[130105] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Online games stealing your bandwidth
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Warren Bailey)
Tue Sep 28 14:01:11 2010
From: Warren Bailey <wbailey@gci.com>
To: Jack Bates <jbates@brightok.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:00:48 -0800
In-Reply-To: <4CA1F472.10104@brightok.net>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@merit.edu>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Jack,
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but looking at your website - do you only offer=
dial up services? This could be the background for a statement like "a pro=
per ISP doesn't encourage any type of traffic." We have a couple of OC-192 =
running to Seattle, so certain "types" of traffic can make a good day turn =
very badly without some traffic "management".
-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Bates [mailto:jbates@brightok.net]=20
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:58 AM
To: Warren Bailey
Cc: Richard Barnes; NANOG
Subject: Re: Online games stealing your bandwidth
On 9/27/2010 7:35 PM, Warren Bailey wrote:
> Can someone name an ISP that encourages P2P traffic?? ;)
>
A proper ISP doesn't encourage any type of traffic. We're indifferent.=20
Of course, we'll be happy to mention the benefits and draw backs of=20
using various protocols on the Internet. Demand wise, video streaming to=20
point and click boxes will load the network far more than p2p ever has;=20
granted, in the opposite direction of the normal p2p complaint.
My, and my company's, biggest complaint is the lack of improvement on=20
these protocols to play more friendly with customer's other traffic. It=20
is not so much the effects of it on my network, as much as how it=20
effects my customer's unshared link. The "give me everything" tactic,=20
especially on outbound traffic, saturates the link, which in turn lowers=20
the customer's other traffic. Am I the only one who likes to stream=20
video while running bittorrent, surfing the web, checking my email, and=20
playing some online game all at the same time?
I'm not going to rag on bittorrent, though. I do have adjustments in my=20
clients to cap the upstream/downstream to allow my other traffic=20
through. Many clients and protocols don't have this ability, though.=20
Some purposefully hide themselves and what they are doing. The only=20
indication is the fact that the "Internet is slow." The people who make=20
this software should sit in a call center troubleshooting why "The=20
Internet is slow!" when various software products are bandwidth hogs=20
(and sometimes are hidden from the customer completely). We, of course,=20
detect the link saturation, but there is no indicator for us to help the=20
customer figure out what they need to disable.
Jack
