North American Network Operators Group
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Re: FW: ISPs slowing P2P traffic...

  • From: John Dupuy
  • Date: Tue Jan 15 16:41:46 2008

David E. Smith wrote:
[...]
Every network has limitations, and I don't think I've ever seen a network that makes every single end-user happy with everything all the time. You could pipe 100Mbps full-duplex to everyone's door, and someone would still complain because they don't have gigabit access to lemonparty.

Whether those are limitations of the technology you chose, limitations in your budget, policy restrictions, whatever.

As long as you fairly disclose to your end-users what limitations and restrictions exist on your network, I don't see the problem.

David Smith
MVN.net


Well said. I'm not sure what the future holds, but there is an example
in the marketplace already: satellite broadband.

Because bandwidth to/from a transponder is severely limited (even with
the newer tech), they have the "buffet" problem even worse.

So, a long time ago they went to a point-blank limitation known as "fair
access policy". See
http://my.wildblue.net/download/legal/public/fair_access_policy_08012007.pdf 

as an example. Essentially, go as fast as you want until your transfer
limit is reached; then run at dialup speeds until your cap clears. To
your typical end user, nothing is noticed. Heavy users do notice.

A few lessons learned from that industry:

 1. when they switched existing customers to it, the customers went
ballistic and hated it. (even the ones not really affected by it.) I
don't blame them as that was not really what they were thinking when
they invested in the equipment. (Ah, customer expectations...)
 2. whenever they "adjust" the policy further, the customers still hate
it; even if the fine print says they can change it. New customers, who
always had FAP, don't hate it as much.
 3. it actually does work. They alleviate billing fears by not charging
extra or shutting off service, instead they throttle bandwidth. Most of
them have graphs the customer can get to and see. They don't largely
don't discriminate on type of traffic (i.e. P2P vs. other).

I doubt we see this in the cable or dsl world for a while, but I
wouldn't be surprised if the industry is pushed that way. There is a
definite downside, but it actually is technically fair.

Just my opinion.

John