ISP Slows Access To High Bandwidth Services 12 Hours Every Day

from the time-to-find-a-new-ISP dept

Over and over again we've seen folks on the tech side of ISPs admit that basic network upgrades can handle whatever traffic growth is happening on the network, without resorting to draconian efforts to slow down traffic. Apparently, there's an ISP in the Netherlands that didn't get the message. Broadband Reports is noting that Dutch ISP, UPC is slowing down all traffic to "high bandwidth services" from noon to midnight every single day. They're cutting bandwidth to these services by 2/3. So, apparently, if you have to do high bandwidth stuff, get it done in the morning.

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Pirate Bay's Plans Too Clever By Half: Arbitrage Consumer Bandwidth

from the this-looks-like-a-mess dept

There's a bunch of news coming out about the sale of The Pirate Bay to GGF, though it's still not making very much sense, I'm still wondering if the deal will really happen. However, it appears that GGF has started working with Wayne Ross, who ran Grokster and Mashboxx, in an attempt to get him to negotiate with the labels. In an interview, he more or less reveals GGF's plans for The Pirate Bay.

Basically, you'll have to pay to leech, but the more resources you "contribute" to the system, the less you'll have to pay, and if you contribute enough resources/bandwidth, then you might actually make some money. Then, on top of that, they believe that some content providers/ISPs will pay for offloading their bandwidth. That explains some of the earlier statements made by GGF. In theory, the idea is that it makes everyone happy. Those who pay for bandwidth on hosting content can pay a lot less. Users who contribute bandwidth end up getting free content (or potentially even making some money). And, of course, the content owners get paid.

Except... that idyllic picture starts to break down when you start to run through the details. The second the paywall goes up, an awful lot of users will abandon The Pirate Bay for friendlier non-barrier-happy sites. That takes away pretty much the entire advantage of The Pirate Bay to make this work. Even the appeal of potentially making money probably won't attract enough users. Second problem? There's no way the economics works out nicely on this one. We've already seen the sort of ridiculous rates that the RIAA wants to charge for individual streams/downloads of music. Put those numbers into this model and start doing the math... and start laughing. There's no way that much money comes into the system. None.

Finally, it leaves out an important party who clearly will not like this setup at all -- even if all the rest of it works: consumer ISPs. The real "ingenious" part of the plan appears to be that some content hosters/service providers are effectively pushing bandwidth costs away from themselves, and dumping them on retail ISPs, who offer flat-rate connections. So the real "costs" are hidden in the typical flat-rate plans of ISPs.

It's effectively a sneaky arbitrage play, whereby The Pirate Bay tries to aggregate all the unused flat-rate ISP bandwidth, and wholesale it to others, paying copyright holders in cash, and downloaders in free/cheap content. But the ISPs whose bandwidth is getting used don't get paid, meaning they're more likely to push back even more against unlimited connection plans. I just can't see how this works.

Oh, right, in the meantime, it's not clear the recording industry has any interest in playing along. They're already demanding that cash from the sale go to them, rather than the founders. Of course, that's a bit misguided, since the founders no longer own The Pirate Bay, having handed the ownership over to others in 2006. So they won't be getting any of the money from the sale. The recording industry basically says it doesn't believe that to be true, and will use the sale as evidence that the founders should pay up. Thus, it's difficult to see them rushing out to embrace this already questionable arbitrage play.

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Time To Start Thinking About Infinite Bandwidth

from the it-changes-things dept

One of the things that is truly amazing is how difficult it has been for anyone to accurately predict what happens as bandwidth becomes more and more commonplace. Most of the original assumptions were based on faulty views of old technology -- i.e., the internet would become more like "tv" since it could handle the bandwidth. While there has been some of that, the more interesting elements have actually taken advantage of what the internet is good at: multi-directional communication, rather than one way broadcast communication. We already have television. We don't need another one. But a platform that allows anyone to communicate with anyone -- and with higher bandwidth? That starts to get interesting...

But, even now, as average bandwidth rates are orders of magnitude above what they were just a decade ago, people are having trouble recognizing the next revolution -- when bandwidth is effectively infinite. However, it's time to start thinking about what that allows, because bandwidth is only going to increase, and it's only going to increase unique opportunities, applications and services. The article discusses a connected-Coke machine, which may seem like a small thing, and nothing to get excited about, but as you think about the progression, from simply alerting the company to when the machine was low, to increasing information about a variety of factors, to allowing customers to interact with the machine, you begin to recognize how the entire concept of even a basic "soda machine" starts to change. And those are all still low bandwidth exercises. What made that work wasn't the increase in bandwidth, but the increase in general connectivity. If you start to increase the size of the pipe significantly as well, you start to get even more possibilities.

So, all these arguments over "net neutrality" and "metered billing" are missing the point. Bandwidth is going to increase. Those who attempt to cap it or limit it are only going to make their own pipes significantly less valuable. However, those who recognize how empowering more bandwidth can be, and how approaching "infinite bandwidth" opens up the possibility for new services and apps that we can't even fathom today, will start to realize that providing ever more bandwidth increases value and clamping down on bandwidth kills value.

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No, The Internet Isn't Running Out Of Bandwidth

from the stop-worrying-about-it dept

Nemertes Research has a history of putting out fear mongering reports about the coming bandwidth flood that will kill the internet. So I pretty much ignored the news that it had come out with another one, which the press is happy to report without any hint of skepticism (or noting that Nemertes is funded by telcos who stand to benefit from fears of a bandwidth glut). However, people keep submitting it, so let's just point out, once again, that stories of a coming "exaflood" of traffic are completely bogus. Actually research from those who have seen the data has shown that there is no problem and the growth rate is actually slowing. This has been widely reported. And yet, Nemertes still insists that we're running out of bandwidth? Don't believe it. Update: Someone from Nemertes stops by in the comments to say that this isn't new research, and that the particular news report "took great liberty with his story." He also says that they agree the internet is not running out of bandwidth, but they are worried about last mile bandwidth.

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Is Google Really Using 21x The Bandwidth It Pays For?

from the bad-math dept

Scott Cleland is a "telecom analyst" who, in reality, is actually paid a large sum of money by the telcos to slam Google. He's become sort of a joke in DC circles. In the past, we noted his ridiculously bad math in claiming that Google fleeced taxpayers out of $7 billion, as well as his claims that "open spectrum" is somehow anti-American. His main issue, of course, is trying to dispense bogus arguments for why net neutrality is really a big scam by Google to keep its broadband bills cheap. To give Cleland credit, at least he's not as bad as Mike McCurry, who once claimed that Google doesn't pay a dime for broadband. McCurry, of course, has moved on from spinning for the telcos to spinning for the entertainment industry, so Cleland needed to up his game.

He's now released a "study" claiming that Google uses 21 times as much bandwidth as it pays for. First of all, this is simply incorrect. Cleland doesn't know how much Google actually pays for broadband, so he comes up with a small number, which is wrong for a variety of reasons.

He seems to conflate consumer broadband and Google's broadband. This is based, in part, on the old telco argument that when you buy internet access, you're only buying access to the middle of the internet, and you should have to pay a second time to actually reach any endpoint or other user. So, even though consumers pay for the bandwidth they use to reach Google, Cleland appears to calculate that as being Google's responsibility, ignoring that consumers are paying plenty for the right to reach Google (and the rest of the internet). As Cord Blomquist points out, this is like pointing out that Best Buy should pay for the gas it takes for people to drive to Best Buy. Broadband Reports also does a nice job deconstructing this.

However, even if we ignore all the basic facts and information that Cleland gets wrong, if we grant his premise, his argument still doesn't make any sense. If anything, rather than being an argument in favor of the telcos' position, Clelands report (if true) suggests that telco execs all deserve to be fired. After all, they're the ones who set up the business model and the billing relationship, and if they're undercharging Google by so much, then shouldn't they raise their prices? Of course, there's a good reason why this doesn't happen: because Google is paying fair market value for its bandwidth, and if anyone tried to charge them 21 times more, Google would quickly take its business elsewhere. So, based on this report, either Cleland is dead wrong in his report, or the telcos who funded it are run by morons who don't know how to set pricing correctly. Which one is more likely?

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The Growing Bandwidth Crunch That Isn't...

from the this-again? dept

InfoWorld is running a long article all about how we're running out of bandwidth, and that's leading broadband providers to need to implement broadband caps and tiered pricing. The article mentions that some critics don't believe we're really running out of bandwidth, but then brushes them off by saying: "But assuming a looming bandwidth shortage -- whether widespread or local to certain areas -- analysts agree that two things must change...." And then the article does just that: it assumes that there must be a bandwidth shortage, and only talks to analysts who agree.

Except, as we've seen repeatedly, there's almost no evidence of an actual bandwidth shortage. The article talks about ever increasing bandwidth usage, despite the fact that folks who actually have the data have been noting that bandwidth growth has actually been slowing, and in some areas declining. Then the article claims that infrastructure improvements alone aren't enough, and that broadband providers need to implement tiered service and caps -- even though when you talk to the actual technologists at various broadband providers, they seem more than willing to admit that bandwidth growth can be handled just fine with normal infrastructure improvements.

But, of course, instead of quoting those actual technologists, the article focuses on the big analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester which are trying to sell research reports, and which make bigger headlines if they warn about impending problems. It's a pretty weak report to simply assume away the actual evidence and then focus on what needs to be done based on the non-evidence.

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T-Mobile Says It Was Only Kidding About That 1GB Soft Cap On G1 Data Use

from the oh-that? dept

So after a bunch of tech sites pointed out how ridiculous it was that T-Mobile was claiming "unlimited" data plans on the new G1 "Google Android" phone, T-Mobile quickly scrambled to say that they were ditching the 1 gig limit, though they may still replace it with something else (perhaps when tech bloggers aren't paying attention, one would imagine).

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T-Mobile Sends G1 Android Data Users To The Slow Lane: 50kbps Over 1 Gig

from the slow-lane dept

There's a ton of predictable press coverage and reviews of T-Mobile's new G1 phone -- the first commercially available phone that uses Google's Android operating system -- but Broadband Reports has dug through the fine print of the user agreement and noticed something rather interesting. While the marketing materials scream out about a $25 "unlimited" data plan, the fine print notes that if you go over 1Gig per month, the rest of your data traffic that month may be slowed down to a piddling 50kbps. So, before you get that G1 and plan to surf away, recognize that while, unlimited, T-Mobile apparently has no intention of letting you actually surf with any reasonable bandwidth after a certain point.

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Once More, With Feeling: The Internet Isn't At Risk Of Running Out Of Bandwidth

from the no-exaflood dept

For years, we've been hearing telco execs, telco lobbyists and politicians screaming over the coming death of the internet due to an "exaflood" of bandwidth, as things like internet video and bittorrent totally overwhelmed the internet infrastructure. There was little proof that this was actually an issue, and plenty of evidence suggesting that ordinary infrastructure upgrades would more than handle all expected growth. And, in the last few months we've been seeing more and more public reports supporting this position. In August alone we saw two separate reports noting that internet growth was actually slowing rather than increasing at an alarming rate.

And now there's a third such report, looking at internet backbone traffic and noting that there's little to worry about:

For the second consecutive year, the rate of underlying international Internet capacity deployment outpaced global Internet traffic growth, leading to lower utilization levels on many Internet backbones. Between 2007 and 2008, average traffic utilization levels decreased from 31 percent to 29 percent while peak utilization fell from 44 percent to 43 percent.

Yet, if you listen to telco lobbyists, execs and politicians, they'd have you believe that over the past couple of years, the growth of BitTorrent and internet video was flooding the networks. Hopefully, with so many reports pointing out the opposite, politicians will finally start pushing back the next time a lobbyist or exec starts claiming that the internet is at risk of running out of bandwidth.

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Bandwidth Caps Keep Getting Lower And Lower

from the don't-do-anything-useful dept

When Time Warner first announced plans to test out bandwidth caps, there was some talk that it might set the caps exceptionally low, such as 5GB/month for downloads. While Time Warner did eventually put in place a series of tiers, it admits that the 5GB tier is the "lite" tier for very basic usage. Don't tell that to the folks at Frontier. Reader Shea writes in to point out (via RochesterHDTV) that Frontier is now saying that 5GB of combined upload and download bandwidth is all you can use per month. If you go above that, Frontier reserves the right to "suspend, terminate or apply additional charges" for going over this "reasonable" usage.

See how this works? At first, we're told that such tiers will only touch on those super high bandwidth users. Then we see tiers put in place where it's admitted that the 5GB limit is for "lite" users. And now, according to Frontier, it's "reasonable" usage, and it can kick you off -- or add unspecified fees -- for going over. Welcome to the world where doing anything cool or useful online is discouraged. ISPs are working hard to make their broadband offerings less and less useful by the day.

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Verizon: Bandwidth Hogs Are A Tech Issue, Not A Legal Or Business Model Problem

from the making-better-technology dept

While AT&T has been siding with Hollywood in saying that file sharing is bad (so bad!) and that it needs to filter file sharing to deal with it, Verizon very clearly stated a few months ago that it didn't think that was appropriate. However, now it appears that Verizon has gone even further, in working with a P2P software maker to improve the efficiency of P2P to make it less of a bandwidth hog.

Now, there are a few points worth making on this announcement. First, part of it is clearly just hyping up one startup that is offering a "legal" P2P file sharing offering. Second, part of this is Verizon using the opportunity to tweak AT&T and make itself look much more consumer friendly (something that doesn't often happen with Verizon, to be honest). Third, this hardly means (as some have been suggesting) that Verizon is "file sharing friendly." It only works with the one app that worked on this test with Verizon. However, what it does show is that Verizon recognizes that "bandwidth hogs" really are a technology issue that can be dealt with via technology solutions on the backend, rather than legal or business model methods that make life worse for consumers. That, alone, is a lesson that hopefully other companies in the space (and politicians) will learn.

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Time Warner's Overage Caps May Be Set Very Low

from the that's-not-overage----that's-normal-usage dept

Last week Broadband Reports broke the story of Time Warner's decision to test overage charges for their biggest users. I don't think it really makes sense for ISPs to charge in a way that makes their own services less valuable, but that's a different story. As long as the caps are clearly stated, it's worth seeing what happens. However, most of the talk about the caps seemed to suggest they would focus only on the off-the-charts extreme users of bandwidth in the "top 5%." However, Broadband Reports has another report now, suggesting that Time Warner will be testing a few different cap levels, including as low as 5GBs/month, which seems excessively low. If you're doing perfectly normal things, such as watching (authorized!) online videos or doing remote backups, 5GB can disappear mighty quickly. That doesn't seem like a way to stop "excessive" use. It seems like a way to squeeze more money out of a large percentage of users. On top of that, this gives less and less incentive for Time Warner to improve their network. The more they can claim the need for these congestion charges, the more money they can make. That seems backwards. Of course, this wouldn't be an issue if there were serious broadband competition, but that's still a long way away apparently.

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Time Warner Cable Experimenting With Overage Charges For Top Users

from the bait-and-switch dept

Broadband Reports notes that internal memos from Time Warner Cable suggest the company is experimenting with overage fees for their highest bandwidth users in Beaumont, Texas. If those overage charges work, the idea, of course, would be to then roll them out nationwide. On the whole, overage charges are a lot more palatable than unpublished traffic shaping rules or "fuzzy caps" where the top users are cut off without any explanation of what line they crossed. The key, of course, is that with both of those latter "solutions," the subscriber is told they're getting unlimited service, but the reality is different. Assuming that the overage charges and the rules surrounding them are clearly communicated, such charges are more reasonable. However, there are still questions about how consumers will react to such a change, especially after being sold on an "unlimited" service. The bigger issue is that capping bandwidth usage is a way to slow down internet-based innovation. If there had been overage charges a few years back, services like YouTube might never have caught on, as people would be too worried about how much bandwidth it would suck up. If the cable companies can't provide enough bandwidth, that's clearly an issue -- but most reports suggest that claims of a bandwidth crunch are overblown. Update: Just saw Adam Thierer's amusing pre-emptive reply to me on the topic. I'm not as against the idea as he suggests, though I do think, in the long run, it's not a very good solution.

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The Myth Of The Bandwidth Crunch Just Won't Die

from the this-again? dept

A few months back we noticed a trend. Whenever we heard fear mongering reports about the internet running out of capacity, they almost always came from folks who weren't technologists. Instead, they tended to be telco business folks, lobbyists or politicians. When it came to actual technology people who had real experience and real data concerning what was happening on the network, we would see over and over and over and over again that the "threat" of a bandwidth crunch is pretty much a myth. We're not running out of bandwidth, and the ongoing upgrades to the network should be able to handle whatever growth comes along. There's no reason to panic... yet, that's not the message that the telcos want you to hear. After all, it's in their interest to work up fears of internet capacity problems so that politicians will pass legislation providing them with subsidies or other unnecessary benefits.

So, when Broadband Reports pointed us to an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe by a Harvard professor talking about the coming bandwidth crunch and the need to switch to metered pricing (another telco favorite, after they were too clueless to accurately predict that unmetered pricing would lead to more usage), it wasn't difficult to guess that she didn't have a technology background. Instead, it appears her background is entirely in public policy. There's certainly nothing wrong with folks looking at this issue from a public policy position (in fact, it's important). But, before they claim that the internet is running into trouble, shouldn't they look at what those who actually have the data have to say about the matter?

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You Don't Promote Innovation By Holding Back Those Who Push The Boundaries

from the push-the-limits,-find-solutions dept

Mark Cuban has weighed in on the whole Comcast bittorrent kerfuffle, siding with Comcast, noting that he wants it (and other ISPs) to block P2P traffic because such traffic clogs the last mile and that's inefficient and a problem. This is, unfortunately, the same kind of thinking that the telcos love: that the internet is somehow running out of bandwidth, and the more controls that are put on it, the better. However, that's static thinking. It assumes a steady state, or, at best, linear growth of innovation and change. Unfortunately, that's not how innovation works. The more people push the boundaries, the more demand it creates for better, more efficient solutions, and the more incentive there is to create such solutions. Rather than begging for artificial barriers to be put up, Cuban (and others) should be encouraging such uses. They push the boundaries to the point that people learn where the next big friction point is, and they innovate to get around it. When people are using up last mile bandwidth, all it's doing is creating additional incentives to solve the problems and provide much larger pipes into and out of homes. For a content distributor, such as Cuban is these days, you would think that would be a good thing.

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What Bandwidth Crunch?

from the doesn't-look-so-bad-this-way dept

While you have lobbyists, consultants and politicians claiming that the internet is on the verge of collapsing due to running out of bandwidth, it seems that the techies would beg to differ. We already pointed out that the report put out by D&T consultants was later refuted by the folks who run the nodes that D&T insisted were at risk of being overwhelmed. Now we have Andrew Odlyzko adding more weight to the idea that the bandwidth crunch that so many lobbyists and telco execs seem to be screaming about is something of a myth. Odlyzko, of course, is also the guy who pointed out that Worldcom was lying back during the dot com boom when it insisted that internet traffic was doubling every 100 days. Now he's noting that internet traffic growth is slowing -- which very few of the doomsday estimates take into account. Internet traffic is still growing, of course, but not at nearly as rapid a pace. That isn't surprising, after all. The internet is starting to reach maturity in terms of the number of folks who are joining in the developed world. Certainly, those people are using more and more bandwidth, but not at an overwhelming pace, and there appears to be plenty of capacity to keep up with the pace of growth. Once again, it looks like those warning of the imminent death of the internet are basing it either on faulty data or are extrapolating based on data that doesn't take into account slowing growth. Either way, it is interesting that the actual technologists never seem all that worried about running out of capacity. Hell, even when any telco exec breaks the party line and admits that the threat of a bandwidth crunch is completely overstated, it's always been the CTO who says so. Somehow, I get the feeling that the technology guys have a lot better handle on this than the lobbyists and the politicians...

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