U.S. Broadband Access Lags
Linked by Howard Fosdick on Fri 27th Jul 2012 02:57 UTC
Internet & Networking A free, new report from the New America Foundation compares cost, speed, and availabilty of internet connectivity in 22 cities around the world. The report concludes that U.S. consumers face comparatively high, rising connectivity costs, even while the majority have very limited choices -- often only one or two providers. The report argues that U.S. broadband policies need to change, otherwise consumer choice will continue to deteriorate.
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tomcat
Member since:
2006-01-06

Not to contradict anything you said, but throttling bandwidth of non-critical tasks is usually the opposite of what is wanted, which is guaranteeing bandwidth of critical ones. It's actually very difficult to guarantee bandwidth for "critical" tasks like VIOP and netflix while simultaneously maximising bandwidth utilisation among non-critical tasks due to varying conditions in the network.


In a perfect world, everyone would get their critical tasks handled when they need -- and everything else would get deprioritized. But networks don't function that way. There's no way to signal that "this remote terminal session is more important than anything that my kid is doing", so the various usages battle one another in a random way. All that I'm saying is that, if you want to prevent somebody in your house from completely saturating your network pipe to the Internet, limiting their bandwidth on the router is a very good way to do it.

OT: what gets me is that ISPs add port restrictions and charge even more for premium accounts to unlock them. One of my providers blocks incoming SSH (in fact all ports below 1024), this is very annoying to say the least!


Well, yeah, I agree that it sucks. But, at the same time, they are running a business to make money, and realistically speaking, it's tough to differentiate Internet connectivity in any other axis than bandwidth. Not trying to justify what they're doing. Just flipping the coin.

Reply Parent Score: 2

Alfman Member since:
2011-01-28

tomcat,

"In a perfect world, everyone would get their critical tasks handled when they need -- and everything else would get deprioritized. But networks don't function that way. There's no way to signal that "this remote terminal session is more important than anything that my kid is doing", so the various usages battle one another in a random way."

Well, both IP4 & IP6 have priority flags intended to solve this very problem, but I don't know of any consumer equipment that actually can configure & use them. Beyond that, I'm not even sure whether ISPs & other operators adhere to them in the WAN (they're potentially ripe for abuse).


I found a link about VOIP prioritisation on Cisco ASA devices that are popular for corporate networks, but it doesn't answer my questions about support on typical consumer devices & ISPs.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa84/configuration/gu...

Reply Parent Score: 2

Soulbender Member since:
2005-08-18

Well, both IP4 & IP6 have priority flags intended to solve this very problem, but I don't know of any consumer equipment that actually can configure & use them.


OpenSSH uses TOS/DSCP but beyond that I can't think of any. In OpenSSH ssh terminal sessions use the "interactive" precedence while scp transfers use "bulk".

Beyond that, I'm not even sure whether ISPs & other operators adhere to them in the WAN


No sane ISP would since, as you said, they would get abused and made pretty much useless. They can be very useful inside your own network though.

Reply Parent Score: 2