Bandwidth Hog Definition ?

qdada

Expert Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2003
Messages
1,428
Reaction score
18
Location
Sunninghill
The 1GB/3GB (and 10GB as once brandished about by Sentech) limit is enforced to discourage bandwidth hogging.

Accorning to this link It is possible to download 4GB at 2KB/s (16kbps) in just less than 20 days. Does this act constitute bandwidth hogging ?

Surely "Bandwidth Hogging" needs a little bit more meat than simply a thumb suck value to the amount of data downloaded ?

I think that bandwidth hogging should only be managed at the level where protocols are prioratised and should never go as far as the extreme CAP.
 
I agree, but the reason for capping has little to do with bandwidth hogging - I think it is more a way for service providers to maximise profits than anything else.
 
Like any kind of hog... A bandwidth hog is someone who takes more than they need. So in this case, those who download for the sake of downloading, rather than downloading just the stuff they actually need and will use. But its not something you can put a number to, all numbers are relative. Inidivdual users will know whether they are hogging or not.

I don't think its the bandwidth itself that is so expensive. If it was, ISDN/56k dialup would also be capped.

No, the reason is this: if every user is contanstantly downloading at high speed, the services themselves are going to become highly degraded. The cap is mostly there to allow high contention ratios, IMHO.

This problem has been "solved" in developed countries by making the services inexpensive, thus expanding the user base to such an extent that the casual to serious user ratio is large enough that capping is not required.
 
Gatecrasher said:
...
No, the reason is this: if every user is contanstantly downloading at high speed, the services themselves are going to become highly degraded. The cap is mostly there to allow high contention ratios, IMHO.
...
Ok, but doesn't shaping achieve this more efficiently? My take is that capping still allows all uncapped users to simultaneously download & degrade the network for everyone else, whereas shaping basically should deprioritize the types of traffic that cause bottlenecks on the network.

All very confusing & worrying since WBS seems to want to implement both capping & shaping...:(
 
I agree, which is why I would like to see package options that can be customised by users, more shaping, higher caps - less shaping, lower caps.

With a 3GB cap there should be no shaping whatsover. I don't see the need for it.
 
I totally agree, sadly we have Poison Ivy & Telkomonopoly to thank for this whole mess in SA - if it weren't for them we wouldn't be stuck with all this junk.
 
a bit like Lasagna

True;

The service is offered as a novelty. Naturally people will consume as much as pobbile to satisfy their appetite for bandwidth.

Bandwidth should be ubiquitous.

I remember years back the first time I tasted Lasagna. I used every opportunity to visit my aunt's and she always had Lasagna ready. I came from a poor family so Lasagna was novelty.

My fortunes have since changed for the better and frankly I would rather have Wors with Phutu Pap.
 
LOL @ Phutoo Pap, sadly you have just invited WBS to give you Phutoo Pap instead of Bandwidth ;)...
 
I almost get the impression that by imposing a cap many people will try and use that up or else it is considered waisted which in thoery might make people hog uneccessarily. I see this with friend who have ADSL. They ensure they cap it out before the end of the month which makes sense... bcuz it is waisted. They should actually carry it over to the next month...

So if I only use 1 GB this month then next month i have 3GB + 2GB.

Imagine buying talk time for your phone and having to use it up in one month???

Another approach or fix is to provide such a crappy service that no one attempts to download big thngs but provide a 10GB cap so it seems you are the best out there... oh wait Sentech did that :p
 
to qDot

Derail-A-Little:

qDot are u the #masakhane (on lagnet) op?
 
I'm sure there's been _volumes_ written on the subject of fair bandwidth sharing among an ISP's customers. I'm no expert, but I can tell you that the XGb/month is wrong on so many levels...

Imagine buying a phone contract that gives you x minutes/month talk time - people will, at the end of the month, go apesh*t trying to "get their share" and later they'll phone the-lady-that-reads-out-the-time and not hang up just to "spite" the telco...

Now, if people don't act that way everybodys service will get better and the telco might reduce the charges. (Yeah I'm aware of the Hellkom monopoly but let's not get into that now...)

I'd like to see something like the "7-items-or-less-tills" for low bandwidth users.

The ISP calculates a moving average, say, daily.

- A _moving_ average so that you don't get the "OMFG!!! The cap has been reset! Lets download movies!"-cyclic-effect.
- And _daily_ (even hourly) so that you don't punish the "occasional bandwidth hog" for a whole month.

Then the ISP's router ranks these from high to low and prioritzes light users' traffic to a greater or lesser. NOTE: Light users don't get "right-of-way" alltoghether, you just give their traffic an axtra little kick. "Hogs" don't get cut off.

That way "hogs" can "hog" without a cap. They are fighting for the remaining bandwidth among theselves. The guy who quickly downloads mail, checks the market news, trades his shares uses the "express counter" and gets off as soon as possible.

If he continues to download, his moving average rate will pick up and soon he'll have to use the same queues as the medium "hogs" and after that he will get thrown into the moshpit with the "hardcore" hogs - but just for an hour.

A cap might still be needed if the ISP itself is capped higher up - but that's unlikely. Also it may be a good idea to set up two of these schemes - one for international and one for local traffic.

Now that'd be schweet - but I don't think Ciscos can do that...

chz,
kk
 
Last edited:
What do you know, there is a niche market out there for intelligent bandwidth management and Cisco and the likes aren't paying attention.

Then again "WHAT MARKET" there is nowhere else in the world where u get capped like that so go figure.

I just think it is so much easier just to make the bandwidth dirt cheap, remove the cap and everyone will behave "normally".
 
qDot said:
I just think it is so much easier just to make the bandwidth dirt cheap, remove the cap and everyone will behave "normally".

i guess they must be concentrating on the petrol price at the moment otherwise it would have been dirt cheap already...
 
phew, when i saw the name of this thread i thought someone was gonna mention my name
 
slimothy said:
phew, when i saw the name of this thread i thought someone was gonna mention my name

Like I said: "Individual users will know whether they are hogging or not." :D
 
You can't really hog bandwidth unless you share it with 10 other people on the same network going through the same modem as you. (and you just share out the modem and don't have any measures in place)

It's different when it comes to ISP's.... and I mean real ISP's, not these wireless sh1theads that pretend they are
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X