Intersting article on ISP issues regarding competitive VoIP services: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=71020 - ferg -- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawg@netzero.net or fergdawg@sbcglobal.net
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
Intersting article on ISP issues regarding competitive VoIP services:
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=71020
Hmm.. I was quoted in it. -- Vice President of N2Net, a New Age Consulting Service, Inc. Company http://www.n2net.net Where everything clicks into place! KP-216-121-ST
On 3/30/2005 11:27 AM, Greg Boehnlein wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
Intersting article on ISP issues regarding competitive VoIP services:
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=71020
Hmm.. I was quoted in it.
Oh good, maybe you can clarify some things: | “As much as I want to see VOIP survive and thrive, I also don't want | to bear the additional cost of my customers choosing to use a | competitor's VOIP service over my own,” says Greg Boehnlein, who | operates Cleveland, Ohio-based ISP N2Net. | | “Without control of the last mile, we're screwed,” Boehnlein says, | “which is why I can identify with Clearwire's decision and say | ‘more power to them’.” Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers? And if some other service used higher cumulative bandwidth than VoIP (say, Apple's music service) and didn't ~reimburse you for the use of your network, would|do you block that service too? For that matter, do you block the various P2P systems that don't make money but that generate massive traffic? What don't you plan on blocking exactly? -- Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/ Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Eric A. Hall wrote:
| to bear the additional cost of my customers choosing to use a | competitor's VOIP service over my own, says Greg Boehnlein, who | operates Cleveland, Ohio-based ISP N2Net. | | Without control of the last mile, we're screwed, Boehnlein says, | which is why I can identify with Clearwire's decision and say | more power to them.
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
And if some other service used higher cumulative bandwidth than VoIP (say, Apple's music service) and didn't ~reimburse you for the use of your network, would|do you block that service too? For that matter, do you block the various P2P systems that don't make money but that generate massive traffic?
I find this to be entertaining, since as a VOIP consumer, I'm reimbursing my ISP for the cost of the traffic as part of my monthly tithe. Why exactly are networks taking this stance to QoS VOIP traffic, generated by their customers, into uselessness? This will all be especially hysterical when it's done by an ISP that comprises 100% of it's local market's internet connectivity. Munn vs. Illinois, round 2! - billn
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Bill Nash wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Eric A. Hall wrote:
| to bear the additional cost of my customers choosing to use a | competitor's VOIP service over my own, says Greg Boehnlein, who | operates Cleveland, Ohio-based ISP N2Net. | | Without control of the last mile, we're screwed, Boehnlein says, | which is why I can identify with Clearwire's decision and say | more power to them.
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
And if some other service used higher cumulative bandwidth than VoIP (say, Apple's music service) and didn't ~reimburse you for the use of your network, would|do you block that service too? For that matter, do you block the various P2P systems that don't make money but that generate massive traffic?
I find this to be entertaining, since as a VOIP consumer, I'm reimbursing my ISP for the cost of the traffic as part of my monthly tithe. Why exactly are networks taking this stance to QoS VOIP traffic, generated by their customers, into uselessness?
Well, there is a whole other side to the arguement, which is why is your local ISP even providing you the DSL service when they don't own the last mile copper and pay 98% of the revenue that you pay them to an RBOC? :) Believe me, I ask myself this question every day: "Why did I agree to provide DSL services through SBC and Alltel knowing how anticompetitive they are?". And the only anwer that I can come up with is: "You are an idiot". ;) This gets at a bigger issue really, which is why anyone in their right mind is actually re-selling RBOC DSL products, but that isn't your concern. ;) As an ISP, I'd love to charge you (the consumer) on a per-packet or per-byte level for your DSL so that it would actually reflect the true cost of the service. Then, I'd like to charge you for all the technical support and billing overhead involved. At the same time, I'd like to see the RBOC's relegated to nothing more than wire-carriers and get them completely out of the Telecommunications industry. Let them run the COs and the Copper/Fiber networks, but truly deregulate the Telecom industry so that everyone is on a level playing field. Fat chance of that happening, though! ;)
This will all be especially hysterical when it's done by an ISP that comprises 100% of it's local market's internet connectivity. Munn vs. Illinois, round 2!
Why are RBOC's even providing Internet Transport to their customers in the first place? :) -- Vice President of N2Net, a New Age Consulting Service, Inc. Company http://www.n2net.net Where everything clicks into place! KP-216-121-ST
Bill Nash <billn@billn.net> wrote:
I find this to be entertaining, since as a VOIP consumer, I'm reimbursing my ISP for the cost of the traffic as part of my monthly tithe.
Not proportional to the potential cost of providing the service. I have no idea what my cable company pays for their bandwidth, but I am certain it's more than the $40 per month I pay for my 3Mbps down/256 Mbps up... and I am able to actually *get* 3Mbps on many occasions, and I average between 1 and 2 (on HTTP/FTP transfers, fwiw). Yes, I know the connectivity cost is shared between several thousand customers in this area, but what happens if large numbers of customers start using VOiP on a regular basis? -- JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638) Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED "The wisdom of a fool won't set you free" --New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Steve Sobol wrote:
I have no idea what my cable company pays for their bandwidth, but I am certain it's more than the $40 per month I pay for my 3Mbps down/256 Mbps up... and I am able to actually *get* 3Mbps on many occasions, and I average between 1 and 2 (on HTTP/FTP transfers, fwiw).
Oh, you might be surprised how cheap transit is when you're buying it by the multigigabit/s. Also, I know that at least some of the bigger cable co's peer with each other...and exchange large amounts of traffic. Couple that with the fact that most customers are not geeks/power uers (i.e. our parents who do some light web surfing and email) and most of the customers use no noticable bandwidth, subsidizing the ones who do.
Yes, I know the connectivity cost is shared between several thousand customers in this area, but what happens if large numbers of customers start using VOiP on a regular basis?
VOIP with the better codecs doesn't use PIPE. It's just lots of PPS, which may require provider hardware upgrades to deal with the PPS. I've done VOIP over v.90 dialup using older Multitech proprietary gear which I think was doing some flavor of g.723. Quality wasn't perfect, but it really did work. As others have said, PTP is what eats PIPE. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Steve Sobol wrote:
Bill Nash <billn@billn.net> wrote: I have no idea what my cable company pays for their bandwidth, but I am certain it's more than the $40 per month I pay for my 3Mbps down/256 Mbps up... and I am able to actually *get* 3Mbps on many occasions, and I average between 1 and 2 (on HTTP/FTP transfers, fwiw).
Yes, I know the connectivity cost is shared between several thousand customers in this area, but what happens if large numbers of customers start using VOiP on a regular basis?
Not to be cynical, but if large numbers of customers start using VOIP on a regular basis, I imagine regulation will happen, especially if ISPs keep trying to inhibit consumer choices. Vonage is in the right place at the right time, I think. They're a notable pioneer for consumer VOIP services, and it puts them in a good position to supply meaningful insight into what it takes to make VOIP work for the consumer. Chances are, if you're a VOIP customer, you're some form of digirati. That means email, IM, and a cell phone. I'm more enamored of my Vonage service for the simultaneous ringing feature than I am of having a home phone. Self-enabled number portability is a huge win for me as well. My actual VOIP traffic use is pretty minimal. As was mentioned in another post, being able to fire up a softphone on my portable hardware, anywhere I can get packets, is pretty much the holy grail of nerd mobility. I don't think this evolutionary marriage of data and voice is a surprise to anyone, and these conflicts are growing pains. The incumbent telcos see it as a threat, which they should, but my personal view on this is like monkeys trying to fight against walking upright because it violates the existing natural order, nevermind the benefits of opposable thumbs. There's already too much momentum, and too many options to completely circumvent even the ISPs. Hell, even Cringely gets it. - billn
Bill Nash <billn@billn.net> wrote:
regular basis, I imagine regulation will happen, especially if ISPs keep trying to inhibit consumer choices.
There's a fine line between "inhibiting consumer choices" and "ensuring that you don't end up spending more money than you're collecting for the services you provide." -- JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638) Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED "The wisdom of a fool won't set you free" --New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Steve Sobol wrote:
Bill Nash <billn@billn.net> wrote:
regular basis, I imagine regulation will happen, especially if ISPs keep trying to inhibit consumer choices.
There's a fine line between "inhibiting consumer choices" and "ensuring that you don't end up spending more money than you're collecting for the services you provide."
I'm not discounting that. It just doesn't seem to me that actual VOIP usage is significant enough, in existing billing models, to warrant the behaviour we're seeing. I'd be interested in seeing the figures surrounding this, if anyone has them. - billn
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Steve Sobol wrote:
Bill Nash <billn@billn.net> wrote:
I find this to be entertaining, since as a VOIP consumer, I'm reimbursing my ISP for the cost of the traffic as part of my monthly tithe.
Not proportional to the potential cost of providing the service.
I have no idea what my cable company pays for their bandwidth, but I am certain it's more than the $40 per month I pay for my 3Mbps down/256 Mbps up... and I am able to actually *get* 3Mbps on many occasions, and I average between 1 and 2 (on HTTP/FTP transfers, fwiw).
Yes, I know the connectivity cost is shared between several thousand customers in this area, but what happens if large numbers of customers start using VOiP on a regular basis?
I'm replying to stuff on NANOG too much. I should stop... That said: This is really a matter of adjusting business models as the costs of providing various types of services change. As others have pointed out, all end user telecommunications networks that I'm aware of are based on some amount of oversubscription. This is not necessarily in the sense that pipes are full and users are getting poor service, but that it's assumed the users won't all use it at once. When doing flat rate, unlimited use, billing, the goal is generally to set the price such that each user covers the cost of serving the average user. Assuming the prices aren't excessively high, the ISP or phone company (or all you can eat restaurant, for that matter) probably loses money on its heaviest users, does quite well on the users who barely use the service at all, and in the end it all balances out. But if the average user starts using the service more, the cost model breaks. At that point the ISP or phone company needs to either find a way to lower the cost of providing the service, discourage people from using it, or raise prices. This isn't unique to VOIP or PtP; it's a general issue with flat rate business models. Another approach is to bill based on usage, in which case if you're not losing money on every bit, you've got an incentive to encourage your customers to use your product more. Even there, you've got oversubscription issues to contend with: If you're billing your customers per minute, or per megabyte, you still need to hope that they're not all going to use the same minute, or all send their megabyte at the same time. If they are, the model breaks and needs to be fixed somehow. What I generally see as I look at this industry around the world, is that pricing models adapt to fit local conditions, and continue to adapt as those conditions change. In the US, broadband providers tend to do flat rate billing because it's easy to administer and it works. Colo providers tend to do usage based billing, because the spread between the cost of hosting somebody whose website gets occasional hits versus the cost of somebody who is constantly saturating a 100 Mb/s pipe is just too big. Elsewhere, things sometimes work differently. Suresh was saying earlier that Korea Telecom is switching to usage based billing for broadband, presumably because they hope that will be a better fit for their market than flat rate. In Nepal, New Zealand, and Western Australia, all places where long distance capacity is very expensive, I've seen pricing differentiation between local and long distance Internet use. In Nepal and Western Australia, it's been flat rate billing for local use, and per bit billing for long distance, while in New Zealand there's at least talk of providing New Zealand only connectivity. In the US that sounds horrendously complicated, but where the wholesale monthly cost of international bandwidth is $5,000 per Mb/s and the monthly cost of handing traffic off to other local ISPs at the local exchange point is around $50 per Mb/s (Kathmandu), it makes a lot of sense. So, I don't know if VOIP use will measurably change the costs of broadband providers in the US. If it's only a few users, I suspect it won't. If it's a lot of users, and there's big market demand for it, I suspect the ISPs that survive will find a working billing model. -Steve
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Eric A. Hall wrote:
On 3/30/2005 11:27 AM, Greg Boehnlein wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
Intersting article on ISP issues regarding competitive VoIP services:
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=71020
Hmm.. I was quoted in it.
Oh good, maybe you can clarify some things:
| �As much as I want to see VOIP survive and thrive, I also don't want | to bear the additional cost of my customers choosing to use a | competitor's VOIP service over my own,� says Greg Boehnlein, who | operates Cleveland, Ohio-based ISP N2Net. | | �Without control of the last mile, we're screwed,� Boehnlein says, | �which is why I can identify with Clearwire's decision and say | �more power to them�.�
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
Where the RBOC has us by the balls (ATM DSL Transport as an Example, where they refuse to provide Multi-Lata ATM interconnects and require us to put ATM circuits in each LATA that we want to service) we apply, at our discretion, rate-limits and IP Access lists to preserve and tightly control those resources. We attempt to balance the experience and utilzation for ALL the customers on those circuits against the one or two users who are beating the crap out of the interconnect w/ Peer to Peer or Usenet traffic. So yes, in some cases, we'll apply NNTP and other traffic shaping policies as neccessary to ensure that we are able to maintain low latency and a more equal sharing of bandwidth on those links. This really only applies to residential DSL subscribers. On DS1, Ethernet and DS3 circuits, we don't do anything. Those are treated as a different class of service, with a Service Level Agreement, and as such are only shaped at the customer's request.
And if some other service used higher cumulative bandwidth than VoIP (say, Apple's music service) and didn't ~reimburse you for the use of your network, would|do you block that service too? For that matter, do you block the various P2P systems that don't make money but that generate massive traffic?
What don't you plan on blocking exactly?
The press always bends quotes to fit their story, and are easily taken out of context. You only have the benefit of seeing the quotes they chose to publish, and not the entire context of the discussion. ;) So, to clarify my position I don't block anything on my network for customers that are under a Service Level Agreement. In fact, we actually apply higher preference to VoIP traffic. However, it is MY network and I'll do whatever I please with it. If customers have an issue, they are free to contact me about it. However, If the FCC is able to dictate the types of traffic and the filtering policies of ISPs, this could have much broader, far-reaching impact on what we CAN do with our networks. Take the following ridiculous example; Assume that some SPAMMER is able to get the FCC to pass regulation that makes it illegal to block SMTP traffic, use RBLs etc. How well do you think that would go over? I'm all for network service providers having the ability to control what enters and exits their network. I'm against the Government stepping in and dictating what we can/cannot do with our networks. I'm an avid and active Asterisk developer. I want to see VoIP flourish and grow. However, anyone who has gotten into the ITSP business (Read Vonage et all) and has based their business plan on delivering service over a network they don't control has to have their head examined. VoIP makes a lot of sense, but over the public Internet? Pretty bad business judgement in my opinion. If you can't QOS both sides of the connection and control the packets between the PSTN and the End User, then you WILL have outages and problems that are beyond your control. That may be good enough for most people, but not for me. I wouldn't trust my family's life to a VoIP service when that 911 call has to transit the public Internet. -- Vice President of N2Net, a New Age Consulting Service, Inc. Company http://www.n2net.net Where everything clicks into place! KP-216-121-ST
Once upon a time, Eric A. Hall <ehall@ehsco.com> said:
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
Change that to SMTP and you'll get a bunch of "yes" answers. Why is one right and the other wrong? -- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:36:19 -0600, Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> wrote:
Once upon a time, Eric A. Hall <ehall@ehsco.com> said:
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
Change that to SMTP and you'll get a bunch of "yes" answers. Why is one right and the other wrong?
Heard of a little thing called 'spam'? Jamie
-- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Jamie Norwood wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:36:19 -0600, Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> wrote:
Once upon a time, Eric A. Hall <ehall@ehsco.com> said:
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
Change that to SMTP and you'll get a bunch of "yes" answers. Why is one right and the other wrong?
Heard of a little thing called 'spam'?
SMTP and NNTP are an apples / oranges comparison. Email is well nigh ubiquitous, when people think about the Internet. NNTP, like IRC, is a niche subset compared to HTTP, SMTP, and IM. The long and short, is that popular services will remain largely unregulated, by ISPs or by government, until it's clear that they're being abused. Many ISPs did this with NNTP before they did it with SMTP, largely with the advent of higher speed connections facilitating shorter turnaround on warez traffic. Once spam took off, same deal. If ISPs can't play nice with third party service providers, I predict things will get ugly. Regulators are already sniffing around, both locally and internationally. VOIP is quickly becoming a hot item, and anti-competitive tactics that limit or remove the consumers choices are going to be blood in the water for politicos looking for something to gnaw on. Obviously VOIP needs QoS to function well on oversold, commodity broadband networks. Why not just paint VOIP with a broad QoS brush (as in, prioritize all of it, not just your own service) and defang the folks just looking for an excuse to step in and take the option away from you? - billn
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:36:19 -0600, Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> wrote:
Once upon a time, Eric A. Hall <ehall@ehsco.com> said:
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
Change that to SMTP and you'll get a bunch of "yes" answers. Why is one right and the other wrong?
Heard of a little thing called 'spam'?
So what? You can use your car as a weapon; should we prohibit you from car driving?
Jamie
-- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:33:49 -0800, Alexei Roudnev <alex@relcom.net> wrote:
Heard of a little thing called 'spam'?
So what? You can use your car as a weapon; should we prohibit you from car driving?
No, but if your car doesn't have seat belts, we don't let you drive it. Basic SMTP lacks safety features that are needed, ergo, retrictions were placed on it. As was mentioned, my point was just that the question posited was flawed. SMTP isn't restricted for competition and money-making reasons, but because to not restrict it can have quite undesired implications. The question was why was one ok, and the other not. The answer is because of spam. Jamie
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Jamie Norwood wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:33:49 -0800, Alexei Roudnev <alex@relcom.net> wrote:
Heard of a little thing called 'spam'?
So what? You can use your car as a weapon; should we prohibit you from car driving?
No, but if your car doesn't have seat belts, we don't let you drive it. Basic SMTP lacks safety features that are needed, ergo, retrictions were placed on it.
As was mentioned, my point was just that the question posited was flawed. SMTP isn't restricted for competition and money-making reasons, but because to not restrict it can have quite undesired implications. The question was why was one ok, and the other not. The answer is because of spam.
Ah NANOG, where people ask rhetorical questions and get answers... It seems a bit simplistic (and misses the point of the original rhetorical question) to say that it's common to block the SMTP port "because of spam." Having been involved in weighing that business decision a few times, it's tended to be more a matter of balancing the direct and indirect effects of being a spam source on an ISP's operations (lots of staff time dealing with spam complaints, bad reputations, ending up on blackhole lists) with the effects of turning off a service some customers find useful. In general, the people who will be upset by an ISP not blocking outbound spam are not the ISP's customers, while those upset about the ISP blocking legitimate outbound SMTP are. But ISPs sometimes decide they can't afford to make the customers who want outbound SMTP happy. That's why the rhetorical question asked earlier made some sense. ISPs aren't going to be blocking VOIP "because of spam," at least not until they start getting bombarded with complaints about their customers using VOIP services for automated telemarketing. But they may block it because they think the benefits of blocking it (reducing traffic, keeping VOIP business to themselves) outweigh the costs of customers getting annoyed. If it's ok to block SMTP for that reason, why not VOIP, or why not the web? I'll note again that these are rhetorical questions. They don't need to be answered. Personally, if the colo provider who hosts my mail server were to block outbound SMTP, the service would become pretty useless to me and I'd have to take my (non-paying) business elsewhere. If my GPRS provider were to block it, I probably wouldn't notice. Likewise, if the colo provider blocked VOIP, I probably wouldn't notice, but if my DSL provider did, it would be a problem. An ISP who blocks VOIP is going to have some customers get upset, just like an ISP that blocks outbound SMTP. They may even lose some business. But will they lose enough business to offset whatever gain they think they're getting? I think I can guess the answer, but actual numbers from those who've tried it would be far more interesting than the speculation we've been seeing here. -Steve
In article <a2937c33050330225673348cdf@mail.gmail.com> you write:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:33:49 -0800, Alexei Roudnev <alex@relcom.net> wrote:
Heard of a little thing called 'spam'?
So what? You can use your car as a weapon; should we prohibit you from car driving?
No, but if your car doesn't have seat belts, we don't let you drive it. Basic SMTP lacks safety features that are needed, ergo, retrictions were placed on it.
Basic SMTP is fine. You all use it today. I will use it to send this message. SMTP is not better or worse than the postal service in identifying the sender and we have lived with the possability of fraudulent mail for centuries. People have this idiotic expectation that because the mail is being delivered by a computer rather than a postie that the identity of the sender is somehow magically authenticated. The real issue is that it is hard to police customer machines and it is cheeper to turn off SMTP than it is to identify, inform and help fix customer machines. Sooner or later ISPs will have to start doing this as the people compromising machines have shown a long history of getting around all the blocks put in their way. Spam is just a minor annoyance compared to what they could potentially be doing with the compromised machines.
As was mentioned, my point was just that the question posited was flawed. SMTP isn't restricted for competition and money-making reasons, but because to not restrict it can have quite undesired implications. The question was why was one ok, and the other not. The answer is because of spam.
Jamie
No, but if your car doesn't have seat belts, we don't let you drive it. Basic SMTP lacks safety features that are needed, ergo, retrictions were placed on it.
Basic SMTP is fine. You all use it today. I will use it to send this message. SMTP is not better or worse than the postal service in identifying the sender and we have lived with the possability of fraudulent mail for centuries.
Yes and no. It is significantly different from the postal service in that the arrival of postal spam costs me nothing. The additional bandwidth it consumes does not delay my other email or interfere with other uses I have for my household. It doesn't prevent my postal mail from getting out to others. It has the additional advantage of actually costing the sender something, thus reducing the number of senders.
People have this idiotic expectation that because the mail is being delivered by a computer rather than a postie that the identity of the sender is somehow magically authenticated.
I don't think this is particularly true. I think that the bigger issue is sender pays (postal spam) vs. recipient pays (email spam).
The real issue is that it is hard to police customer machines and it is cheeper to turn off SMTP than it is to identify, inform and help fix customer machines. Sooner or later ISPs will have to start doing this as the people compromising machines have shown a long history of getting around all the blocks put in their way. Spam is just a minor annoyance compared to what they could potentially be doing with the compromised machines.
True... One of these days, I keep hoping that people will wake up and demand less vulnerable operating systems for their machines. Until that happens (and no, the changes Micr0$0ft has made recently don't really create an improvement in this situation, as, their blockades are so obnoxious and so hard to selectively work around that most users just turn them off completely), this will continue to be an issue. The reason, however, so many of these machines are being used for spam instead of other nefarious purposes is that there is more money in spam at the moment. Owen -- If this message was not signed with gpg key 0FE2AA3D, it's probably a forgery.
Once upon a time, Jamie Norwood <jamie.norwood@gmail.com> said:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:36:19 -0600, Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> wrote:
Once upon a time, Eric A. Hall <ehall@ehsco.com> said:
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
Change that to SMTP and you'll get a bunch of "yes" answers. Why is one right and the other wrong?
Heard of a little thing called 'spam'?
Heard of a little thing called a 'rhetorical question'? Who decides that it is okay for ISPs to block SMTP and not okay for them to block VoIP? If it is okay to block SMTP because "people do bad things" (i.e. spam), how long will it be before RIAA/MPAA/etc. demand ISPs block P2P programs for the same reason? If the a government gets involved and says it is illegal for ISPs to block VoIP, how long before a spammer tries to use the same ruling to say it is illegal to block SMTP? -- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
Heard of a little thing called a 'rhetorical question'?
Who decides that it is okay for ISPs to block SMTP and not okay for them to block VoIP? If it is okay to block SMTP because "people do bad [snip]
Well... Here's how I define things: 1. Blocking ports is bad. 2. Certain chronic abuses are worse. 3. When something is blocked because of chronic abuse, the following conditions should be met: + Any customer should have the option of having said block removed from their traffic upon request. + All customers should be informed of the block either at the time it is instituted or as an addendum to the contract for service when they sign up. + The block should be the least intrusive most selective block possible to reduce the abuse to a tolerable level (i.e. a level at which it is not preventing legitimate use of the network). + The block should be regarded as a temporary solution until a better way to resolve the abuse can be found. + The block should be removed at the earlist opportunity once the previous item has been accomplished. In this case, I can see reasons for blocking client<-->relay and/or relay<-->relay SMTP access as default under current circumstances. I can't see any such reason for SMTP. If you're running a network for <$40/mo flat rate subscribers, then, I believe your cost model may require you to block certain broadband isochronous services (internet radio, voip, etc.) or at least QOS them to the point where they lose if others want the bandwidth in order to provide reasonable service to all of your customers without your costs exceeding your revenue. Customers who want these isochronous services have the option of paying more for the bandwidth they need, or, they can go to a provider that provisions for this (and will likely cost more). I don't see a case for blocking VOIP from competitors if you are selling VOIP. I see that as likely an antitrust issue. I don't see a case for blocking NNTP currently. Anticompetitive blocking is bad. Anti-abuse blocking is bad, but, not as bad as allowing the abuse to prevent the normal function of the network. Blocking of isochronous high-bandwidth services to support higher levels of oversubscription for lower-priced service is not unreasonable. Owen -- If it wasn't crypto-signed, it probably didn't come from me.
--On Wednesday, March 30, 2005 21:36 -0600 Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> wrote:
Once upon a time, Eric A. Hall <ehall@ehsco.com> said:
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
Change that to SMTP and you'll get a bunch of "yes" answers. Why is one right and the other wrong?
Because by and large ISPs would rather not block SMTP, but, they basically have to to try and prevent massive DDOS. NNTP is not so widely abused as SMTP. Also, I would not patronize an ISP where the SMTP block was not optional, and, I encourage any of my consulting customers who encounter this and are unable to get their ISP to remove the block for them to find another ISP. Owen -- If this message was not signed with gpg key 0FE2AA3D, it's probably a forgery.
On 3/30/2005 9:36 PM, Chris Adams wrote:
Once upon a time, Eric A. Hall <ehall@ehsco.com> said:
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
Change that to SMTP and you'll get a bunch of "yes" answers. Why is one right and the other wrong?
It's not "SMTP" or even "Internet mail" that people are blocking, it's just the server-to-server transfer part, not the client-to-server or any of the other components. And the reason the server-to-server transfers are being blocked isn't because of competition with those other servers, it's because of harrassment of those sites by ~your customers. This is all pretty different from blocking ~NNTP because you're mad that ~SuperNews is using your network to make money. -- Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/ Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/
On the attack, are we? Its a free market. If folks don't like what unregulated, non-monopoly ISPs are doing, they can go elsewhere. I dislike the moralizing. This is business, not a battle of good vs evil. - Dan On 3/30/05 7:51 PM, "Eric A. Hall" <ehall@ehsco.com> wrote:
On 3/30/2005 11:27 AM, Greg Boehnlein wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
Intersting article on ISP issues regarding competitive VoIP services:
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=71020
Hmm.. I was quoted in it.
Oh good, maybe you can clarify some things:
| ³As much as I want to see VOIP survive and thrive, I also don't want | to bear the additional cost of my customers choosing to use a | competitor's VOIP service over my own,² says Greg Boehnlein, who | operates Cleveland, Ohio-based ISP N2Net. | | ³Without control of the last mile, we're screwed,² Boehnlein says, | ³which is why I can identify with Clearwire's decision and say | more power to them¹.²
Do you also block NNTP so that customers have to use your servers?
And if some other service used higher cumulative bandwidth than VoIP (say, Apple's music service) and didn't ~reimburse you for the use of your network, would|do you block that service too? For that matter, do you block the various P2P systems that don't make money but that generate massive traffic?
What don't you plan on blocking exactly?
participants (13)
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Alexei Roudnev -
Bill Nash -
Chris Adams -
Daniel Golding -
Eric A. Hall -
Fergie (Paul Ferguson) -
Greg Boehnlein -
Jamie Norwood -
Jon Lewis -
Mark Andrews -
Owen DeLong -
Steve Gibbard -
Steve Sobol