And for historical reasons. The forward path started at TV channel 2. The return path was shoe horned in to the frequencies below that, which limited the amount of available spectrum for return path. Originally this didn't matter much because the only thing it was used for was set top box communications and occasionally sending video to the head end for community channel remote feeds. To change the split would require replacement of all the active and passive RF equipment in the network. Only now with he widespread conversion to digital cable are they able to free up enough spectrum to even consider moving the split at some point in the future. Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 28, 2015, at 6:20 PM, Mike Hammett <nanog@ics-il.net> wrote:
As I said earlier, there are only so many channels available. Channels added to upload are taken away from download. People use upload so infrequently it would be gross negligence on the provider's behalf.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Clayton Zekelman" <clayton@mnsi.net> To: "Barry Shein" <bzs@world.std.com> Cc: "NANOG" <nanog@nanog.org> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2015 5:14:18 PM Subject: Re: Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality
You do of course realize that the asymmetry in CATV forward path/return path existed LONG before residential Internet access over cable networks exited?
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 28, 2015, at 5:38 PM, Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com> wrote:
Can we stop the disingenuity?
Asymmetric service was introduced to discourage home users from deploying "commercial" services. As were bandwidth caps.
One can argue all sorts of other "benefits" of this but when this started that was the problem on the table: How do we forcibly distinguish commercial (i.e., more expensive) from non-commercial usage?
Answer: Give them a lot less upload than download bandwidth.
Originally these asymmetric, typically DSL, links were hundreds of kbits upstream, not a lot more than a dial-up line.
That and NAT thereby making it difficult -- not impossible, the savvy were in the noise -- to map domain names to permanent IP addresses.
That's all this was about.
It's not about "that's all they need", "that's all they want", etc.
Now that bandwidth is growing rapidly and asymmetric is often 10/50mbps or 20/100 it almost seems nonsensical in that regard, entire medium-sized ISPs ran on less than 10mbps symmetric not long ago. But it still imposes an upper bound of sorts, along with addressing limitations and bandwidth caps.
That's all this is about.
The telcos for many decades distinguished "business" voice service from "residential" service, even for just one phone line, though they mostly just winged it and if they declared you were defrauding them by using a residential line for a business they might shut you off and/or back bill you. Residential was quite a bit cheaper, most importantly local "unlimited" (unmetered) talk was only available on residential lines. Business lines were even coded 1MB (one m b) service, one metered business (line).
The history is clear and they've just reinvented the model for internet but proactively enforced by technology rather than studying your usage patterns or whatever they used to do, scan for business ads using "residential" numbers, beyond bandwidth usage analysis.
And the CATV companies are trying to reinvent CATV pricing for internet, turn Netflix (e.g.) into an analogue of HBO and other premium CATV services.
What's so difficult to understand here?
-- -Barry Shein
The World | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*