Will ISPs Spoil Online Video?

mrspin writes "last100 writes: "With an ever greater amount of video being consumed online, many Internet users are in for a shock. There's a dirty little secret in the broadband industry: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don't have the capacity to deliver the bandwidth that they claim to offer. One way ISPs attempt to conceal this problem is to place a cap of say 1GB per-month per user, something which is common in the UK for many of the lower-cost broadband packages on the market. Considering that a mere three hours viewing of Joost (the new online video service from the founders of Skype) would all but use up this monthly allowance, it's clear that lots of Internet users aren't invited to the party. But what about those who (like me) pay more for 'unlimited' broadband access? There shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong." The article then goes on to discuss the recent trend of bandwidth throttling based on techniques such as packet shaping which punishes p2p traffic whether it's legitimate or not."

Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

I'm with Zen Internet, based in the UK. I get x amount of bandwidth a month and when that runs out I pay for a top-up.

What's wrong with paying for what you use? Why deliberately degrade your service when you can simply get the customer to pay the difference?

Simon

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

The reason people get so angry is because for years "unlimited" bandwidth has been advertised.

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

Here in the US, most of the services I've seen that offer unlimited bandwidth don't have a lower-cost option that offers limited bandwidth. If the market for un-throttled P2P bandwidth grows, perhaps the ISPs should offer tiered service. Personally, I don't mind the pay-as-you-go model. In short, I want a service that combines TV, radio, phone service, and internet access, and I want to only pay a $100/month fee. If this isn't enough to get the on-demand video I want, perhaps I'd consider that as a premium option, but frankly, $100/month seems like it should cover me for the kinds of realistic use that would be done in my house. Also, I sure-as-hell don't want to be locked into AT&T for all those services, and net neutrality in the form of non-discrimination against packets based on origin needs to be enforced.

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

A minor correction to that statement: They advertise unlimited data transfer. The bandwidth is limited and is -always- advertised as such.

For instance, my current cable connection is advertised as 6 Mbit, but there is no limit, except the max speed, to how much data I can transfer in a month.

Internet is not the only thing sold in this way. Anything that many people use, but only a small amount use at a given time, is sold this way. There isn't enough roadway for everyone in New York to drive their car at the same time. There aren't enough cell phone towers for everyone to talk on the phone at the same time. I'm sure there are plenty more examples.

The problem here is that usage patterns are changing, and more people are going to want to use the service at the same time now. (By use I mean use 100%, instead of the small % that is typical.) Somehow, I think we'll survive this crisis. Sweden has internet connections to the house that are over 10x the bandwidth that mine is. ISPs will simply have to upgrade their infrastructure to handle it if they want to survive. If they don't, someone else will.

And let's not forget all the 'dark fiber' out there and wireless technologies that have been showing up lately. It could very well be that we decide not to use physical connections at all, and instead relay through a satellite or cell-towers for internet.

This article is either scaremongering or just plain boredom speaking. Someone recently found out about this situation and suddenly thinks they know more than everyone else in the industry, and decided to tell us the sky is falling. -yawn-

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

but there is no limit, except the max speed, to how much data I can transfer in a month.

that's where things diverge. a lot of ISPs have transfer limits, which, more often than not, are not specificed (comcast for example).

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

In Western Canada - the two high speed providers - limits are set.

The 4 packages Telus offers (per their website) are:
Download/Upload usage
60 GB/mo. - $45.95/month
60 GB/mo. - $40.95/month
30 GB/mo. - $31.95/month
10 GB/mo. - $16.95/month
source (http://www.mytelus.com/internet/highspeed/prices. do)

The 4 packages Shaw offers (per their website) are:
Download/Upload usage
150 GB/mo. - $99.95/month
100 GB/mo. - $48.95/month
60 GB/mo. - $38.95/month
10 GB/mo. - $29.95/month ($20 if you have TV as well)
source (http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Interne t/)

As always there is fine print - ie, Service Agreements with Telus and you need to purchase your Modem with Shaw but I'm posting here re bandwidth and that information is clearly listed with limits.

This is marketing fallout, plain and simple

When broadband became widely available, it worked for them to push speed and ignore the issue of traffic volume as only a small minority of subscribers were capable of using large amounts of bandwidth. Safe to advertise the unlimited abyss Internet service as it appeared that way for all intents and purposes to the subscribers.

The explosion of Internet video (and other rich content) has now provided the catalyst for the "average user" to generate significant data transfer volume, and it was never the case that they could actually provide unlimited access to everyone all the time. It was a statistical game really =).

What would interest me is what effect this is going to have on the cost of broadband in the near future. This is my living so I'm content paying more for a better quality connection; however, what kind of service can the "average user" realistically expect for $30/mo. or whatever. A marketing faux pas if they end up hurting their own business getting users used to the idea that unlimited data volume in and out of your home was actually something you can get cheaply.

--
~AC

Re:This is marketing fallout, plain and simple

That would allow ISP's to present customers with clear service choices in an economically viable model.

You're assuming that ISPs have a recognizable business ethic. They don't. You're further assuming that they are interested in providing the best possible service scenario for the fees they charge. They aren't. Worse yet, your fundamental assumption that criminalizing encryption and giving ISPs total control of the type of traffic crossing their networks would do anything but trigger yet another round of price increases and lowered service levels. These simply aren't people that can be trusted with that kind of power, and ultimately that is what the Net Neutrality controversy is all about.

Look up the term "common carrier", realize that ISPs (even those that are also phone companies) are generally not common carriers, and maybe you'll grasp what your proposal actually means to the consumer. In any event, your thoughts are local in scope: the Internet has been a global phenomenon for some time and all outlawing encryption in one nation will do is help competing nations, one way or another. Bad idea.

Also, I have no idea where you get the flawed idea that my being able to encrypt my own communications to prevent anyone from reading it has anything to do with "avoiding security" or "hacking". You need to understand what those words mean first. I'm sure there are any number of Slashdotters that would be happy to fill in your knowledge gaps for you.

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

A minor correction to that statement: They advertise unlimited data transfer. The bandwidth is limited and is -always- advertised as such.

Not true. In fact, the only place where I see bandwidth advertised clearly and truthfully is in web hosting, where you simply buy a fixed amount of data transfer, usually on a 10 or 100 mbit pipe. No way you'll saturate the thing with whatever you're paying for monthly, but at least you know exactly what you're paying for.

My ISP, and maybe your ISP, are likely exceptions. I pretty much have 1 Mbit, pretty much all the time. I can usually saturate it for weeks at a time with BitTorrent, and the worst I ever slow down to is half.

But most ISPs aren't as honest. They sell "burst bandwidth", which is their way of weaseling out of any responsibility. They'll claim "UNLIMITED", but what they mean by that is, you can stay connected as long as you want, and transfer as much as you can, without paying extra. They don't mean that you'll be able to saturate the 6 Mbits 24/7, unless no one else is connected.

There isn't enough roadway for everyone in New York to drive their car at the same time.

And there are occasionally traffic jams, which suggests the infrastructure there could be improved. But whatever, I'm not paying a monthly fee specifically for the purpose of driving on roads in New York. You could argue that I'm paying my taxes there (I live in Iowa, but that's not the point), but the tax forms don't come with a glossy flier with big bold letters saying "UNLIMITED driving!"

There aren't enough cell phone towers for everyone to talk on the phone at the same time. I'm sure there are plenty more examples.

I'm not sure how it works with cell phone towers, but I honestly cannot think of anything else that is sold by claiming you get UNLIMITED service, and then not delivering. The only thing that comes close is overbooking, which seems deceptive to me anyway.

Someone recently found out about this situation and suddenly thinks they know more than everyone else in the industry, and decided to tell us the sky is falling.

More likely, us geeks have known about this all along, and any publicity about the situation might help encourage ISPs to go light up that dark fiber, research that wireless, and actually deliver the bandwidth they've been selling us. It's kind of like, most articles about DRM read to Slashdotters as "Well, duh!", but not everyone even knows DRM exists.

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

The bandwidth IS "unlimited", so long as only one person uses the "unlimited" bandwidth and everyone else is a grandma: just checking their e-mail. They played the odds, and soon they're going to lose.

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

If you charge customers for using more than X, then it is hard to tell them that their service is "unlimited". (you would then open yourself to being sued for false advertising)

Now, if the ISP would just admit to how much they are willing to sell you (think cell phones), then maybe this will work.

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

A large part of the issue is that ISPs don't have and aren't willing to invest in links to the internet at large. So there just isn't the bandwidth to handle all this new traffic (YouTube, BitTorrent etc etc)

The obvious question is why don't the ISPs go and buy more upstream bandwidth (funded by people who are willing to pay extra for more downloads each month)

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

Squid doesn't proxy everything. Most large scale bandwidth issues are related to streamed multimedia content and P2P traffic. ISPs always oversell their connections. That will never change.

You're getting ripped off, dude

I pay 29 EUR a month for 24 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up. Plus free international phone. Plus wifi. Plus TV. Free PVR which I don't even use for lack of a TV. Also 1 GB of hosting space, unmetered.

Within a year I should get 50 Mbps (symmetrical) FTTH.

http://www.free.fr [www.free.fr]

Re:Why not just let us pay for the damn bandwidth?

Nobody has a problem paying for what they use. However, plans here in the US generally aren't sold as "x amount of data per month, then y amount of money for every z amount of data over x" but as "unlimited bandwidth until you stop paying us." Actually, I don't know of any broadband service (here broadband being defined as cable/dsl, since those two are the ones that a consumer is most likely to use) that advertises "x amount of data per month, then y amount of money for every z amount of data over x." The companies here in the states have severely screwed themselves. If they actually begin advertising "x amount of data per month, then y amount of money for every z amount of data over x," then there will be consumer outcry, because before they thought were getting "unlimited bandwidth." Even if they actually weren't, they thought they were. Of course, this leads to the whole net neutrality thing, but really the telcos here want to get more money out of the government (supposedly to build new lines, although they have received such money countless times before and nothing got built) and to legally have more control over what goes over their lines, with the obvious orwellian implications that may have.

UK and US ISPs really need to shape up

This problem pops up regularly on the web. I feel sorry for you people that actually encounter it IRL, because in Sweden, and I'm sure in many other countries aswell, this is not an issue.

24/1 or 21/3 Mbps DSL lines in Sweden go off for ~25/mo. If fiber is available 100/10 Mbps go for the same price. It's been this way for the last five years, and people have been playing online games, sharing files et.c. like crazy. I've never heard of anybody that had problems with their ISPs for too heavy traffic, not even with the cheaper plans.

And right now, the good old bastards at ComHem is digging to provide 4 Gbps bandwidth for every household in my neighborhood. Granted, the plan is supposed to include TV, internet and phone lines in it, but still.

What kind of crappy ISPs do you have that limit your internet access in this way? And why the hell do you accept it? Start rioting!

Simple market economics

Demand goes up, supply stays the same: prices will rise. People will either pay a bit more for a good service (I would) or save and stay with the lower-bandwidth plans (most people would). Of course there's also the scenario where supply grows because suddenly the market is more profitable, so new investors enter it and drive the price down to where it was before; but this can never happen unless the gov't fully deregulates the market itself and we all know this will never happen.

Pitfalls of unregulated markets.

but this can never happen unless the gov't fully deregulates the market itself and we all know this will never happen.

Some of the most successful rollouts of high-speed broadband have happened with significant government regulation and involvement: South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, among others. Conversely, in the United States where there was less regulation to begin with (and a steady push towards even less), we have seen much less broadband growth, and we are behind other countries.

[The U.S. government actually did invest in broadband (during the Clinton administration) but since effective regulatory oversight did not accompany the money, we didn't get what we'd hoped for from the Baby Bells.]

Some argue that this is because the US has a low population density: This argument ignores the fact that there still exist within the US large, dense markets on the coasts (the Northeast corridor, from Boston to Washington, for instance), that are surely as profitable as, say, South Korea, which have remained underdeveloped. Why?

There are some things that monopolies, like governments, can better provide than many smaller competing companies; infrastructure and technology research are two of the most important ones. The simple reason for this is that monopolies can be relatively sure that they will be around in many years' time to reap the benefits of their investments, whereas in a hypercompetitive market, risk is higher and the "rational" investor will focus on smaller, shorter-term investments; this maximizes his expected return.

Full deregulation in electricity caused blackouts across California in 2001. Our deregulation so far has not produced an American broadband market comparable to other countries'. So no, the evidence I see does not lead me to blind faith in 100% laissez-faire economic policies.

See The Liberal Paradox [wikipedia.org]: Markets by themselves are not sufficient to create a Pareto-optimal society.

Occasional government involvement, and well-designed, unencumbering regulation are useful and promote growth. The world is full of prisoners' dilemmas and tragedies of the commons: Markets cannot solve these problems by themselves, which is why we need government.

And there is bandwidth limiting

There seem to be a number of ISP's now doing this at peak times. Again this is probably due to the lack of capacity in their infrastructure.
Now we see BT (here in the UK), AT&T(USA) and many others starting to offer IPTV. If there is one thing that is guaranteed to burn bandwidth then it is broadcasting TV this way. Other ISP's will sure follow this but win't have the kit in place to handle the traffic.

Therefore, on one hand we have ISP's promoting 'new' services and on the other limiting the amount of data they will let you receive.
In the words of a UK Politician, they are most likely "Not Fit for Service"

Bah Humbug

Someone can't count ...

and restricts your download speed by up to 500 per cent...

Bad math alert. An 80% restriction would be more like it. A 100% restriction would be a total cut-off. What would 500% be - take back the bits you already downloaded?

S U E

for deceiving advertisement & sale of products and services.

if they hadnt the capacity, they shouldnt have advertised and sold that nonexistent capacity.

R E A D

the service agreement you signed when you started with your ISP. Fine print exists for a reason.

Economics and competition

Wouldn't this just make economically viable all that dot-com dark fiber we used to hear about? With 3G (EVDO, etc.) in the competitive mix with DSL and cable, I find it unlikely there will be cooperation amongst the competitors to withhold bandwidth from customers.

It's called marketing

Hey, ISPs are just doing what they are able to get away with. The question we should be asking is why are they able to get away with marketing 10 MB/s and hide 1GB cap in the fine print.

you get the ISPs you deserve

It should come as no shock that ISPs are shaping traffic. They're out to make money and they only have so much bandwidth, now that the glut has been absorbed. That's not unreasonable. What would be unreasonable is if they advertise video access and then do something like this.

If you're not getting the service you expect form your ISP, you should call them (which by the way, really costs them quite a bit of money), and complain. If they can't or won't satisfy you, you should find another SP who will. Competition is important, and while it's difficult to find in the US and perhaps even moreso in the UK, alternatives should be encouraged. Just remember that you can't get something for nothing. That bandwidth does cost money.

Re:you get the ISPs you deserve

So what happens if you only have one ISP in your area due to monopoly? For example, I can't get DSL because I am about 20K ft. from the CO. Cable is the monopoly here. No WISPs. Forget ISDN, T1+, satellite Internet, etc. due to slowness or/and prices.

The real reason they don't want you to download

The ISPs (Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, etc) see P2P as competition for services that they offer, either currently, or in the future. Why get video or other data for free (after having payed your ISP for access) when they can charge you for it, control what you get access to, and charge a premium for premium content? The ISPs by law can not examine what data is being transmitted without loosing common carrier status (at which point, they get a lot more government regulation). So they do the traffic shaping to get around the regulation issue while degrading any possible competition to their own premium services. This is what the whole net neutrality fight is really about. The ISPs want more money for selling you content. Claiming that they don't have enough bandwidth is just an excuse.

Re:The real reason they don't want you to download

The ISPs by law can not examine what data is being transmitted without loosing common carrier status (at which point, they get a lot more government regulation)

Which would be very comforting if ISP's had common carrier status to begin with.

I don't understand who keeps spreading these rumors but for the last time, ISP's do NOT have common carrier status. They are what are called ESP's (Enhanced Service Providers) and do not warrant the protection that common carrier status provides.

Re:The real reason they don't want you to download

They don't have common carrier status but they have some protections in Title 17, 512. Limitations on liability relating to material online. To most people, even on slashdot, the concepts are confusingly similar. Under section (a) about acting as a relay, one of the requirements is "(2) the transmission, routing, provision of connections, or storage is carried out through an automatic technical process without selection of the material by the service provider." To most people they read that as "ISPs must carry everything" which to them equals "Common carrier". In laymen's speak it sounds reasonable, it's just that legally "Common carrier" has a specific meaning, which ISPs are not.

Australia

This is a particular problem in Australia, where no *truly* unlimited consumer internet plan exists. All of the plans that advertise themselves as "unlimited" will actually cap you after xGBs (although I've seen this go as high as 120gb, which isn't exactly something you'd have to work to ration). The reason for this is that the main telecom provider (Telstra) does not sell bandwidth to it's competitors; it rents it (the other ISPs cannot possibly provide unlimited internet at a reasonable price and stay afloat), and Telstra cannot itself offer truly unlimited broadband (same reason, plus it would be held up on anti-competitive charges). Although as far as I'm aware, no ISP here shapes p2p bandwidth (although some ISPs count uploading towards the usage limit/severely restrict the upload speeds to ridiculously slow rates compared with the download speeds, in part to combat p2p).

An interesting side-note; Telstra were moderately recently held up on false advertising charges for using the word "unlimited" to describe their capped service. They have now changed the name to "Liberty".

Its a lie to control the price

dark fiber optics sit unused in over 90% of the usa. europe supplements its existing fiber/phone/cable with data over power lines (BPL). there is no shortage of broadband, just a collusion of lies. much like the diamond industry does to keep wholesale/retail costs high. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dark+fiber+op tic&btnG=Google+Search [google.com]

Easy solution

Just send out the header "Cache-Control: proxy-revalidate,s-maxage=0".

Illegal networks? Which illegal networks?

uses peer-to-peer technology similar to that used by 'illegal' file sharing networks..

There are no illegal networks, we have enough FUD as the MAFIAA cartels say they are illegal, we do not need the blogger community to call them that... and btw WTF is it with posting a blog entry as a story? when did Digg acquired slashdot?

Joost is almost certainly a violation of any AUP

I've never seen an ISP agreement that didn't specifically prohibit reselling the service, which is exactly what Joost is doing. Private use p2p is one thing, but it's a whole different ballgame when you start selling your upstream bandwidth to a for profit corporation.

Internet not ready

No broadband ISP has the bandwidth needed to deliver the advertised speed to every user on their networks simultaneously, not even the mighty Comcast (AT&T). The Internet backbone couldn't handle it either. I own a very old ISP here in FL and have been buying unlimited bandwidth for many years now and the cost of this type of connection is 20 times higher than most broadband connections.

The cheapest bandwidth in this area still costs around $100 per meg (OC-3, 155Mbps). Users on Comcast get 6 megs for half this. Broadband ISPs deliver the product most users want, intermittent very high download speed without sustained bandwidth use.

All ISP and even phone companies are based on what is called over subscription. ISPs buy bandwidth based on actual demand not theoretical maximum demand. Phone companies have infrastructure to support around 1 in 20 people making a phone call at the same time.

What is needed is for the ISP to be more forthcoming in there product descriptions. We sell a wireless broadband connection for around $38 per month and advertise 2meg download speeds. We are also up front that excessive p2p usage may result in throttling and or account suspension. This is explained before service is installed not just buried in the terms on service. Comcast terminates accounts without any warning and even deny there is any bandwidth cap on users accounts. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

ISP web caches?

Is web caching at the ISP not generally accepted? It would seem sites like YouTube would be very interested in caching their data remotely so their bandwidth can take a breather. If they're worried about statistics then perhaps just the video files are cached locally but the html and db requests are all going to YouTube's servers. Companies like YouTube and AOL or Comcast could both benefit greatly from such technology.

I'm an ISP

I pretty much represent a small ISP in rural Washington state. Bandwidth prices for us are so outrageous, $300 per mb, and this is only because there is one major seller of bandwidth in our area, NOANET. So we have to throttle types of connections, Bit-Torrent is the major one. We would love to open the net to what it should be but its just not possible with the price gouging that happens every place but the cities.

So as an ISP I'm saying we could do it if we didn't get bent over all the time for bandwidth.

ISP A != ISP B

Here in germany you can have slightly cheaper ISP that suck.

Or the slightly more expensive Telekom (T-Com) which rules.

According to my logs I never had bw issues and I'm leeching with the whole 6Mbit for at least 90% of 18 months straight now.

A friend is Arcor customer and everything sucks.

The problem isn't your ISP. It's your misguided sense for saving money. You have to invest sometimes or things will turn out to be cheap ans shitty.

It'll sort itself out...

...once you get a reasonably broad number of people using reasonably known services for legitimate video. Even if you throw in the latest Linux distro, WoW patches and whatnot it's not exactly a massive amount of mainstream media. Your complaints will land on deaf ears. Once people start complaining that they can't watch full episodes from ABC [go.com] and similar services, the tone will be different. "ABC, you say... you mean I can watch the latest episode of Lost online, but the ISP is throttling me?" You'll get a helluva lot more people who'd a) understand WTF you're talking abou, b) would like to do it themselves and c) can unite around.

Besides, I'd think the P2P hogs should have pushed the envelope far enough that they can't really stop people starting to use these services a little - and that's what they're concerned about anyway, the masses moving. That guy who wants to watch IPTV 24/7 is more of the exception.

Umlimited* Pipex

Most major UK ISPs that advertise unlimited broadband do so with an asterisk right next to the word unlimited, that little get-out clause which enables them to have something called a "fair use policy", which in the case of Pipex (and probably several others) is an "unfair use policy".

I'm an ex-Pipex user because they kicked me off for over-use of an ADSL package sold as unlimited, when I phoned up to complain about the situation of paying for an unlimited package but being told my account was to be suspended for using it too much I asked what the monthly limit is - they couldn't/wouldn't tell me, saying that each individual user has a different upper limit which is determined by the amount of users in my area and how much they were downloading.

They oversold their service so they're making up the rules as they go along.

During the 'conversation' with the support monkey at Pipex I asked that if they won't tell me how much is too much then how can they determine I've used too much, and will they give me stats on how much I've transferred, they wouldn't give stats and their suggestion was to install a Windows program that monitors bandwidth usage, which is a fat lot of good if there are several computers using the same ADSL connection, but more importantly what's the point of telling me to install a bandwidth logging program if they won't tell you how much is too much? Un-fucking believable.

This farce of a service Pipex are offering and the subsequent