[Starlink] [Rpm] [M-Lab-Discuss] misery metrics & consequences

Sun Oct 23 11:01:21 EDT 2022

I think a “good reason” is a way to meaningfully compare the usefulness of various ISPs for teleconferencing. Needs obviously different from web browsing, email, or, steaming but critical to many people. Lots of federal dollars going out to build out “broadband” but generally with up and download speed as the only metrics and now acknowledgement of the “misery” jitter or just log latency can impose.

From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> On Behalf Of Dave Collier-Brown via Starlink
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2022 10:08 AM
To: Sebastian Moeller <moeller0 at gmx.de>
Cc: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
Subject: Re: [Starlink] [Rpm] [M-Lab-Discuss] misery metrics & consequences

OK, it's pretty clear that we're already measuring and adapting to misery, does anyone have a good reason to want to provide a "misery meter"?  

I'd normally be tempted, but I'm working in the ML team in a startup, and have been having trouble even reading email this year (;-))

--dave

On 10/23/22 09:52, Sebastian Moeller wrote:

[EXTERNAL] This email originated from outside the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

Hi David,

On Oct 23, 2022, at 15:11, Dave Collier-Brown  <mailto:dave.collier-Brown at indexexchange.com> <dave.collier-Brown at indexexchange.com> wrote:

On 10/23/22 08:26, Sebastian Moeller wrote:

        [SM] Kathy Nichols' pping (https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fpollere%2Fpping <https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fpollere%2Fpping&data=05%7C01%7C%7C0de1c0ddf51f41aef70c08dab4fde5ad%7Cb07c069022b843668d8d7b845d088e18%7C1%7C0%7C638021299817872156%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=JsNkkEDTzwCintX7H2KhsviIuc2S4r7RFYIevucnKeA%3D&reserved=0> &data=05%7C01%7C%7C0de1c0ddf51f41aef70c08dab4fde5ad%7Cb07c069022b843668d8d7b845d088e18%7C1%7C0%7C638021299817872156%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=JsNkkEDTzwCintX7H2KhsviIuc2S4r7RFYIevucnKeA%3D&reserved=0) might be an option, either on the ISP side or run on CPEs with some method to harvest the collected data from the ISP side.

Yes: I use pping to investigate occasional problems at work, but I was thinking more about home networks, where some big speed-changes happen and local congestion happens.

        [SM] Okay. In the context of cake-autorate (https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Flynxthecat%2FCAKE-autorate%2Fblob%2Fmain%2FREADME.md <https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Flynxthecat%2FCAKE-autorate%2Fblob%2Fmain%2FREADME.md&data=05%7C01%7C%7C0de1c0ddf51f41aef70c08dab4fde5ad%7Cb07c069022b843668d8d7b845d088e18%7C1%7C0%7C638021299817872156%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=LwP%2F45%2FIdIJgdFGITFEgYa2egg4xyQEqkE21HYKb0nM%3D&reserved=0> &data=05%7C01%7C%7C0de1c0ddf51f41aef70c08dab4fde5ad%7Cb07c069022b843668d8d7b845d088e18%7C1%7C0%7C638021299817872156%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=LwP%2F45%2FIdIJgdFGITFEgYa2egg4xyQEqkE21HYKb0nM%3D&reserved=0) we implemented a flight recorder type logging that continuously logs the last X (configurable) epoch and stores bot shaper and achieved rates as well as the results from the latency probes. This script can be used with rate setting disabled to record relevant data and the user just needs to remember to export the data after experiencing interesting/abnormal events. Sure this does not have per application resolution, but should give some idea about current latency as well as current traffic. I will admit though that this logging is not exactly cheap CPU-wise and lacks the precision of packet captures... but it can be operated as flight recorder where relevant events can be exported/stored post-hoc...

Protocols with less fields readable like QUIC would require special care to evaluate the spin-bit if that exists. Or just resort to active polling and ping* each CPE once per second or so (for a course resolution, you could increase the polling rate on detecting anomalies thereby risking to make congestion slightly worse). None of this will allow to measure within home network congestion though, but it might still be a wortwhile diagnostic to know that the access link is OK, while the user reports latency issues.

If one has a good way to capture RTT and data rate for one problematic app, say zoom, then one could see that network problems were happening at the same time as lags and dropouts.

        [SM] As above logging all traffic is relatively easy, per application or per flow will require different tools or packet captures...

ISPs would positively hate that, of course.

        [SM] Assuming they come out of this looking bad, if the outcome is to imply the local WiFi being the root cause ISPs might actually appreciate it ;)

Regards
        Sebastian

--dave

Regards
        Sebastian

*) I think there are dedicated devices available that allow to ping large numbers of IPs in a periodic fashion.

--dave

On 10/23/22 07:57, Sebastian Moeller via Starlink wrote:

Hi Glenn,

On Oct 23, 2022, at 02:17, Glenn Fishbine via Rpm  <mailto:rpm at lists.bufferbloat.net> <rpm at lists.bufferbloat.net>

 wrote:

As a classic died in the wool empiricist, granted that you can identify "misery" factors, given a population of 1,000 users, how do you propose deriving a misery index for that population?

We can measure download, upload, ping, jitter pretty much without user intervention.  For the measurements you hypothesize, how you you automatically extract those indecies without subjective user contamination.

I.e.  my download speed sucks. Measure the download speed.

My isp doesn't fix my problem. Measure what? How?

Human survey technology is 70+ years old and it still has problems figuring out how to correlate opinion with fact.

Without an objective measurement scheme that doesn't require human interaction, the misery index is a cool hypothesis with no way to link to actual data.  What objective measurements can be made?  Answer that and the index becomes useful. Otherwise it's just consumer whining.

Not trying to be combative here, in fact I like the concept you support, but I'm hard pressed to see how the concept can lead to data, and the data lead to policy proposals.

     [SM] So it seems that outside of seemingly simple to test throughput numbers*, the next most important quality number (or the most important depending on subjective ranking) is how does latency change under "load". Absolute latency is also important albeit static high latency can be worked around within limits so the change under load seems more relevant.
     All of flent's RRUL test, apple's networkQuality/RPM, and iperf2's bounceback test offer methods to asses latency change under load**, as do waveforms bufferbloat tests and even to a degree Ookla's speedtest.net. IMHO something like latency increase under load or apple's responsiveness measure RPM (basically the inverse of the latency under load calculated on a per minute basis, so it scales in the typical higher numbers are better way, unlike raw latency under load numbers where smaller is better).
     IMHO what networkQuality is missing ATM is to measure and report the unloaded RPM as well as the loaded the first gives a measure over the static latency the second over how well things keep working if capacity gets tight. They report the base RTT which can be converted to RPM. As an example:

macbook:~ user$ networkQuality -v
==== SUMMARY ====
Upload capacity: 24.341 Mbps
Download capacity: 91.951 Mbps
Upload flows: 20
Download flows: 16
Responsiveness: High (2123 RPM)
Base RTT: 16
Start: 10/23/22, 13:44:39
End: 10/23/22, 13:44:53
OS Version: Version 12.6 (Build 21G115)

Here RPM 2133 corresponds to 60000/2123 = 28.26 ms latency under load, while the Base RTT of 16ms corresponds to 60000/16 = 3750 RPM, son on this link load reduces the responsiveness by 3750-2123 = 1627 RPM a reduction by 100-100*2123/3750 = 43.4%, and that is with competent AQM and scheduling on the router.

Without competent AQM/shaping I get:
==== SUMMARY ====
Upload capacity: 15.101 Mbps
Download capacity: 97.664 Mbps
Upload flows: 20
Download flows: 12
Responsiveness: Medium (427 RPM)
Base RTT: 16
Start: 10/23/22, 13:51:50
End: 10/23/22, 13:52:06
OS Version: Version 12.6 (Build 21G115)
latency under load: 60000/427 = 140.52 ms
base RPM: 60000/16 = 3750 RPM
reduction RPM: 100-100*427/3750 = 88.6%

I understand apple's desire to have a single reported number with a single qualifier medium/high/... because in the end a link is only reliably usable if responsiveness under load stays acceptable, but with two numbers it is easier to see what one's ISP could do to help. (I guess some ISPs might already be unhappy with the single number, so this needs some diplomacy/tact)

Regards
     Sebastian

*) Seemingly as quite some ISPs operate their own speedtest servers in their network and ignore customers not reaching the contracted rates into speedtest-servers located in different ASs. As the product is called internet access I a inclined to expect that my ISP maintains sufficient peering/transit capacity to reach the next tier of AS at my contracted rate (the EU legislative seems to agree, see EU directive 2015/2120).

**) Most do by creating load themselves and measuring throughput at the same time, bounceback IIUC will focus on the latency measurement and leave the load generation optional (so offers a mode to measure responsiveness of a live network with minimal measurement traffic). @Bob, please correct me if this is wrong.

On Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 5:20 PM Dave Taht

 <mailto:dave.taht at gmail.com> <dave.taht at gmail.com>

 wrote:
One of the best talks I've ever seen on how to measure customer
satisfaction properly just went up after the P99 Conference.

It's called Misery Metrics.

After going through a deep dive as to why and how we think and act on
percentiles, bins, and other statistical methods as to how we use the
web and internet are *so wrong* (well worth watching and thinking
about if you are relying on or creating network metrics today), it
then points to the real metrics that matter to users and the ultimate
success of an internet business: Timeouts, retries, misses, failed
queries, angry phone calls, abandoned shopping carts and loss of
engagement.

https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.p99conf.io%2Fsession%2Fmisery-metrics-consequences%2F <https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.p99conf.io%2Fsession%2Fmisery-metrics-consequences%2F&data=05%7C01%7C%7C0de1c0ddf51f41aef70c08dab4fde5ad%7Cb07c069022b843668d8d7b845d088e18%7C1%7C0%7C638021299817872156%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2FOe2eo9f7JQ8bnQRB23HEaeXq6G9QxSQ%2FZkNb%2F6ctyU%3D&reserved=0> &data=05%7C01%7C%7C0de1c0ddf51f41aef70c08dab4fde5ad%7Cb07c069022b843668d8d7b845d088e18%7C1%7C0%7C638021299817872156%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2FOe2eo9f7JQ8bnQRB23HEaeXq6G9QxSQ%2FZkNb%2F6ctyU%3D&reserved=0

The ending advice was - don't aim to make a specific percentile
acceptable, aim for an acceptable % of misery.

I enjoyed the p99 conference more than any conference I've attended in years.

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Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

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David Collier-Brown,         | Always do right. This will gratify
System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest

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 |              -- Mark Twain

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David Collier-Brown,         | Always do right. This will gratify
System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest
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