On Sun, 21 Oct 2007, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
So your recommendation is that universities, enterprises and ISPs simply stop offering all Internet service because a few particular application protocols are badly behaved?
They should stop to offer flat-rate ones anyway.
Comcast's management has publically stated anyone who doesn't like the network management controls on its flat rate service can upgrade to Comcat's business class service.
Problem solved?
Assuming a "business class" service that's reasonably priced and featured? Absolutely. I'm not sure I've seen that to be the case, however. Last time I checked with a local cable company for T1-like service, they wanted something like $800/mo, which was about $300-$400/mo more than several of the CLEC's. However, that was awhile ago, and it isn't clear that the service offerings would be the same. I don't class cable service as being as reliable as a T1, however. We've witnessed that the cable network fails shortly after any regional power outage here, and it has somewhat regular burps in the service anyways. I'll note that I can get unlimited business-class DSL (2M/512k ADSL) for about $60/mo (24m), and that was explicitly spelled out to be unlimited- use as part of the RFP. By way of comparison, our local residential RR service is now 8M/512k for about $45/mo (as of just a month or two ago). I think I'd have to conclude that I'd certainly see a premium above and beyond the cost of a residential plan to be reasonable, but I don't expect it to be many multiples of the resi service price, given that DSL plans will promise the bandwidth at just a slightly higher cost.
Or would some P2P folks complain about having to pay more money?
Of course they will.
Or do general per-user ratelimiting that is protocol/application agnostic.
As I mentioned previously about the issues involving additional in-line devices and so on in networks, imposing per user network management and billing is a much more complicated task.
If only a few protocol/applications are causing a problem, why do you need an overly complex response? Why not target the few things that are causing problems?
Well, because when you promise someone an Internet connection, they usually expect it to work. Is it reasonable for Comcast to unilaterally decide that my P2P filesharing of my family photos and video clips is bad?
A better idea might be for the application protocol designers to improve those particular applications.
Good luck with that.
It took a while, but it worked with the UDP audio/video protocol folks who used to stress networks. Eventually those protocol designers learned to control their applications and make them play nicely on the network.
:-) ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.