[Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[richard]

As some have remarked, UBB, especially here and now in Canada, is one
response to what we're dealing with in bufferbloat.

I sent a note to Michael Geist, the lawyer/blogger best known here for
dealing with internet related bureaucracy including our CRTC and the
Copyright board, and it got me to writing about that aspect of it.

The result is:
http://digital-rag.com/article.php/All-About-Perceived-Congestion-UBB
It's aimed at the public and non-technical so allow me a few missing
things in the explanations :)

richard

-- 
Richard C. Pitt                 Pacific Data Capture
rcpitt@pacdat.net               604-644-9265
http://digital-rag.com          www.pacdat.net
PGP Fingerprint: FCEF 167D 151B 64C4 3333  57F0 4F18 AF98 9F59 DD73

Re: [Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:56 -0800, "richard" <richard@pacdat.net> wrote:
> As some have remarked, UBB, especially here and now in Canada, is one
> response to what we're dealing with in bufferbloat.

It is not always bufferbloat that is the driving cause for UBB.

In Brazil, UBB is often used to help heavily oversubscribed networks
(usually by the DOCSIS networks and 3G networks) escape consumer wrath.

UBB is not the only "bandwidth usage deterrent" employed here by the
large broadband ISPs.  Cutting down service to as low as 100kbit/s
downstream and 30kbit/s upstream when the consumer goes over a monthly
quota, limiting concurrent tcp sessions, and extremely severe shaping of
P2P traffic are used as alternatives to UBB.

Without UBB or other "bandwidth usage deterrents", the users will notice
more readily that they are allotted far less than the bandwidth required
to get 100% of the nominal throughput they paid for, as there just isn't
enough bandwidth in the access, backhaul and even backbone networks, let
alone peering and transit links.  The broadband service contracts _do_
often make it clear you only are guaranteed 10% (yes, that's right, ten
percent) of the maximum throughput, and also about TCP concurrent flow
limits and UBB, but people will only take notice of that if they're
subject to such ridiculous service levels constantly.

And I very much doubt UBB is strongly related to oversubscribing just in
Brazil.  We need to be careful to not make bufferbloat the network
bogeyman, doing so can only backfire in the long run.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh

Re: [Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[Jeremy Visser]

Henrique de Moraes Holschuh said:
> Cutting down service to as low as 100kbit/s
> downstream and 30kbit/s upstream when the consumer goes over a monthly
> quota, limiting concurrent tcp sessions, and extremely severe shaping of
> P2P traffic are used as alternatives to UBB.

Ha. Here in Australia, shaping the service to 64 kbit/s downstream when
quota is exceeded is the norm. Premium services sometimes allow 128 or
256 kbit/s shaping, but that's not very common.

Re: [Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[Ondřej Bílka]

On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 06:37:02PM +1100, Jeremy Visser wrote:
> Henrique de Moraes Holschuh said:
> > Cutting down service to as low as 100kbit/s
> > downstream and 30kbit/s upstream when the consumer goes over a monthly
> > quota, limiting concurrent tcp sessions, and extremely severe shaping of
> > P2P traffic are used as alternatives to UBB.
> 
> Ha. Here in Australia, shaping the service to 64 kbit/s downstream when
> quota is exceeded is the norm. Premium services sometimes allow 128 or
> 256 kbit/s shaping, but that's not very common.

Primary function of quotas(64kbit/s after exceeded) is marketing trick how 
make customer pay more and shaping is secondary. 

If ISP wanted be nice to customers then it could after quota exceeded 
shape 64kbit/s+ available residual bandwidth
> _______________________________________________
> Bloat mailing list
> Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat

-- 

Operators killed by year 2000 bug bite.

Re: [Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[Steve Davies]

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2011/3/1 Ondřej Bílka <neleai@seznam.cz>

> If ISP wanted be nice to customers then it could after quota exceeded
> shape 64kbit/s+ available residual bandwidth
>
>
"Residual bandwidth" in our markets.  Haha.

Interestingly our bandwidth caps have created this sense of "I bought it so
I'm going to use it".  So yesterday for instance my 3G HSPA+ service from
CellC - advertised performance 21Mb - was delivering throughput of about
100Kb at best.  That's because everyone was trying to "use up" their
remaining cap.  Conveniently for CellC it would be impossible to use much
bandwidth at such a low speed.  Of course its rare to see more than 2Mb even
at better times.

Steve Davies
(South African Internet user)

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Re: [Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[Ondřej Bílka]

On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 11:33:42AM +0200, Steve Davies wrote:
>    2011/3/1 Ondřej Bílka <[1]neleai@seznam.cz>
> 
>      If ISP wanted be nice to customers then it could after quota exceeded
>      shape 64kbit/s+ available residual bandwidth
> 
>    "Residual bandwidth" in our markets.  Haha.
There is plenty of residual bandwidth. For example between 3am and 8am. 
It would be logical from network shaping perspective as people would 
download at nigth and lower usage at day. 
> 
>    Interestingly our bandwidth caps have created this sense of "I bought it
>    so I'm going to use it".  So yesterday for instance my 3G HSPA+ service
>    from CellC - advertised performance 21Mb - was delivering throughput of
>    about 100Kb at best.  That's because everyone was trying to "use up" their
>    remaining cap.  Conveniently for CellC it would be impossible to use much
>    bandwidth at such a low speed.  Of course its rare to see more than 2Mb
>    even at better times.
> 
>    Steve Davies
>    (South African Internet user)
> 
> References
> 
>    Visible links
>    1. mailto:neleai@seznam.cz

-- 

evil hackers from Serbia.

Re: [Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[Steve Bauer]

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 4:56 PM, richard <richard@pacdat.net> wrote:
> The result is:
> http://digital-rag.com/article.php/All-About-Perceived-Congestion-UBB
> It's aimed at the public and non-technical so allow me a few missing
> things in the explanations :)

Hi Richard,

You recommended to your readers:

"You want to bug your ISP to turn off any/all "helper" buffering in
your modem that purports to "increase upload speed for short periods"
since this is buffering and part of the problem."

I am assuming you intended that to apply to Powerboost.  Based upon my
understanding of various implementations of Powerboost,
turning it off would *not* help with latency under load simply
because the buffer sizes are fixed in today's cable modems.

So these issues are orthogonal.  There are certainly
problems, but turning off Powerboost isn't part of the fix.

Indeed, turning Powerboost off could make the problem worse. A
buffer that would otherwise have drained if Powerboost was in effect,
would be more likely to have a queue of packets sitting in it adding
additional latency to later arrivals.  Again, my key assumption is
that disabling Powerboost simply doesn't change the buffer size.

As always, happy to be proved wrong.  :-)

Thanks,
Steve Bauer
MIT

Re: [Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[Jim Gettys]

On 03/01/2011 08:57 AM, Steve Bauer wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 4:56 PM, richard<richard@pacdat.net>  wrote:
>> The result is:
>> http://digital-rag.com/article.php/All-About-Perceived-Congestion-UBB
>> It's aimed at the public and non-technical so allow me a few missing
>> things in the explanations :)
>
> Hi Richard,
>
> You recommended to your readers:
>
> "You want to bug your ISP to turn off any/all "helper" buffering in
> your modem that purports to "increase upload speed for short periods"
> since this is buffering and part of the problem."
>
> I am assuming you intended that to apply to Powerboost.  Based upon my
> understanding of various implementations of Powerboost,
> turning it off would *not* help with latency under load simply
> because the buffer sizes are fixed in today's cable modems.
>
> So these issues are orthogonal.  There are certainly
> problems, but turning off Powerboost isn't part of the fix.
>
> Indeed, turning Powerboost off could make the problem worse. A
> buffer that would otherwise have drained if Powerboost was in effect,
> would be more likely to have a queue of packets sitting in it adding
> additional latency to later arrivals.  Again, my key assumption is
> that disabling Powerboost simply doesn't change the buffer size.
>
> As always, happy to be proved wrong.  :-)
>

I think you are correct, Steve, and turning it off will just make the 
situation worse.

At the moment, I think these buffers are static in these technologies; 
turning off Powerboost or equivalent features will just make the 
situation worse.

We're going to have to be adaptable to variable bandwidth anyway.  AQM 
is ultimately the only solution.
			- Jim

Re: [Bloat] Usage Based Billing - It's All About Perceived Congestion

[richard]

Hi Steve

thanks for the feedback.

I guess it comes down to how the various modems achieve "burst"
throughput - by buffering and draining, or by actually increasing the
allocation of bandwidth for a time.

I'll remove that piece until I have more information.

richard

On Tue, 2011-03-01 at 08:57 -0500, Steve Bauer wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 4:56 PM, richard <richard@pacdat.net> wrote:
> > The result is:
> > http://digital-rag.com/article.php/All-About-Perceived-Congestion-UBB
> > It's aimed at the public and non-technical so allow me a few missing
> > things in the explanations :)
> 
> Hi Richard,
> 
> You recommended to your readers:
> 
> "You want to bug your ISP to turn off any/all "helper" buffering in
> your modem that purports to "increase upload speed for short periods"
> since this is buffering and part of the problem."
> 
> I am assuming you intended that to apply to Powerboost.  Based upon my
> understanding of various implementations of Powerboost,
> turning it off would *not* help with latency under load simply
> because the buffer sizes are fixed in today's cable modems.
> 
> So these issues are orthogonal.  There are certainly
> problems, but turning off Powerboost isn't part of the fix.
> 
> Indeed, turning Powerboost off could make the problem worse. A
> buffer that would otherwise have drained if Powerboost was in effect,
> would be more likely to have a queue of packets sitting in it adding
> additional latency to later arrivals.  Again, my key assumption is
> that disabling Powerboost simply doesn't change the buffer size.
> 
> As always, happy to be proved wrong.  :-)
> 
> Thanks,
> Steve Bauer
> MIT
-- 
Richard C. Pitt                 Pacific Data Capture
rcpitt@pacdat.net               604-644-9265
http://digital-rag.com          www.pacdat.net
PGP Fingerprint: FCEF 167D 151B 64C4 3333  57F0 4F18 AF98 9F59 DD73