[Starlink] The "reasons" that bufferbloat isn't a problem

[Stuart Cheshire]

On May 7, 2024, at 18:48, Dave Taht via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> This was a wonderful post, rich!

<https://randomneuronsfiring.com/all-the-reasons-that-bufferbloat-isnt-a-problem/>

I agree. Thanks for writing this Rich.

One minor change I will request. Any time you write words like “speed” or “fast”, pause and consider whether it would be more accurate to use some other term like “capacity”, “bandwidth”, or “throughput”. Part of what keeps us in this mess is that people equate network capacity with “speed”, as if those terms were synonyms. We can’t change how people think overnight, but at least we can avoid further reinforcing that wrong thinking.

If someone has 200 Mb/s Internet service and it feels slow, then they might upgrade to 400 Mb/s Internet service and expect everything to be uniformly twice as fast. We here know that doubling the network capacity may make large downloads faster, but everything else is most likely unchanged, and can be even worse.

People never make this mistake in other contexts. If someone commutes to work in their 20-foot RV feels that it’s too slow, then upgrading to a 40-foot RV will not get them to work faster. A 40-foot RV is *bigger* than a 20-foot RV, but it’s probably not *faster*. If you are moving a vast amount of cargo that requires multiple trips, then a larger truck will let you complete that task in fewer trips. But for most daily driving, a bigger truck will not get to your destination any quicker.

Some simple edits:

Instead of “varying speed ISP links” how about “varying capacity ISP links”?

Instead of “they profit if you decide your network is too slow and you upgrade to a faster device/plan” how about “they profit if you decide your network is too slow and you upgrade to a higher throughput device/plan”?

Stuart Cheshire