Posted on 03/28/2008 3:04:22 PM PDT by Smogger
In the climactic scene of the Oscar-nominated film "There Will Be Blood," Daniel Day-Lewis's ruthless oil tycoon explains that he has drained all the valuable oil off a neighbor's land. "If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and I have a straw ... and my straw reaches across the room ... I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!"
There could be no more apt analogy for the looming threat now facing our broadband infrastructure.
Today, a few savvy Internet users - the bandwidth tycoons in this broadband Wild West - are effectively draining everyone else's Internet connections by using special "peer-to-peer" (P2P) software to automatically search the Internet, mining enormous quantities of music, video, games and other digital files. During peak hours, this P2P traffic can severely slow other users' connections.
A debate about how to handle this bandwidth crisis is brewing in Washington.
A group of political professionals that claims the banner of equality is in fact spearheading a campaign to allow these P2P bandwidth tycoons to run amok on everyone's connections, legally tying the hands of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from taking steps to ensure a more egalitarian Web.
At a time when the United States is ranked 15th in international broadband surveys and 70 percent of Latino adults don't subscribe to broadband at home, allowing one segment of users to degrade everyone else's online experience could set us even further back, slowing adoption rates in minority and low-income communities.
Popular at college campuses across the country, P2P applications are quite useful for the hardened download addict - the software makes it easy to download hundreds of files by simply making a list in the program's "queue." The P2P program then actively searches for those files on "peer" computers, downloading them as they become available.
But this downloading ultimately takes a toll on the network: experts at Cisco and Cachelogics have estimated that P2P transfers make up 50 percent to 90 percent of all Internet traffic. Thus, the P2P traffic from a few users can put a disproportionate strain on local broadband networks, degrading everyone else's online experience. If a few college students all download advance copies of "There Will Be Blood" at 7 p.m. on a Monday, it could effectively slow their neighbors' connections to a crawl, making it frustrating to even check e-mail.
Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have taken steps to get all traffic flowing freely. One broadband provider recently announced a pilot program that charges users based on their bandwidth consumption, hoping to keep P2P users honest about the drain they put on the network. And most companies use some type of "network management" technique, which channels Internet signals through "routers" much like traffic lights usher cars through intersections. In periods of maximum congestion, the signals "flash yellow," allowing P2P, e-mail, and other types of traffic to flow without creating gridlock.
But the same political professionals behind the "net neutrality" campaign - a somewhat naive push to outlaw efficiently managed networks - have claimed that network management is tantamount to discrimination: the disruption of an Internet utopia by meddling ISPs. There's certainly a surface appeal to this argument, but by ignoring how the Internet works these campaign professionals are missing the virtual forest for the digital trees.
The ISPs aren't spying on which movies and music files users are sharing; they're simply identifying P2P streams and ensuring that this traffic doesn't bring other traffic streams to a screeching halt. This doesn't sound like discrimination - it sounds like a set of reasonable rules that renders the online Wild West a safe place for everyone's traffic. On the other hand, the professional net neutrality advocates are actually lobbying for a kind of net "inequality" - regulations that would allow a handful of heavy downloaders to dry up the bandwidth for everyone else.
As this debate spirals out of control, it's important to keep an eye on the ball. How do we retake the position as the global broadband leader?
Network investment, not regulation, is the answer. For those awaiting the arrival of affordable broadband, Internet regulations that would slow investment could not come at a worse time. Giving the "green light" to investment drives efficient and intelligent broadband networks deeper into communities and gives minorities, small businesses, and independent media voices a chance to compete in the digital economy. The last thing we need are misinformed, fear-driven regulations that scare any kind of broadband investment away.
Jose A. Marquez is president and CEO of LISTA, a national organization of information sciences, telecommunications and technology professionals serving the Latino community and helping conquer the digital divide. Write him at jam@a-lista.org.
I’ll sell you some bandwidth offsets to help you feel better.
Exactly.
Bandwidth throttling is a crime.
If I subscribe to a 2 mbps unlimited connection, it is my d@mn right to be able to use all of the bandwidth doing whatever I want, even if it is to shuffle huge files to and fro, throught the day, just to occupy the bandwidth I have paid for.
P2P isn’t half the problem spam botnets are. Go after the spammers.
This kind of thing does make your teeth hurt.
Some folks go through life feeling like they are victims at every minute of every day. Try and convince them they are among the most blessed people on the face of the earth and they’ll just stare at you like you’re speaking Greek.
What a sorry, sorry way to live your life.
Let me try anyway. Mr. Marquez, listen to me for a moment. You are one of the most privileged people ever to have walked the face of the earth. You live in a country people walk over broken glass trying to get into. You live in a country where poor people own computers, and homeless people surf the net at the public library. There has never been a country like this one.
Get down on your knees and thank God for it, and thank God for the life he gave you. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop condescending to the poor folks who don’t have broadband yet, as if that is some defining characteristic that marks them for life, rather than an ephemeral thing that will be solved tomorrow as broadband becomes universal.
There are real tragedies in the world, and slow internet hookups are not among them.
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I say we hit them harder and harder each day....
Amen! Post of the day. . .
You should e-mail your comments to him. Bravo.
If a bandwidth supplier and consumer want to contract for the company to provide a consistent and reliable data stream at some particular rate 24/7, they should be allowed to do that, and the consumer should be able to sue for breach if that bandwidth is not provided.
In practice, it works out much better for both suppliers and consumers to sell bandwidth on more of an 'as available' basis. If a supplier didn't sell any bandwidth beyond what he could supply in worst-case scenario, the vast majority of bandwidth would go unused. When selling bandwidth under such a policy, however, it becomes very important to have some means to balance usage.
This shouldn't be done by forging RESET packets or other such nonsense. Instead, it should be done by balancing the amount of data from each user that gets passed to the net each second. If a user sends packets before the earlier packets have been transmitted, they should be queued unless there are already too many packets awaiting transmission; in that case they should be dropped.
Even if there aren't any hardware throttling methods that would control the flow of data onto the congested part of the network, adding flow control between the congested point and the rest of the network will cause any properly-functioning protocol stack to slow down its transmissions. While it would be possible for someone to rig a protocol stack to ignore network congestion (continuing to transmit full-speed), such rigging would in fact degrade the performance of the person doing it (the person wouldn't be allowed to send more packets to the outside world than the person with the properly-performing stack, but a larger percentage of the packets transmitted would be duplicates).
Ah! Another UseNet adherent. The “Dark Corner” of the internet still exists. Nothing better than EfNet and alt.binaries, baby!
That being said, I couldn’t read past the first few paragraphs. This person obviously has no fscking clue about the “internet,” or they’re an “Al Gore Created The Internet” crewe. Either way, they’re clueless. I’m learning to siphon off the idiots, because there are a lot of poseurs out there.
If you know about UseNet, you are not a poseur, I’ll give you that. Anyone remember Gopher? What ever happened to Gopher?
America should have had fiber to your door installed nationwide years ago. Foot dragging and obstruction kept HDTV, introduced by Sony in the mid 80’s, off showroom shelves for a generation; cartel tactics kept mp3 capability off home and portable stereo units for a decade. When capital refuses to respond to demand it is no longer capital, it is fascism.
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The ISPs have the same problem as the telcos.
People have phone lines to the house. Use it when you want to - as long as you need to to make a call.
However that telco system is not capable of allowing EVERYONE of the lines to be used all the time. And the cost of service reflects the fact that most telephone lines are not in use.
The ISP version of pricing is on the same model. Except that 5% or so of users demand to use the system for continuous streams of data. They seem to think it is their right to consume 100% of the band width that their neighbors are paying for. Yeah, the service says that a subscriber can get XXX Mbs flow rates. Except that it is not possible for all users to get that rate at all times. And the Users as a group are Not Paying for a system that would provide that serivce either.
"At a time when the United States is ranked 15th in international broadband surveys and 70 percent of Latino adults don't subscribe to broadband at home, allowing one segment of users to degrade everyone else's online experience could set us even further back, slowing adoption rates in minority and low-income communities."
idiot
I want to plug a pair of LC-type fiber connectors directly into my Qlogic PCI-X HBA, but it’s my understanding that the FO offered by Verizon is connected to a modem and ported out via copper.
If we can get fiber drops into our homes and the price of HBAs comes down enough that a home user could afford it, the internet would become a drastically different place!
One broadband provider recently announced a pilot program that charges users based on their bandwidth consumption, hoping to keep P2P users honest about the drain they put on the network.
See, something simple even badly worded. How about:
"Most providers offer unlimited service and then complain when customers actually try to get their money's worth by using the service to its utomost. Instead of dishonestly throttling bandwidth, thereby defrauding customers who paid for such service, some providers have taken an honest approach and are charging based on usage."
Yep, and we the taxpayers paid billions to the telcos to install that barely-existent fiber.
It’s my right to consume 100% of the advertised bandwidth.
I have fiber to my door.
It’s the best thing since sliced bread.
I am just lucky because I live in an area where the city is very pro technology (and Verizon has a long haul switch.)
I love bragging about my FIOS data rates. I am a bandwidth snob.
Smogger,
You may feel that you have the “right” to consume 100% of the advertized band width.
Your over consumption will only lead to the ISP deciding to recognizing their right to increase your price of service. Gobble on, brother.
Smogger,
BTW, do you actually have any “right” to any service?
Perhaps the ISP will decide to exercise the right to terminate your service? Then it would be back to AOL dialup for you.
Fog on, brother. Fog on.
Let's see, he has a contract with a company saying he gets X bandwidth for Y dollars per month with no limit on transfer...
OF COURSE HE HAS THE RIGHT TO USE WHAT HE CONTRACTED FOR!
Is it really that difficult?
What cause would the ISP have to terminate or degrade service? That he's actually using what he paid for? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen -- oh, wait, it is happening.
If the ISP doesn't have the infrastructure to handle even a small portion of customers using 100% of contracted bandwidth, yet the contracts say everyone can get that bandwidth, then the ISP is engaging in fraud. Have you ever seen the movie "The Producers"? Basically the same scam.
100% of the advertized band width = over consumption.
In your topsy turvy world.
Smog,
You probably well understand that the system cannot provide that bandwidth to every subscriber at all times. Being obtuse about it does not improve your argument.
If everyone tries to make a phone call at the same time that system will crash also. But there is no direct limiton phone calls per subscriber.
If I was operating that ISP, your contract would not be renewed. And I would still be able to provide the advertised service to everyone else according to their needs. Your rampant greed is degrading service for everyone else. When your contract expires I would make sure that you get exactly the service you have contracted for - none.
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