped for internet service. In my geographic area
there’s Verizon (FIOS), and Comcast. These guys have a large market
share nationwide, I imagine. And many, perhaps most, if not now, will
eventually be customers. Except, I won’t become a customer until they
change their terms of use agreements.

I’m concerned about these companies’ terms of use agreements being too
restrictive. From what I can gather, Comcast limits port 80 to
"personal use," and blocks port 25. Verizon blocks both ports 80, and
25 (and perhaps others). Verizon’s terms of use explicitly prohibits
running any type of server program regardless of whether it’s for
personal use.

While both companies offer less restrictive business class services, it
seems to me, in practical terms, the companies’ approach is likely to
have a severely negative effect in terms of general interconnectivity,
including personal communication, creative collaboration, practical
remote home computer access. The restrictions seem wrong headed in
principle. Given that many people will buy internet service likely
unaware of these restrictions, these people will be like the proverbial
"prisoner" who doesn’t know the door is locked.

It may seem easy to hand wave this away by suggesting consumers go the
business class route, but for one, one should not need to be a business
to have the type of access they are restricting, and so what do their
restrictions imply about their attitudes, and intentions in general with
regards to consumers; and two, many of their restrictions will convince,
or coerce many consumers to simply accept that the restrictions are just
not viable options open to them; 3, both companies offer rate incentives
with bundled consumer class TV, phone, and internet, but there is none
such relative to any business class internet option. As I said, in very
practical terms, I think the companies’ approach is a serious threat, if
not, in fact, a direct attack on the associated aspects of freedom.

Does EFF have a position on this?

Regards,

Bryan

George, perhaps you like this approach better:

[Moderator filtered] f&^# y#^

[Moderator note: You're free to criticize me all you like and your posts will show up immediately if you log in, but if I see you dropping F bombs here again, your comment will be deleted and you will be banned.]

Who says I’m talking about my isp.

Both Verizon, and Comcast place limitations on consumer internet services. My position is that’s a practical impediment to free speech, among other things.

Why so ornery George?

Bryan

[Moderator response from George Ou -

Verizon offers the fastest Fiber to the Home service in the country and they don't block or use Sandvine TCP resets or throttle, so you're unjustly smearing Verizon. The media has incorrectly reported that Verizon blocked text messages because they did no such thing. NARAL was delayed for 24 hours in getting a 5-digit shortcode phone number which is pretty difficult for anyone to get in the first place since they're not that abundant. So whenever someone tells you "Verizon blocked text messages", they're either clueless or they're lying to you.

Comcast uses TCP resets to throttle the bandwidth hogs where just 2% of the users consume 50% of the resources. The way Comcast goes about it with TCP resets is less than optimum and less than completely accurate, but being imperfect shouldn't be illegal. Comcast is switching to a new protocol agnostic solution that will not use protocol inspection so they're going to a more perfect solution but that actually gives P2P, BitTorrent, and Vuze even less bandwidth because they won't get to hog as much downstream bandwidth as they did before.]

The question of priorization is actually quite simple:

Priorization I (end user) control and setup yes.
Priorization you (network industry) control and setup NO!

[Moderator response from George Ou - For downstream priroity, the user needs the ability to tell their ISP what they want prioritized. Net Neutrality legislation would ban user controled prioritization.]

@Kris

>> perhaps the content providers youtube; iPlayer etc could help with these costs or at least place there content on local ISP servers!!
that’s CDN technology, and you can realize it, among other things, with bittor

If you’ve ever tried to use something like TVU, you would know that the best live on-demand streaming you can do is roughly 300 Kbps. I don’t care if your seeder to non-seeder ratio is 1:1 (which is rare), you’re still going to be stuck with 300 Kbps IN-ORDER-DELIVERY. P2P services can offer faster out-of-order delivery which is great for downloads but its higher rates are unusable for video streaming.

Verizon offers up to 30 Mbps consumer grade broadband services at a fraction of the price of a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. They even offer a 30 Mbps business grade service at a fraction of the price of a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. They tell you up front that it’s not meant for server farms so they don’t allow inbound port 80 because that’s only for people who operate servers. They tell you up front you have to buy the business class service if you want to host servers. So there is absolutely no deception here and you’re not forced to buy their service.

Comcast blocks outbound port 25 as a way to combat spam because at one time, Comcast’s network was responsible for spewing out a significant fraction of the world’s spam. AT&T also blocks outbound port 25 for the same reason but you can actually call them up and ask them to unblock it for you which I personally have done. I’m not sure if Comcast lets their users opt out of port 25 outbound blocking. Comcast lets you route your outbound SMTP port 25 through their designated mail relay servers. If I were operating a free hotspot, I’d probably lock down port 25 too because I don’t want to become a drive-by spammer. The port 25 issue is a spam issue and it’s done for a reason.

The terms of service for Comcast (and many other ISPs) tell you that their service is NOT for servers. The no-server clause and the shared access aspect of broadband is why consumer broadband is 10 to 100 times cheaper than commercial grade connections. That’s how broadband has always worked and it’s a clearly disclosed limitation. That’s not application blocking as you proclaim it to be, that’s just service level agreements that you’ve agreed to.

So the fact of the matter is, the types of services you’re looking for are in fact available to you. You simply don’t like the higher prices for those business class services. So it’s sort of like complaining that you don’t like the seats in the economy section and those evil airlines are discriminating against you by not allowing you to sit in the first class or business class seats. Well that’s life and I wish I could afford to sit in the first class section but I can’t, so I sit in the economy section unless I get a lucky upgrade.

There are lots of things I can’t afford but luckily, technology has gotten much cheaper over the years, even broadband prices. Not everything drops in price at the same rate of computer hardware prices but if we want to see faster pipes, the quickest way to get there is fast converged networks. The only way to have fast converged networks is to have network intelligence and net neutrality legislation would forbid this.

George Ou

The problem is solved when you start charging for bandwidth used. The more you use, the more you pay. A decent filter system is all you need. The current half-baked tiered pricing model is retarded. Sure the socialists won’t like it, but it’s time for the free ride to end.

[Moderator response from George Ou - Metered pricing doesn't solve the congestion problem nor does it prevent latency problems with VoIP, IPTV, or gaming. On the other hand, an intelligent network that offers priority or volume but not both and ensures coexistence with TV can give the consumers an affordable flat-rate fat pipe.]

I found your site while reading a story on another site. They issued an update explaining you felt their story was unfair to you, so people could head to your site to get your unbiased opinion.

I have to say I am shocked at what I am reading. I expected to find an interesting discussion on the actual issues surrounding ‘Net Neutrality’. What I have stumbled upon is honestly pathetic. Do you really just use the comments section here to attack people and boost your self-esteem? I would suggest you tone down the aggression quite a bit if you expect people place any sort of value on your message.

I was hoping to find a site of information and debate on net traffic, but I found this. It is actually entertaining though — I mean I kept reading your comments saying to myself "Wow, is this guy serious?!". I doubt that was your intent though. I imagine you attacking your keyboard, telling yourself how much you are putting these moron ‘commenters’ in their place, and showing the world how great George Ou is!! Finally you are getting the respect you deserve.. I realize now why the articles were so disparaging to you. They turned your entire being in a witty one-line joke which after reading your comments seems to me to be some sort of "nerd justice".

Good day and don’t worry about trying to start a flame war with me. I plan to not return to this joke of a site.. although I may show some guys around the office your comments for a laugh.

[Moderator note from George Ou - Duplicate deleted.

No need to double post. Anonymous comments need moderator approval. If you don't want to wait, log in and your posts will show up immediately.]

Derek, you’ve had your say and as much as I disagree with your disparaging words and lack of substance, they’ve been posted as is. Now please stop posting duplicates.

It’s a two way street Derek with open comments. I’m a pretty fair guy and I answer all sincere questions respectfully. But when people call me "ignorant" and show their own ignorance or when people post something that isn’t true, I will call it as I see it.

Now, if you actually have something to say about the substance of the article above, say it.

I’ve read your post and all the comments, yet you are still being very naive.

You are making a big assumption that customer demand will drive ISP prioritization. Maybe in fantasy land. MONEY will drive ISP prioritization. Just imagine what Microsoft could do with paid prioritization and how they could impact the prioritization of data. Dreadful.

Think this can’t happen? Just look at how MS is forcing Vista down our throats and the hardware vendors are accomodating them, even though it is clear the Windows consumer still wants XP.

Drazula, prioritization exists TODAY all over the world. IPTV over FTTN (Fiber to the Node marketed as U-verse by AT&T in the USA) is happening all over the world and it’s driving faster speeds to the home. It’s in Europe, Asia and the USA and people are getting 25 Mbps with single pair copper or 50 Mbps with dual pair copper and they all MUST implement QoS prioritization to make the IPTV service work. When the TV is on, resources are allocated to the TV. When the TV is off, you get all that bandwidth back so you get the full pipe with the slow and the fast lane.

If you ban the prioritization technology from Broadband providers, they’ll simply give you the permanent slow lane for your Internet so that they don’t prioritize any part of your Internet connection but they’ll leave the faster lane for their IPTV service outside of your Internet service. So you’re just shooting yourself in the foot by banning the prioritization technology and you’re going to get stuck with the permanent slow lane.

So, who’s being naive?

George Ou

" Verizon offers up to 30 Mbps consumer grade broadband services at a fraction of the price of a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. They even offer a 30 Mbps business grade service at a fraction of the price of a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. They tell you up front that it’s not meant for server farms so they don’t allow inbound port 80 because that’s only for people who operate servers. They tell you up front you have to buy the business class service if you want to host servers. So there is absolutely no deception here and you’re not forced to buy their service."

I never expressed I thought these ISPs were deceptive. Though I think there is a lack of understanding on the part of the uninformed consumer. That is, if the vast majority of market share belongs to consumer grade service, then the vast marjority of consumers will be restricted in terms of what they can do with their connection — and they won’t know this until its too late, whether "too late" means getting more informed about what they can, and cannot do with their internet connection, or it means, they decide they’d now like to use their internet connection for something they’d previously not considered important. They’ll be hindered in doing so by the fact they’ve signed a contract, and don’t want the expense of breaking it, or by just accepting their present limitations. I realize the argument appears somewhat weak, especially to someone with more resources, but in terms of practicality, it is not weak.

" Comcast blocks outbound port 25 as a way to combat spam because at one time, Comcast’s network was responsible for spewing out a significant fraction of the world’s spam. AT&T also blocks outbound port 25 for the same reason but you can actually call them up and ask them to unblock it for you which I personally have done."

Good to know. Hopefully this is true in general.

" The terms of service for Comcast (and many other ISPs) tell you that their service is NOT for servers. The no-server clause and the shared access aspect of broadband is why consumer broadband is 10 to 100 times cheaper than commercial grade connections. That’s how broadband has always worked and it’s a clearly disclosed limitation. That’s not application blocking as you proclaim it to be, that’s just service level agreements that you’ve agreed to.

So the fact of the matter is, the types of services you’re looking for are in fact available to you. You simply don’t like the higher prices for those business class services. So it’s sort of like complaining that you don’t like the seats in the economy section and those evil airlines are discriminating against you by not allowing you to sit in the first class or business class seats. Well that’s life and I wish I could afford to sit in the first class section but I can’t, so I sit in the economy section unless I get a lucky upgrade.

There are lots of things I can’t afford but luckily, technology has gotten much cheaper over the years, even broadband prices. Not everything drops in price at the same rate of computer hardware prices but if we want to see faster pipes, the quickest way to get there is fast converged networks. The only way to have fast converged networks is to have network intelligence and net neutrality legislation would forbid this."

That’s a lot of text. In sum, you’re saying there are alternative service options, and one must go with what best fits their wants, needs, and budget. I understand this.

However, there is no practical reason for the limitations when the issue is bandwidth. Again, they want to limit practical use of their "product," in terms of what they think causes bandwidth overuse, when any limitations should simply be in terms of bandwidth.

Someone in a previous post remarked something to the effect that, ‘the free ride is over.’ The point, as I understand it, being, everyone wants the benefit of the big pipes, without the cost, so they’ll accept vague service terms about bandwidth in the greedy hope they’ll get more than what they pay for. You say this can be achieved with intellegent networking, but the Net Neutrality folks don’t want this. Obviously something’s got to give. It sounds like a case of wanting cake, and wanting to eat it too.

I’m with the free ride is over sentiment. From a high level consumer view, there’s either a product, or there is not. And I don’t mind if VOIP, or whatever big pipe dependent application does not work properly — I see these as canards to confuse the issue. I think the answer is simple — guarantee a minimum bandwidth, and divide the excess via throttling. If that’s oversimplified, translate, and map accordingly.

BTW, EFF responded to my inquiry (which was pasted up-thread):

"Bryan,

Thank you for contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation. We are aware of the restrictive nature of most major ISPs’ terms of service, but we believe that there are enough alternatives, including business class service and the use of ToR to obscure traffic that our limited resources and manpower are best used elsewhere.

You may wish to read about our Test Your ISP Project , which began when we helped to unmask Comcast’s attempt to block BitTorrent through packet forging.

I hope that this answers your questions!

Regards,

Eva Galperin"

So there you have it. EFF doesn’t mind about it.

And I’m no longer in the market for broadband. The bottom line is, I think, at least with regards to the ISPs I’ve mentioned, their consumer level terms of use agreements are, in practical terms, a threat to free speech, among other things.

–

Bryan

PS You might want to rethink the moderated posting set up.

Bryan, to sum it up, you can’t operate an inbound/outbound mail server and you can’t operate a web server. Neither one of these things are anything a typical consumer wants to do so getting a discounted fat pipe is very attractive to these users since they don’t want to pay for something they don’t use.

As you noted, even the EFF accepts these limitations because they’re clearly disclosed and it’s a very common practice.

As I mentioned, Verizon DOES sell business class FiOS service that runs tens of times faster than a T1 line yet it remains less expensive. No ports are blocked and you can operate all the servers out of your home as you like. My friends also tell me their FiOS is very reliable and I’d kill for access to a FiOS option.

"Bryan, to sum it up, you can’t operate an inbound/outbound mail server and you can’t operate a web server. Neither one of these things are anything a typical consumer wants to do"

I don’t think this is anything other than the typical consumer’s question to decide, not you, I, or the ISP.

"so getting a discounted fat pipe is very attractive to these users since they don’t want to pay for something they don’t use."

Yes. It’s greed, in a sense. And it starts with ISPs putting their bandwidth in terms of ‘speeds up to," as opposed to minimum guarantees.

"As you noted, even the EFF accepts these limitations because they’re clearly disclosed and it’s a very common practice."

I don’t know they accept them — at least without reservation. As Eva stated, they’ve got bigger fish to fry.

"As I mentioned, Verizon DOES sell business class FiOS service that runs tens of times faster than a T1 line yet it remains less expensive. No ports are blocked and you can operate all the servers out of your home as you like. My friends also tell me their FiOS is very reliable and I’d kill for access to a FiOS option."

Yeah, so I hear.

A recent entry to my humble dial-up, dynamic dns connected blog:

Innovation 08 panel on Net Neutrality at Santa Clara University — Moderater, George Ou, eventually posted my responses on his forum (see 6/15/08 entry below). And I’ve posted additional remarks, including a response from The Electronic Frontier Foundation to my inquiry on the subject.

The bottom line is, nobody minds (among the "gatekeepers," and henhouse watchers anyway) much about ISP’s consumer grade terms of use restrictions. So, nothing more to see here. Move along. Move along.

It appears to come down to that popular ugly monster, greed. It starts with ISPs promising more bandwidth than they can reasonably deliver — bandwidth offered in terms of ‘speeds up to,’ as opposed to guaranteed minimums. Wishfull thinking, optimistic consumers take the bait. Then controversy is born out of this when ISPs have to institute restrictions in order maintain reasonable service all around.

I keep repeating, if ISPs have to limit their "product," in such specific terms as disallowing server applications — like generally, usually very low bandwidth use web servers — then they don’t really have a product, as such applications are major aspects of what an internet connection is for. And more importantly, the upshot is this results in severe limitations in terms of practical use, and yes, the all important American right to free speech, association, and so on.

And I reiterate, most web servers are very low bandwidth, and highly unlikely candidates for resolving ISP bandwidth problems, and I find this, in and of itself, very troubling.

Ya can’t have cake, and eat it too. I think I have a sufficient grasp of the issues, and my conclusion is, ISPs need to offer a no strings attached product, and throttle bandwidth as that no strings attached product dictates.

Thanks for listening,

Bryan

I’ve been publicly saying since 2006 that more transparency is needed. I absolutely believe that ISPs MUST be more transparent for the sake of managing customer expectations and and customer satisfaction. That means everything they do or not do must be fully disclosed, not just in fine text but in the actual advertising. ISPs should not only disclose the maximum speed in their advertising, they must disclose the minimum speed just as prominently as the maximum speeds.

So for example:

Instead of advertising 6 Mbps, the Cable ISPs should advertise 0.05 Mbps to 6 Mbps.

Instead of advertising 3 Mbps, the DSL companies should perhaps advertise 0.256 Mbps to 2.4 Mbps.

Right or wrong, too many consumers are confused by this and ISPs are starting to get sued right and left and this is a no win situation for the ISPs. Government agencies are breathing down their necks and the ISPs need to do something about it. The ISPs need to get together and agree to some sort of transparency standard that all ISPs need to follow and perhaps the FCC could oversee and arbitrate the negotiations.

This is effectively what Japan has done and they haven’t really politicized the Network Neutrality or Network Management issue. The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications got together with all the stake holders from the network carriers and the content owners and examined the cold hard issues. Perhaps we could learn something from Japan.

George Ou

You see the technical advantages quite nicely. And in a perfect world it sounds great. But you still didn’t answer why prioritization could not (and will not) be bought by an outside company. You seem adamant about assuming that content will drive prioritization.

Here is a nice little link of what putting money in an ISP’s pocket can buy:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080616-cash-not-idealism-behind-isp-embrace-of-music-biz.html

Still think someone won’t pay to give their search engine priority?

Moving onto a new topic related to the article, Google’s "idealism."

Why is Google — a publicly traded company that is in the business of making money first and being a "good corporate citizen" (assuming that is not an oxymoron) second — such a staunch supporter of "net neutrality"? Could it be because they are already the big kid on the block and they know that net neutrality regulation will maintain the status quo? In other words, does net neutrality regulation really help the new start-up by forcing it to compete on the same level as Google, which the start-up could never do considering Google’s market share, scale, and entrenched relationships? Or, does net neutrality hurt the start-up because it legally prevents it from investing some of its capital in prioritization that allows it to differentiate its product from one of Google’s?

If Google had to match the start-up’s investment, then its profit margins would decrease. With net neutrality in the form of no prioritization, Google never has to worry about incurring those costs; good for its shareholder, not so good for the innovation and freedom of experimentation that used to be the cornerstone of the Internet.

"But you still didn’t answer why prioritization could not (and will not) be bought by an outside company. … Still think someone won’t pay to give their search engine priority?"

There’s a fundamental flaw in your argument and your concerns. Google search (or any web application), YouTube @ 300 Kbps with a few seconds buffering, or just about any other non-real-time application DON’T NEED NETWORK PRIORITIZATION because they’re low bitrate and latency-insensitive. What they need is geographically distributed server farms and massive amounts of server bandwidth Google gets this advantage by building massive server farms all over the world along with private backbones connecting their data centers. Video distribution on the web is strictly dependent upon how much CDN caching and bandwidth a service provider can buy; it has nothing to do with network prioritization.

US Net Neutrality legislation SPECIFICALLY applies to Broadband providers because that’s what Google wants. Google is going in to the TV/Video distribution business with higher quality YouTube and they want to cripple the competition and they’re justifying this with distractions and red herrings.

@host

"Have you ever read the legislation?"

this is misleading. Current legislation proposals are implementation attempts of a concept. Most people are discussing the concept, not some specific, potentially

8472 says: "The idea of net neutrality is not about forbidding QoS. No, people want to use voip&co too after all."

Markey proposal from 2006:
SECTION 201. NETWORK NEUTRALITY.
(b) IN GENERAL.-Each broadband network provider has the duty-
(3) if the provider prioritizes or offers enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type, to prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin of such data) without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service;

Snowe-Dorgan proposal from 2006:
(5) only prioritize content, applications, or services accessed by a user that is made available via the Internet within the network of such broadband service provider based on the type of content, applications, or services and the level of service purchased by the user, without charge for such prioritization;

Conyers-Lofgren proposal from 2008:
"If a broadband network provider prioritizes or offers enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type, it must prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin or ownership of such data) without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service."

Canadian Net Neutrality BILL C-552 – Charlie Angus
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=3524372&Language=e&Mode=1

"36.1 (1) Network operators shall not engage in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination."

Now, can you deal with the facts at hand? Do you or do you not support these bills?

….. to quote myself:

———-
@host

"Have you ever read the legislation?"

this is misleading. Current legislation proposals are implementation attempts of a concept. Most people are discussing the concept, not some specific, potentially flawed implementation attempt.
———-

> Now, can you deal with the facts at hand?
we are talking about network neutrality as an idea, not about specific, potentially broken law proposals.

Anyway, even the current proposals are not that bad, as they DO allow QoS, as long as it is applied equally to all services of the same type. But if you wish it can be improved further.

Here’s one way to do it (IANAL):

"36.1 (1) Network operators shall not engage in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination [added by me:] unless such prioritization can be chosen by the network operators’ customers and is available on a non-discriminatory basis, i.e. regardless of ownership of the prioritized content, application or service"

The idea is to allow QoS in an optional, non-discriminatory manner. If bell canada runs a video store and gives the customer the option to reserve bandwidth for video streaming/iptv from said store it must also provide that option for any other video streaming/iptv service to the customer. This prevents market distortion and anti-competitive bundling and maximizes customer choice.

8472, you’re ignoring the issues. You tried to make these arguments in my BitTorrent induced latency blog and I and others shot down your arguments.

You won’t acknowledge the need to do source-based QoS and discrimination in favor of IPTV service.

You won’t acknowledge that this effectively kills convergence and you’ll end up with a permanent slow lane for Internet and a permanent fast lane for TV that is inaccessable to your computer.

Then you complain that the ISPs shouldn’t be permitted to offer IPTV at all but you fail to explain why the ISP should build out fiber when they can’t make an ROI.

Your arguments are not realistic and they’re not logical.

@host
and you are evading my arguments on implementation != concept, which i consider very basic logic.

> Then you complain that the ISPs shouldn’t be permitted to offer IPTV at all

i never said that, plea

"actually, i said the opposite, i said that QoS should and must be allowed by network neutrality, but only in a fair manner that ensures competetiveness and user choice.

[SNIP]

I’m only against preferential treatment for those services provided by the entity that happens to be your broadband provider"

This is precisely what I accused you of. You deny it and then you go on to confirm it so I’m not "lying" about anything.

You would forbid discriminating against the source address in QoS as Net Neutrality legislation does. Therefore, you do not acknowledge the need to protect IPTV services. Therefore if you got your way, the ISP will simply give us the permanent slow lane and not converge their TV business on to the IP network and permanently lock us out from the fat pipe.

George Ou