Application Throttling/Management - Page 3

bliss · 21-06-2008, 15:35

Another nail in the coffin for VM hopefully. I forsee Be getting a lot of new customers soon.

Nemeth · 21-06-2008, 15:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Peter

The days of gaming traffic (with notable exceptions) using single digit bandwidth figures is a thing of the past unfortunately. The majority of Xbox live games for example are user hosted and rely on peer-to-peer connectivity.A mid double-digit figure is a more realistic estimation in this case depending on the game in question.

Fair point, having only ever gamed on the PC I didn't stop to consider consoles.

|Kippa| · 21-06-2008, 15:53

Feck, if you throttle newsgroup and p2p ports, then what exactly can you downloadload at 20mbit? Or is that the point, they don't want you to use it. As I have said before I am going to wait till 50mbit comes out and see what happens after that. As for saying that the average user doesn't know about this site and is more likely to use Facebook et al. Why not create a anti stm/phorm/throttling Virgin Media group in Facebook. This way you might significantly raise the profile of what they are doing and at the same time put the 'the average user' in touch with what is happening, also if a lot of people register to it that will create public pressure on VM, it would not cost anything and would be free so there is nothing lost in doing it.

I have created an Anti Phorm/STM/Throttling group in Facebook. If you want to join it then here is the link to the group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=63826810720

Uncle Peter · 21-06-2008, 16:16

Well the big problem is that VM can arbitrarily decide what constitutes "heavy" use as they see fit and may arbitrarily apply Class of Service on whatever type of traffic they see fit (potentially to the detriment of their paying customers), just as they have varied the limits of STM and reserve the right to continue to do so.

Unfortunately the more switched on customers who decide that enough is enough and leave will no doubt be replaced by the unsuspecting people who make a grab for the dangling carrot of 50Mbit, which sounds great on paper.

flowrebmit · 21-06-2008, 17:28

Given the country of origin for this DPI equipment, I do wonder whether these devices were made just for traffic management or something altogether more sinster.

Angry@VMedia · 21-06-2008, 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I think you are over reacting to Traxs' news.

The Allot system is essentially designed to maximise traffic throughput on certain protocols, prioritising certain types of traffic over others.

Essentially it tries to give an even playing field to all users.

As Trax mentioned for example it could help ping times for certain online gaming such as World of Warcraft, or give priority to other data types at different times.

Lets be upfront here, most people think that VM's problems are down to lack of capacity, the pipe. They think that if you increase the flow, or enlarge the pipe - everything will be ticketyboo. WRONG.

It's simple, if people are taking more than they reasonably should, you should not give them a wider door to go through, no sir. You controll the flow, making it fairer for the majority, that is what the Allot DPI system provides. It gives VM mission critical data to help them manage peoples expectations of traffic flow. This is ultimately what people want, the ability to turn on their PC, do what they have to do then get off.

Virgin Media are not criminals just because you're not happy, they have to manage a massively complicated network with a burgening demand from its customers and all the various content out there.

Trust me when I say this, the problem is global. The bigger the ISP, the bigger the problem. Traffic management isn't a nice to have, its a must have and the quicker we accept this the better.

Can I suggest something though? Leave, leave now.....you're not happy, and this system has been in place for months, possibly a couple of years but VM have never used it, its going to happen, so cut your losses and head off to ADSL land. Be Unlimited seem to offer good packages, and there are other ADSL providers who will provide a premium service for a premium price, that is give you priority traffic at peak times if you pay more - oh wait - that wouldn't be fair in your eyes, sorry.

With all due respect Toto, Trax did not say it could / will help ping times for games, he said it will "affect" it, which means they could (knowing what vm are like) throttle it down, I already have problems playing on Halo Multiplayer, even if the ping is low (lowest I have seen is 30-90) then I still get lags (that red disconnected network thing that pops up in the lower right of the screen and cant move or shoot)

What is the point of moving to (A)DSL when the max I can expect is 1.9mb as I am too far from the exchange. WHEN they have all of this going live, as I said earlier, not only will I cancel all of our virgin "services" but I will leave the net for good, I do not see the point in paying virgin to rip me off, not when I can pop into the library and use the net for free for as long as I want (business opening hours of course) if I wanted to, I could wait outside for them to open, and not leave until they close at night, and with a mate living within spitting distance of it, I could even go round their house and use the free internet, not to mention all of my friends that also have wireless, I'm sure they wouldnt mind me sitting in theirs using their connection, but thats beside the point!

This is all I am going to say on the matter as I dont want to get in an arguement, there's enough of that in the world already!

bliss · 22-06-2008, 02:41

Is it legal to use DPI on SSL encryption?

Toto · 22-06-2008, 08:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by bliss

Is it legal to use DPI on SSL encryption?

Assuming that DPI can break the encryption? doubt it, but we are moving away from the point.

VM AND BT both have Allot (or similar) installed within their network edge at the pops, I am not sure about other ISP's.

dev · 22-06-2008, 08:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Assuming that DPI can break the encryption? doubt it, but we are moving away from the point.

VM AND BT both have Allot (or similar) installed within their network edge at the pops, I am not sure about other ISP's.

an ISP can easilly see SSL traffic, afterall you negotiate the secure connection via your ISP

Toto · 22-06-2008, 10:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by dev

an ISP can easilly see SSL traffic, afterall you negotiate the secure connection via your ISP

I was answering the point as to whether or not D(eep)P(acket)I(nspection) of SSL packets whas legal or not, not whether the ISP can see them, which of course they can.

Ignitionnet · 22-06-2008, 10:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by dev

an ISP can easilly see SSL traffic, afterall you negotiate the secure connection via your ISP

Not really, this is why there are certification chains for the SSL certificates. If Virgin started trying to proxy SSL connections in order to read the contents it would be very obvious when you noted your bank's secure site having a certificate signed by Virgin Media

They can't 'break' SSL but can certainly monitor the endpoints and implement a policy based on that. If someone has 10 SSL connections to news-europe.giganews.com it doesn't take a huge amount of thinking or analysis to guess what the traffic is.

dave.m · 23-06-2008, 11:06

If this is about QOS and NOT capping download rates for certain services, I think it would be a good thing. By definition, low latency applications (gamming, VOIP etc) require significantly less bandwidth than your blunt force multiple stream P2P/Newsgroup feed, so prioritising this traffic should not adversely affect download rates imo.

Dave

PeteTheMusicGuy · 23-06-2008, 11:28

I think VM are playing with fire

Maybe with all of this coming in VM might offer a "app throttling/STM free" service for a few pounds extra

|Kippa| · 23-06-2008, 11:29

It would depend on what they would do to achieve what they believe to be a quality of service with regards to throttling SSL connections. For example if they took an SSL connection download going at full pelt 20mbit, then throttled it down to say 15mbit perhaps this might not upset most folk. If on the other hand they throttle it from the full 20mbit to 0.5mbit then that really would be taking the micky.

All ISPs have limitations to what they can deliver, so using throttling to gaurntee quality of service isn't intrinsicly bad. The problem arises when an ISP like Virgin Media don't maintain the basic level of service to their customers, then use traffic management and throttling to offset the costs that are needed to maintain a basic level of service.

Alto · 23-06-2008, 14:33

Virgin Media rubbishes P2P throttling rumours

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06...ttling_denial/

Quote:

Contacted by The Reg today, a Virgin Media spokesman described the claims as "absolute rubbish". He sent us this statement:
Our policy does not discriminate internet traffic by application and we have no plans to do so. Whilst we do use equipment from Allot within parts of our cable network, this is used to build usage metrics and does not affect customers' service in any way. It is certainly not used to do any form of packet shaping or change internet traffic priorities.