UBR Upgrades and DOCSIS 3

[jcuk]

For all the informed tech heads out there!!!

Out of curiosity, if VM are doing all these UBR Upgrades and implementing DOCSIS 3 into their network for 50meg + this year, will that also help relieve loads of stress on areas where that 3% minority of users are downloading excessivly? Resulting in STM being eased up on, or removed altogether?

Or will they keep it as it is and let all that bandwidth roam free like - well sheep or something?

J

[boroboi]

The 50mb users (DOCSIS 3) will be on (In lemans terms) a seperate source of bandwidth so to speak, so that depends on how many of that 3% on 20mb migrate over to the 50MB service, if they do, then thats less excessive users and more bandwidth to share around. But in theory you could say it would relieve stress from the over subscribing of the lower tiers anyway.

I assume the STM rule will still apply, i cant see them getting rid of it to be honest with you.

[xspeedyx]

I think it will either be removed or the thersolds will be alot higher

[TehTech]

For all the informed tech heads out there!!!

Out of curiosity, if VM are doing all these UBR Upgrades and implementing DOCSIS 3 into their network for 50meg + this year, will that also help relieve loads of stress on areas where that 3% minority of users are downloading excessivly? Resulting in STM being eased up on, or removed altogether?

Or will they keep it as it is and let all that bandwidth roam free like - well sheep or something?

J

Well you work for the company (so you say)
Go ask some of your work collegues.

[jcuk]

i dont work in broadband or tsc. and im more likely to find the answer here than at work, believe it or not!

[ceedee]

I had the worrying thought that VM might attempt to set usage limits on the 10Mb and 20Mb connections to 'persuade' the so-called (and very rarely defined) heavy users onto the premium-priced 50Mb. But I don't understand why: the increase in turnover, while welcome I'm sure, is peanuts to VM. Could VM 'corral' and limit how much bandwidth just the 50Mb users were getting nationally? Or something?

Before STM was introduced, I'd frequently download more than is now permitted during the peak hours because that's when I was home and awake.
Now I, and I'd imagine most of the rest of the 3% heavy users don't start our downloads until later in the evening but I don't get the sense that reports of problems with congestion during peak hours or collapsing connection speeds are reducing. If anything, the number of complaints is greater now than pre-STM.

So what else could be wrong with the network?

[Graham M]

i dont work in broadband or tsc. and im more likely to find the answer here than at work, believe it or not!

The installer who put my SACM in earlier didn't know about the 4 meg-10 meg upgrades!!! I had to show her the letter!

[lostandconfused]

STM may not be implemented on the 50mb, but i cant see it being removed from the lower tiers.

Even with all the upgrades that are going on at the moment, there is and always will be a limited amount of resources available. If STM is removed, then the people that have a high usage, degrade the netowork for others especially at peak times.

Also it would be a good marketing tool to get people to upgrade to the 50mb

[dav]

What about the ££££'s?

No matter how good the marketing for 50Mb is, the bottom line is the cost.

I suspect I'm not alone in saying that no amount of marketing bombardment from VM will get me on to 50Mb until the price drops. As it is 2Mb is all I am willing to pay for from VM until the value for money increases.

[lostandconfused]

But there are a lot of people out there that do download a lot and want a unlimited service with no restrictions.

It wasnt so long ago that people were paying £50 a month for the 512k service. The 50mb will be a premium service, and therefore have a premium price tag to go with it

I dont think VM want to get everyone onto the 50mb service. If your only a casual user of the internet and dont do a lot of downloading then the 50mb isnt going to be for you, which is why they have the lower tiers.

There are also a lot of people, who will pay for the 50mb just so they can say they have it, and never really use it to its full potential, but they wouldnt need convincing anyway

[dav]

I don't download a lot but still want a service without restrictions. I know I won't get it from VM, so I do what I consider to be the smart thing and give VM as little of my money as possible.

At VM's suggestion, when STM was implemented I started monitoring my network traffic. Apparently, according to VM I am a bandwidth hog as I sometimes fall foul of the STM policy, thereby making me in the top 3% of heavy users.
I'm on a 2Mb line and do you know how much traffic I've done since September last year? I'll tell you...a selfishly enormous total of 20GB up and down. Hardly pipe-busting isn't it?

Bah, I can feel myself starting a rant, so I'll stop there as it isn't entriely relevant to this thread. I just hate being labelled as a hog on a 2Mb line with the amount of bandwidth I use, when people on a 50Mb line are going to use up my equivalent of nearly 6 months traffic in a matter of hours and VM have the temerity to, on one hand keep pushing the speeds higher, and on the other claim bandwidth poverty and have to impose limits on us.

I'm sure I said I wasn't going to rant...

[ceedee]

I just hate being labelled as a hog on a 2Mb line with the amount of bandwidth I use, when people on a 50Mb line are going to use up my equivalent of nearly 6 months traffic in a matter of hours and VM have the temerity to, on one hand keep pushing the speeds higher, and on the other claim bandwidth poverty and have to impose limits on us.
That's a very neat explanation of the core problem, dav: increasing connection speeds while drastically limiting permitted throughput.

To try to argue that you're in the top 3% "heavy user" category because you sometimes download over 300MB between 4 and 9pm is ridiculous. And it's only going to get much worse...

I'm participating in trials of a new web-based tv streaming service (called Livestation: it's going to be very popular!) that downloads around 360MB per hour. When I last checked, watching something using the BBC's iPlayer worked out at 250MB/hour.
Hell, you could watch YouTube videos for a couple of hours and, by VM's estimation, you'd be considered to be in the hog class for the next five hours! It's as though VM are still thinking in terms of downloading albums rather than all the web-based services that are now available.

I've no particular problem with STM to 'even out' the load across the network at peak times but not at these pathetic levels.
Especially when there's been no demonstrably beneficial effect on performance since STM was introduced.

I suspect all we can hope for is that the new UBR software will magically improve the network's capability and VM increase the limits before STM cuts in.
But I won't be holding my breath!

[BBKing]

watching something using the BBC's iPlayer worked out at 250MB/hour.

iPlayer is completely screwing the economics of ADSL reseller ISPs *already*, so it's not a great argument for unlimited bandwidth. It's more likely to lead to either price rises or bandwidth limitations.

http://www.telco2.net/blog/2008/02/bbcs_iplayer_nukes_all_you_can.html

However, it's not all doom and gloom...

The story for Virgin Media, which is the main UK cable operator with 3.3m broadband subscribers, is again is dependent on network design. This time it depends upon the load on the UBR within the network segment. Virgin Media have a special angle to this as the iPlayer will be coming to their Video-on-Demand service in the spring, and therefore we assume this will take a lot of load off their IP network. The Virgin VoD service runs on dedicated bandwidth within their network and allows for the content to be watched on TV rather than PC. A big bonus for the Virgin Media subscribers.

So you know where to go for value and technological progress*

* I can't believe I just said that.

[Horace]

I don't download a lot but still want a service without restrictions. I know I won't get it from VM, so I do what I consider to be the smart thing and give VM as little of my money as possible.

At VM's suggestion, when STM was implemented I started monitoring my network traffic. Apparently, according to VM I am a bandwidth hog as I sometimes fall foul of the STM policy, thereby making me in the top 3% of heavy users.
I'm on a 2Mb line and do you know how much traffic I've done since September last year? I'll tell you...a selfishly enormous total of 20GB up and down. Hardly pipe-busting isn't it?

Bah, I can feel myself starting a rant, so I'll stop there as it isn't entriely relevant to this thread. I just hate being labelled as a hog on a 2Mb line with the amount of bandwidth I use, when people on a 50Mb line are going to use up my equivalent of nearly 6 months traffic in a matter of hours and VM have the temerity to, on one hand keep pushing the speeds higher, and on the other claim bandwidth poverty and have to impose limits on us.

I'm sure I said I wasn't going to rant...

STM should never have been implemented on the lowest tier, it doesn't make sense, a 2meg user is never going to suck enough bandwidth to adversly affect others at peak time and blows Virgin's excuse for implimenting it at all out of the window. It just inconveniences people who may have moved to higher tiers given a good experience. Apologies for dragging this further off-topic.

[Bonglet]

But there are a lot of people out there that do download a lot and want a unlimited service with no restrictions.

It wasnt so long ago that people were paying £50 a month for the 512k service. The 50mb will be a premium service, and therefore have a premium price tag to go with it

£50 a month for 512k not long ago lol since ive been on cable over 7 yrs now on the highest connection when possible i have never paid 50 quid i think it was 35 at the time when most were on dialup, there was a window where 10mb was 50 quid and not many took it up to justify the extra i think similar things will happen to the 50mb service too if 50mb is going to be 50 quid does that mean 20mb is dropping to £20 also i hope so then ill probably stay on it when the 10mb upgrades are done :).

[Mick Fisher]

STM should never have been implemented on the lowest tier, it doesn't make sense, a 2meg user is never going to suck enough bandwidth to adversly affect others at peak time and blows Virgin's excuse for implimenting it at all out of the window. It just inconveniences people who may have moved to higher tiers given a good experience. Apologies for dragging this further off-topic.
It does if you want to stop loads of STM'ed 4meg users downgrading to it.

[ceedee]

iPlayer is completely screwing the economics of ADSL reseller ISPs *already*, so it's not a great argument for unlimited bandwidth. It's more likely to lead to either price rises or bandwidth limitations.
My point is that iptv / streaming video services are a natural evolution of the internet (just as P2P has been widely adopted in the last few years) and the ISP's economic models have to change to reflect new usage trends.

IM<HO, the UK's broadband services have been competitively beaten down to such ridiculous levels that most ISPs are not able to make a profit, let alone innovate for the future. So, in that context, ADSL economics were already screwed before the iPlayer was introduced.

Maybe ISPs will have to levy an extra optional charge for video streaming?
Perhaps AOL / O2 / TalkTalk will be the first to include it free in certain packages?

The one thing that is certain is that iptv and video streaming aren't going away just because ISPs are, once again, unsure if they can make money supplying the pipes.