Traffic Shaping Affecting All Tiers - Page 2

Diadem · 29-04-2007, 21:17

This is in effect across all tiers this was niver a dispute. it affects people who have high bandwidth use 2 hours prior to 5pm up to midnight the cap will only last for 2 hour but can happen more than once in that time.

So you could be caped 6 - 8 then 8 - 10 and again 10 - 12. Or you could just be caped in any other combination of these times.

As far as I know there was only 2 or 3 areas that this was in effect on blackpool was one dont remember what the others were.

As I said at the time I think this is the way to go, the only people that will complain at this will be the pirates that are downloading stuff there is no way that the amount of traffic i have seen on some connections is legit usage.

Hex · 29-04-2007, 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawn Falcon

Why should they penalise all users for the actions of a few people who jam their connections open 24/7?

I think you've completely missed the point I was making, I was talking about shaping on a per-tier basis, not a per-person basis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawn Falcon

Oh wait, THAT math dosn't add up

Someone has been watching a few too many American tv shows. In this country we spell it maths.

Sorry but its a pet hate of mine, just don't start trying to spell colour "color", or centre "center"...

Dawn Falcon · 29-04-2007, 21:35

Hex, you might want to read the next sentence, which starts with "Oh, wait". I was slamming that line of reasoning for the necessity for traffic shaping people have previously used.

And I'm dyslexic, you try and tell me how words are spelt all day until you're blue in the face, for casual forum posting I'll still get them wrong. *shrugs* (And it dosn't help that quite a few of the docs I do are in American not British English...)

marky · 29-04-2007, 21:44

Just a thought, now bare with me.

What if

Its just

The bandwith being hogged at those times by teens etc

Dawn Falcon · 29-04-2007, 21:47

Per some of the graphs in other threads, Marky, it's showing a sharp drop to a definate maximum cap at those times, marky, not the sort of decline you'd see if it was simple overloading of the local bandwidth. There are also sharp rises after capped periods, etc.

I can't see how this is anything but deliberate.

Hex · 29-04-2007, 21:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawn Falcon

And I'm dyslexic, you try and tell me how words are spelt all day until you're blue in the face, for casual forum posting I'll still get them wrong. *shrugs* (And it dosn't help that quite a few of the docs I do are in American not British English...)

Sorry mate, no insult intended, I see so many people these days typing using American spellings, including my kid sister. Don't know why but I just find it rather annoying for some reason.

Back to topic, you say everyone shouldn't be penalised for a small amount of users hammering their connection, and that's the whole idea behind the shaping, to cut the speed of those people who are hammering it during peak hours, that's why it only kicks in after Xmb, Joe Blogs down the road wouldn't notice any change as he casually browses ebay and checks his emails.

Dawn Falcon · 29-04-2007, 22:03

No, Hex, that's my point. As I said, the math for the 2% of users hammering the service being the cause simply dosn't add up. This is purely about wanting to have a higher headline speed for the broadband service to attract customers, and not have to invest in infrastructure for it. Traffic shaping is cheaper than lighting cable. And Joe Blogs WILL notice the 200ms latency hit. It's like using a 56k modem again anytime traffic shaping goes on. (click-pause-webpage loads), as it does after he watches internet TV for 5 minutes before it all stops working properly (because he's just got capped).

Moreover, those 2% shouldn't be allowed to punish everyone even IF that was the cause. Toss em off the service allready. It's not rocket science.

marky · 29-04-2007, 22:37

So now we have spelling police

Hex · 29-04-2007, 23:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawn Falcon

No, Hex, that's my point. As I said, the math for the 2% of users hammering the service being the cause simply dosn't add up. This is purely about wanting to have a higher headline speed for the broadband service to attract customers, and not have to invest in infrastructure for it.

In an ideal world I'd agree with you, but I do believe it's more than 2%. Also if VM decided to upgrade the entire network to handle every connection it sold, they'd probably end up bankrupt, and we'd all have to go back to ADSL*shudders*

Sure shaping is a bit of an underhanded trick, but it is a necessary evil whilst they do upgrade the network (and they do, albeit rather slowly, piece by piece)

Well that's my take on it anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawn Falcon

Traffic shaping is cheaper than lighting cable. And Joe Blogs WILL notice the 200ms latency hit. It's like using a 56k modem again anytime traffic shaping goes on.

Having not been shaped, I cant deny this, but I can doubt it. My JB example was someone not even triggering the shaping. But even if it did, it should only shape down to 5mb, a far cry from 56k, and 200ms? Back when my NTL connection was shiny, new and only 600k it had lower latency than that, so where you got that kind of figure from I don't know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by marky

So now we have spelling police

Spelling mistakes are fine, god knows I make plenty myself, but fine, I'll just go back to grumbling to myself about the corruption of our language. Just don't come running to me when match of the day starts calling the game "soccer" and so on and so forth, yada yada yada.... [/Rant]

Oh and don't take any of the above too seriously, It's just been one of those days

marky · 29-04-2007, 23:40

Hey no probs, I labor away so my wife can get jewelry in all the colors she wants

Diadem · 29-04-2007, 23:46

the packet shaping effect things like bit torrent packets usenet packets ect... (unless using ssh) and only hits those with high usage at these times.
Its not effecting everyone in that area..

I have used traffic shaping on private networks and your idea that uneffected packets get delayed i dont understand as i have niver seen this. More as it only effects the packets coming for X modem with X header on packet.

Dawn Falcon · 30-04-2007, 00:45

Hex, the ADSL providers commonly say that 2-3% of their users take the **** with their bandwidth usage, I fail to see how this would be much different on cable.

As for overselling, I'd rather have a sensible service I can use, at a reasonable price, than one which is traffic shapped into uselesness if I *DARE* use it at peak times when y'know, I'm actually home. If that's slower and more expensive, SO BE IT! It's still better than overselling. "Small, slow" upgrades to the network when you're offering higher speeds is not worth it - the "higher speeds" they're offering are nothing more than a way for people to leech more illegal stuff off-peak, as things stand, and to pay more for having the "same" (actually traffic-shaping degraded) connection at useable times.

Every single instance of traffing shaping I've seen has added considerable latency. As for the 56k comparison, the main factor there is the latency again. Becuse of the technical limits of 56k, there's usually a fair bit of latency which leads to click-pause-click registers on server. This annoys non-technical people no end, and traffic shaping, IME, makes broadband act that way as well. This is one of the major advantages of broadband, ignoring raw speed entirely! (it also applies to ISDN, which is why a 64k ISDN connection feels SO much smoother than web surfing than a 56k modem!)

Rubbish it's a necessary "evil", it's a business descision and one which is NOT in any way for the customer, it's purely for the headlines and the bottom line.

Diadem, inspecting the packets takes time. Supposedly very little time, but in practice it adds several hundred ms, IME.

Chrysalis · 30-04-2007, 03:43

They should be capping all tiers, I expect they have a had a fair few people downgrading to the middle tier after realising they were paying extra for nothing.

Retrovertigo · 30-04-2007, 10:59

I did ask this in another thread a while ago but don't think it was answered. Anyway, what is the point of the upgrade to 20meg if they need to cap speeds of an evening at the moment? Surely that's when most people use the net and the speed increase is effectively null and void? Maybe I'm missing something stupidly obvious here.

Diadem · 30-04-2007, 11:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retrovertigo

I did ask this in another thread a while ago but don't think it was answered. Anyway, what is the point of the upgrade to 20meg if they need to cap speeds of an evening at the moment? Surely that's when most people use the net and the speed increase is effectively null and void? Maybe I'm missing something stupidly obvious here.

This is not in all areas!!!! only in the 3 most congested areas of the old telewest network. this has not been put on to the ntl section of the network at all..