Traffic shaping and Virgin Media

I was reading an article in a computer magazine recently about traffic
shaping by ISPs. AIUI this is supposed to give priority to e-mails
etc. Has Virgin Media National (adsl service) taken a unique
approach, as it seems to me that e-mails and newsgroup traffic are
the slowest rather than the fastest tasks !!!

"Ato_Zee" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news65Hl.44122$(E-Mail Removed)2...
>
> On 20-Apr-2009, Scott <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> I was reading an article in a computer magazine recently about traffic
>> shaping by ISPs. AIUI this is supposed to give priority to e-mails
>> etc. Has Virgin Media National (adsl service) taken a unique
>> approach, as it seems to me that e-mails and newsgroup traffic are
>> the slowest rather than the fastest tasks !!!
>
> At peak times most ISP's have to traffic shape, even if they don't
> admit it.
> Priority is given to traffic like Skype.
> Throttling is applied to things like P2P, many ISP's see all P2P even
> legitimate, as illegal activity.
> Online massive multiplayer games are likely to be throttled by
> shiddy ISP's with insufficient backhaul bandwidth.
> Streaming media may be throttled, a webcast of Madonna live,
> was almost unwatchable.
> Where the ISP's differ is how much capacity they have, and
> what they regard as their best mix of traffic shaping, you can't
> please all of the punters, all of the time, well not at the price
> they are prepared to pay.
> Emails and newsgroups are not regarded by Virgin as time
> sensitive, users may think otherwise. Some of the email
> delays are caused by the sheer volume of automated
> 24/7/365 spam originators.

Not that I agree with traffic shaping (throttling) - I don't.
However, Plusnet (my ISP) is brutally open and honest about what it
throttles, and to what extent - see their website.
(It doesn't affect me, as I'm willing to pay for their only unthrottled
tariff.)
Other ISPs are much less transparent.

George

Ato_Zee wrote:

> On 20-Apr-2009, Scott <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> > I was reading an article in a computer magazine recently about traffic
> > shaping by ISPs. AIUI this is supposed to give priority to e-mails
> > etc. Has Virgin Media National (adsl service) taken a unique
> > approach, as it seems to me that e-mails and newsgroup traffic are
> > the slowest rather than the fastest tasks !!!
>
> At peak times most ISP's have to traffic shape, even if they don't
> admit it.

Thankfully Idnet doesn't.

Graham

George Weston wrote:

> Not that I agree with traffic shaping (throttling) - I don't.
> However, Plusnet (my ISP) is brutally open and honest about what it
> throttles, and to what extent - see their website.

That's true and they've been honest about it as long as I can remember.


> (It doesn't affect me, as I'm willing to pay for their only unthrottled
> tariff.)
> Other ISPs are much less transparent.

The cheaper, the worse.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:
>
> Ato_Zee wrote:
>
>> On 20-Apr-2009, Scott <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>> I was reading an article in a computer magazine recently about traffic
>>> shaping by ISPs. AIUI this is supposed to give priority to e-mails
>>> etc. Has Virgin Media National (adsl service) taken a unique
>>> approach, as it seems to me that e-mails and newsgroup traffic are
>>> the slowest rather than the fastest tasks !!!
>> At peak times most ISP's have to traffic shape, even if they don't
>> admit it.
>
> Thankfully Idnet doesn't.
>
> Graham
>
I'm always a bit surprised that so many people have it in for traffic
shaping. I would prefer a form of QoS where I get to select priority but
until that is available traffic shaping seems like a good idea. I can't
really see the benefit in running connections at much less than capacity
in order to avoid shapping.

John <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> I'm always a bit surprised that so many people have it in for traffic
> shaping. I would prefer a form of QoS where I get to select priority but
> until that is available traffic shaping seems like a good idea. I can't
> really see the benefit in running connections at much less than capacity
> in order to avoid shapping.

I think that part of the problem is that they shape the wrong things. In
order to provide the best user experience and bandwidth utilisation, the
order of priority should be 'time sensitive' interactive (eg VOIP,
audio/video streaming), interactive (eg telnet, web browsing) and lastly
bulk (eg email, file downloads). In the 'real world' there are two
problems with implementing this, the first is the gross over(mis) use of
the http protocol for non-interactive web browsing (in particular file
downloads for which ftp would be more suitable) and the second is the
use of tunnelled connections (eg ssh and VPNs) which both hide the
nature of the traffic from the network and carry a mixture of traffic
types.

John wrote:

> Eeyore wrote:
> > Ato_Zee wrote:
> >
> >> On 20-Apr-2009, Scott <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I was reading an article in a computer magazine recently about traffic
> >>> shaping by ISPs. AIUI this is supposed to give priority to e-mails
> >>> etc. Has Virgin Media National (adsl service) taken a unique
> >>> approach, as it seems to me that e-mails and newsgroup traffic are
> >>> the slowest rather than the fastest tasks !!!
> >> At peak times most ISP's have to traffic shape, even if they don't
> >> admit it.
> >
> > Thankfully Idnet doesn't.
>
> I'm always a bit surprised that so many people have it in for traffic
> shaping. I would prefer a form of QoS where I get to select priority but
> until that is available traffic shaping seems like a good idea. I can't
> really see the benefit in running connections at much less than capacity
> in order to avoid shapping.

Idnet simply run their connection at close to capacity, as opposed to having
less capacity than demand.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:
>
> John wrote:
>
>> Eeyore wrote:
>>> Ato_Zee wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 20-Apr-2009, Scott <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I was reading an article in a computer magazine recently about traffic
>>>>> shaping by ISPs. AIUI this is supposed to give priority to e-mails
>>>>> etc. Has Virgin Media National (adsl service) taken a unique
>>>>> approach, as it seems to me that e-mails and newsgroup traffic are
>>>>> the slowest rather than the fastest tasks !!!
>>>> At peak times most ISP's have to traffic shape, even if they don't
>>>> admit it.
>>> Thankfully Idnet doesn't.
>> I'm always a bit surprised that so many people have it in for traffic
>> shaping. I would prefer a form of QoS where I get to select priority but
>> until that is available traffic shaping seems like a good idea. I can't
>> really see the benefit in running connections at much less than capacity
>> in order to avoid shapping.
>
> Idnet simply run their connection at close to capacity, as opposed to having
> less capacity than demand.
>

That just isn't possible without some mechanism to control traffic.

Bandwidth demand is clearly time dependent. Without time dependent
controls, only running close to capacity at peak times means, massive
under use during low usage times.

Prioritization is clearly the answer. I don't care how an ISP manages
THEIR bandwidth all I care about is MY QoS, cost, and how much I can
download.

Ideally I would like to be able to purchase bandwidth and usage
allowances at different QoS levels and have some kind of statistical
guarantee of the service I would receive at each level.













> Graham
>
>

Mark McIntyre <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> I suspect you're incorrect. Idnet have simply been lucky in that their
> peak demand is generally below their peak capacity. That means their
> customers are sitting on a lot of spare bandwidth at offpeak times.
>
> With a smaller ISP thats ok, because the cost of the bandwidth won't
> be huge.
>
> But with say 3M customers all needing 50Mbps, you'd need 150Tbps
> backhaul at peak which i suspect we can agree isn't likely any ISP or
> even military-industrial complex could afford....

Surely the solution to that is attract the right mix of customers, so
that you have both business users who use a lot of bandwidth "9 to 5"
and domestic users who use little bandwidth during the day (school
holidays excepted) but more at evenings and weekends when the businesses
are not using so much. That way the demand is more evenly spread.

"Graham Murray" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Mark McIntyre <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
>> I suspect you're incorrect. Idnet have simply been lucky in that their
>> peak demand is generally below their peak capacity. That means their
>> customers are sitting on a lot of spare bandwidth at offpeak times.
>>
>> With a smaller ISP thats ok, because the cost of the bandwidth won't
>> be huge.
>>
>> But with say 3M customers all needing 50Mbps, you'd need 150Tbps
>> backhaul at peak which i suspect we can agree isn't likely any ISP or
>> even military-industrial complex could afford....
>
> Surely the solution to that is attract the right mix of customers, so
> that you have both business users who use a lot of bandwidth "9 to 5"
> and domestic users who use little bandwidth during the day (school
> holidays excepted) but more at evenings and weekends when the businesses
> are not using so much. That way the demand is more evenly spread.

I would think that this is just how IDNet runs its business model.
They don't advertise their products to Joe Public but will gladly supply him
with service if he finds out about them.
However, their business client list is impressive - see
http://www.idnet.net/about/clients.jsp
They're number 1 on my list if Plusnet gets any worse!

George