Why do some ISP's have bandwidth quotas?
2007/10/4, David E. Smith <dave@mvn.net>:
I imagine the cost of backhauling traffic a few thousand miles in underseas cables would add to the cost of running an ISP in, say, Australia, especially since many sites the end-users will want to see are still hosted in the US.
In Europe, the only ISPs where i've seen bandwith quotas was some cables operators, while in Canada bandwith quotas seem to be still in place at many ISPs. I'm not an expert at all, but it seems that in Europe, even far from the US-hosted websites, the bandwith cost may be cheaper. -- Vassili Tchersky
In article <31566c420710041452h30303dd1v6e11e67aa4b23a03@mail.gmail.com>, Vassili Tchersky <vt@phear.org> writes
In Europe, the only ISPs where i've seen bandwith quotas was some cables operators
Almost all ADSL operators in the UK operate bandwidth quotas. eg: Currently my ISP is selling 50/20/5/0.5 GB a month options. There are many reasons, the most powerful being price competition - the cheapest domestic ADSL is $18 a month (inc tax), ranging up to $50 a month for the highest quotas. -- Roland Perry
ISPs offering 200Mb plans on ADSL2+ here in Australia, then charging HUGE amounts for excess - usually with no notification (at around the $12AU/Gb rate) may well find themselves in an interesting legal position. Under Australian law, the 'Bait and Switch' protection is very strict. With things such as Windows Updates, Virus definition updates, anti-spyware updates, etc etc etc on a monthly basis, this would easily eat up the 200Mb allowed by the ISP - leaving ANY usage by the users to be billed at a very expensive rate. I've thought for a while that it's only a matter of time before someone sues an ISP under the 'bait and switch' rules arguing that the ISP knew of these facts and charged them a premium rate for all their normal surfing - or offer to switch them to a more expensive, higher quota plan. Out of interest, has anyone heard of this happening elsewhere on the planet? -- Steven Haigh Email: netwiz@crc.id.au Web: http://www.crc.id.au Phone: (03) 9001 6090 - 0412 935 897 -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Roland Perry Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 6:01 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Why do some ISP's have bandwidth quotas? In article <31566c420710041452h30303dd1v6e11e67aa4b23a03@mail.gmail.com>, Vassili Tchersky <vt@phear.org> writes
In Europe, the only ISPs where i've seen bandwith quotas was some cables operators
Almost all ADSL operators in the UK operate bandwidth quotas. eg: Currently my ISP is selling 50/20/5/0.5 GB a month options. There are many reasons, the most powerful being price competition - the cheapest domestic ADSL is $18 a month (inc tax), ranging up to $50 a month for the highest quotas. -- Roland Perry
On 4 Oct 2007, at 22:52, Vassili Tchersky wrote:
In Europe, the only ISPs where i've seen bandwith quotas was some cables operators, while in Canada bandwith quotas seem to be still in place at many ISPs.
In this bit of Europe (UK), it's the opposite: the cable companies (CLEC style companies) tend to run unlimited (but within fair use) aggregate throughput policies, but the DSL operating companies have to impose aggregate throughput caps because the last mile connectivity is run by the national incumbent. Bandwidth here is cheap on the face of it (ethernet presented ip transit is a bargain, exchange connections are not expensive, peering happens widely too), but because the last mile hurts, this affects consumer pricing. I wonder if this is the case in the OP's country. Andy
In article <65906A49-7E4E-4B8A-AC49-9342B09B7152@nosignal.org>, Andy Davidson <andy@nosignal.org> writes
In this bit of Europe (UK), it's the opposite: the cable companies (CLEC style companies) tend to run unlimited (but within fair use) aggregate throughput policies, but the DSL operating companies have to impose aggregate throughput caps because the last mile connectivity is run by the national incumbent.
Surely the incumbent doesn't impose a cost on the bandwidth along the local loop - the bottleneck (and cost per gigabyte) is the backhaul from their locally operated DSLAM to the ISP's own network. -- Roland Perry
On 8 Oct 2007, at 13:06, Roland Perry wrote:
Surely the incumbent doesn't impose a cost on the bandwidth along the local loop - the bottleneck (and cost per gigabyte) is the backhaul from their locally operated DSLAM to the ISP's own network.
Yes, and it's £1,758,693 ($3.5m) PA for a 622Mbit BT Central, (so in bandwidth terms, equates to $471/Mbit per month - if the central is maxxed out). (Using $2=£1)
In article <312BF2DA-8482-4312-9ACF-6A8DD4621862@nosignal.org>, Andy Davidson <andy@nosignal.org> wrote:
On 8 Oct 2007, at 13:06, Roland Perry wrote:
Surely the incumbent doesn't impose a cost on the bandwidth along the local loop - the bottleneck (and cost per gigabyte) is the backhaul from their locally operated DSLAM to the ISP's own network.
Yes, and it's 1,758,693 ($3.5m) PA for a 622Mbit BT Central, (so in bandwidth terms, equates to $471/Mbit per month - if the central is maxxed out).
Wow. The pricing of the local incumbent in .NL is public - you can find everything on www.kpn-wholesale.com. Here is a direct link to the pdf with wholesale-prices: http://www.kpn-wholesale.com/content/doc/WBA%20annex%204%20CM%20v1.3.pdf I guess it's about 50-100 times cheaper, but OTOH, we only put like ~3000 customers on an STM-4, so we need way more of them. Mike.
On Mon, October 8, 2007 1:06 pm, Roland Perry wrote:
Surely the incumbent doesn't impose a cost on the bandwidth along the local loop - the bottleneck (and cost per gigabyte) is the backhaul from their locally operated DSLAM to the ISP's own network.
If you're buying wholesale from the incumbent, it's effectively the same thing, as there's some kind of L2 connection per subscriber back to your own network, so no possibility to talk to other local subscribers without the hairpin. (At least, I've yet to see such a thing in the offering from any European incumbent. I guess you could in theory with a virtual-router or VRF per ISP on the incumbent's kit at the exchange, but that brings other problems when you want to do things beyond basic Internet, e.g. VPN or pseudowire services.) Unbundling does change the model - renting just the metal path from BT is not actually *that* horrific - but you then have to factor in your own kit in the exchange. That's not just cost, there's a big logistics piece - and a lot of processes to change if you've built your business around wholesale. Regards, Tim.
participants (6)
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Andy Davidson -
Miquel van Smoorenburg -
Roland Perry -
Steven Haigh -
Tim Franklin -
Vassili Tchersky