[167277] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: AT&T UVERSE Native IPv6, a HOWTO
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Fri Dec 6 14:04:41 2013
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <52A11BDC.1010307@philkarn.net>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2013 10:59:31 -0800
To: Phil Karn <karn@philkarn.net>
Cc: NANOG List <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Dec 5, 2013, at 16:35 , Phil Karn <karn@philkarn.net> wrote:
> On 12/05/2013 02:00 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>=20
>> If AT&T has capped me, then, I haven=92t managed to hit the cap as =
yet.
>> Admittedly, the connection isn=92t always as reliable as $CABLECO, =
but
>> when it works, it tends to work at full speed and it does work the
>> vast majority of the time.
>=20
> AT&T threatened to cap U-verse at 250 GB/mo several years ago, but =
they
> never seem to have followed through. It's probably about the only way
> that their incompetence is actually in the public interest.
Meh... U-verse isn't available here anyway. AT&T here is capped at =
768kbps
on wired. Wireless, I'm getting LTE 30-50Mbps from them.
>=20
> Monthly caps -- and even peak speed limits -- are a very poor idea in
> general because they don't take system conditions into account. A
> torrent that runs at night penalizes you just as much as one run at
> prime time. Actually more, since you probably get greater throughput =
at
> off-peak times and therefore hit your cap faster.
>=20
On this, we agree.
> If one *must* charge for usage on a shared network, the right thing is
> to base the monthly fee on *guaranteed* bandwidth because that's what
> actually drives costs. If more is available because others aren't =
using
> their guarantees, fine, you can have it for free. But it's not
> guaranteed. And you don't get a refund for not using your guarantee
> because the equipment still had to be allocated for you.
Unfortunately, most of the DSLAMs/GPON Concentrators/CMTS systems
don't do a very good job of enabling CIR based provisioning and even if =
they
did, for some reason, consumers seem to have a very hard time wrapping
their heads around the CIR/Burst concept when money is involved.
> Of course the real solution to nearly every problem with local =
broadband
> access is the same: meaningful competition. About the only way this
> could happen is for the municipality to install, own and maintain the
> fiber plant and lease it to any and all commercial service providers =
on
> a non-discriminatory and non-exclusive basis.
I couldn't agree more... I've been saying this for years. It's starting =
to actually
happen in some places with reasonable success.
However, the municipality doesn't necessarily have to install, own, and
maintain it. All that really has to happen is regulations that prohibit =
those
that own/provide Layer 1 infrastructure from playing in higher layers of =
the
stack and requiring them to provide service to ALL comers on equal =
footing.
> Naturally this will never happen in the United States because the
> incumbents will scream "socialism!" at the top of their lungs and race
> to the state houses to outlaw it. Never mind that this is exactly how
> we've handled roads for centuries.
Yes, our roads are a great example of workable socialism, though what =
you
have proposed is not. What you have proposed is not socialism, since it =
would
be more like a toll road (toll roads which are 100% self-funding don't =
qualify
because there is no tax involved, it is a business. The fact that the =
business
happens to be run by a government agency (in some cases) doesn't really
matter.)
Nonetheless, you are right that the incumbents will do everything in =
their
considerable power to hang on tightly to their existing monopolies. =
Unfortunately,
so long as we preserve problems like the citizens united ruling, it will =
be
difficult for the people to overcome these problems.
Owen
