Bandwidth hogs - are they real?

[milomak]

Doesn't matter, it runs at a speed quite acceptable to me for the price... and from here on it can only improve as more and more people lay backhaul. Hence my comment about the laying of Fibre.

On a side note... the uncapped service I use is throttled during business hours... and I in fact do not even make use of it at all during business hours. But after hours I use it to the max. That is one way of avoiding the whole hog scenario and one that I am quite happy with.

and if you look at say the Axxess Uncapped user usage, my uncapped line runs after hours at 400kB/s+ for 99% of the time despite these apparent hogs.

 

[LazyLion]

and if you look at say the Axxess Uncapped user usage, my uncapped line runs after hours at 400kB/s+ for 99% of the time despite these apparent hogs.

so much for contention!

 

[Sting]

there are many snouts in the bandwidth trough
the SA consumers' is not one of them

Other than the obvious, this comment alludes to another issue.

Who are the biggest bandwidth consumers in SA today? I can tell you that it is not us residential-type consumers with our uncapped accounts....

 

[OverKill69]

I believe that "Bandwidth Hogs" are out there... but just like the mythical unicorn, they're surrounded in a shroud of mystery and wonderfullnessness.

A better example of the "bandwidth hog" would be that guy who hacks his way into getting more concurrent session links to newsgroup servers.
The hog will get magnificent speeds while the service is degraded for the rest of the users.
So then they hack their client to allow more sessions and the story continues...

That's a B/W Hog...

The ISP's are claiming that "Hogs" ruin it for the rest of the their clients because they do not keep in line with their business model of "overselling bandwidth" and hoping that it'll all work out in the wash.

Well, I believe that it boils down to "Expectation Management".

If you advertise and sell a product that promises a certain amount of bandwidth at a certain speed, then I do not believe you have any recourse if they try and squeeze every last ounce of blood from that stone... It is your own fault if the pricing model piggy backs (no pun intended) on other users not utilizing their allocated bandwidth 100%.
"Uncapped accounts" with "fair usage limits"?
C'mon... that's just silly... Don't call it uncapped if IT IS CAPPED!

Just like the article said... 4chan introduced the "Bandwidth Hog".

The ISP's have found their scapegoat in this misinterpreted version that they've altered to suit their own business models.

 

[Nortic]

You mean there are people that use the bandwidth that they pay for? Oh my god what next people will be using all the petrol they buy or eating all their food, heaven forbid.

The poll is skewed, is it really these people's fault if they adversely effect a network because they use what they've paid for?

Well you pay for a 1:1 16kbps internet service, burstable to the ADSL line speed. So to answer your question, and the main one regarding bandwidth hogs is, No. You pay for bandwidth someone else is using.

Ads explained it well:

Whilst there are some good arguments here against small caps (which are often there to milk customers), the technical understanding of these analysts leaves something to be desired, and they clearly don't really understand what happens in real networks.

For a start, it's not about averages at all, but about the instantaneous traffic presented to the network at peak times. Operators build networks to handle these peaks, and it is certainly true that a small number of users can dramatically change the peak level of traffic presented.

Contention at the access layer has more or less nothing to do with TCP/IP, but is a function of the layer 2 architecture (where multiple wireline users share a single access switch and its backhaul capacity - ATM in old DSL implementations, and Ethernet in newer ones). In wireless networks, it's much simpler, because the real constraint is the available bandwidth on a single sector (something that cannot easily be adjusted, unlike wireline) and one or two users with sustained high demand can do a lot more damage, since the multiple access protocols (e.g. in 3G networks) are designed to give high instantaneous bandwidth to an individual user, and hence reasonable performance for every user. What makes any access network practical at all is that a small proportion of users want lots of bandwidth at any one instant.

In the core network, it's true that the issue is how routers deal with TCP/IP when there is more traffic offered than the available bandwidth, and packets must be delayed or discarded.

However, the reason for individual users being able to "hog" the network is precisely because of the egalitarian nature of TCP/IP. Typical router queuing mechanisms do quite a good job of giving each TCP stream roughly the same priority and performance. However, since TCP has no inherent mechanism to address true "fairness" between users (rather than TCP ports / sessions), applications that want to grab more resources can employ various clever tricks, notably opening multiple parallel sessions.

Some interesting theoretical work has been done to "fix" TCP to enable really fair resource sharing between users, and to prevent these "hogging" strategies from being effective. Obviously, one can apply separate QoS mechanisms (e.g. MPLS etc) to try to improve matters, but typically not in regular broadband services, which are generally pure, best effort IP.

Another good comment by ads

Let's try a little experiment.

You get together with some friends and build a local Wireless User Group, and all put in some money to buy uncapped Internet connectivity. One of your members has a room full of PCs, and several small businesses on the side, running torrents over your network more or less permanently, so that none of the rest of you ever see more than half the available bandwidth.

Do you:

• Educate him with a baseball bat?
• Disconnect him (implement a fair use policy)?
• Make him pay (i.e. start billing for download)?
• Implement soft-capping (i.e. bill him, and no-one else)?
• Implement hard-capping, to give the rest a chance?
• Spend some more of your own money, and shape his bandwidth?

Actual prices, actual bandwidth etc aside, is the problem now obvious? What do you think is actually the fairest mechanism? Who thinks it's fair just to let him carry on using all the bandwidth at no extra cost?

/takes mental note to take comments by "ads" seriously

I find the concept of a bandwidth hog to be bizarre... what they are saying is "Don't use the bandwidth heavy content"

Look for example at how much bandwidth you would eat if you were feeding IPTV at decent quality across a line. I've seen fairly high quality content (high enough to fullscreen on a 42" tv) streaming at 2.7mbit/second using x264. That would run at 29gigs every 24 hours or 874gigs a month. If we had REAL dsl speeds (24mbit as it fairly commonplace elsewhere), you could do 20mbit high def TV... at 9gigs an HOUR (or 6.4 terabytes per month).

Now, am I a bandwidth hog because I'd wanna watch high def tv for 3 hours a day? (Eating 800gigs of bandwidth)? I don't think so (I'm just a tv addict).

Seriously... people talking about bandwidth hogs must get a grip

Andrew, your 800gigs of IPTV is not considered bandwidth hogging, because the ISP receives one stream and can multicast it to thousands of users.

Bandwidth hogging is a real problem, even one 1gb international with uncapped local user can rock up an account for the ISP of R20k+. Take one user that is averaging 1TB local over a year and it ends up costing R250k pa. That user only generated revenue of R70x12=R840.

It is a real problem, these people exist and it is expensive not to keep them in check.

 

[Kosmik]

Hmm all this bi**** and moaning about bandwidth hogs and you know what? I see Axxess is still running a succesful business.

With two new players of DigiChilli and Screamer fighting for a piece of the low end uncapped pie too.

Grapes.

Andrew, your 800gigs of IPTV is not considered bandwidth hogging, because the ISP receives one stream and can multicast it to thousands of users.

What if I don't want the ISP's IPTV? What if I want to stream content provided by a different provider? How about Youtube highdef? What if I want a pure data service at a set price and what I do with it is my business? Why offer me something, pay for it and then try and restrict from the offer? This is actually false advertising.

 

[Slash69]

Erm... The ISPs have control over their networks, if they're too incompetent to manage their networks properly, it's hardly their users fault.

The truth is Telkom created an artificial bandwidth "shortage" over the years so they could justify the premium they charged for access. The party's coming to an end morons, deal with it

Very well said. Let's hope the party ends sooner rather than later.

 

[MidnightWizard]

Smoke and Mirrors

I think that this here is the crux

Well you pay for a 1:1 16kbps internet service, burstable to the ADSL line speed.
So to answer your question, and the main one regarding bandwidth hogs is, No.
You pay for bandwidth someone else is using.

Yup -- this is actually what you are paying for and getting. ( NOT 4Mb & "Uncapped" -- THAT is the smoke and mirrors )

This whole contention ratio thing = false advertising.

The small time users ARE subsidising the "HOGS"

It also takes the heat OFF the infrastructure providers and allows them to continue making profit whilst hiding in the background without rolling out expensive new networks.

(and then only thereafter validating the models of Gary and Andrew )


MW

 

[Joy-Energiser]

Sooo....basically the ISPs and Telecoms companies have created this image of a user that spoils the internet for everyone else by using too much bandwidth to cover up thier own pathetic bandwidth packages and insufficient networks so they can justify this country having THE most expensive vost per gigabyte in the world ?

Sounds like the usual South Africa Business practice to be honest.Rape the customer.

 

[Cat011]

All you people going on about the US and Europe consider this:

They actually have local content. The vast majority of content we all want to access is sitting on networks thousands of kilometers away, and we are connected by 3 tiny little cables. They also have massive populations that are pretty densly packed (compared to South Africa), so they have massive economies of scale.

Our local hosting and bandwidth costs are killing off our local content. If local IP was cheap, then we would have local youtube mirrors (for example), and we could have IPTV streamed locally. Then we could have uncapped at a low cost, and our "expensive" international lines wouldn't be clogged with guys downloading "Season 1 of Who's the Boss"

 

[quik]

Let's try a little experiment.

You get together with some friends and build a local Wireless User Group, and all put in some money to buy uncapped Internet connectivity. One of your members has a room full of PCs, and several small businesses on the side, running torrents over your network more or less permanently, so that none of the rest of you ever see more than half the available bandwidth.

Do you:

• Educate him with a baseball bat?
• Disconnect him (implement a fair use policy)?
• Make him pay (i.e. start billing for download)?
• Implement soft-capping (i.e. bill him, and no-one else)?
• Implement hard-capping, to give the rest a chance?
• Spend some more of your own money, and shape his bandwidth?

Actual prices, actual bandwidth etc aside, is the problem now obvious? What do you think is actually the fairest mechanism? Who thinks it's fair just to let him carry on using all the bandwidth at no extra cost?

Why would you need to spend more money to shape his bandwidth?

 

[Kosmik]

...we are connected by 3 tiny little cables...

A bit more than that in the next 5 years Even in the the next year.

Cable Map

Bigger international pic -> Higher Res

 

[krycor]

The problem is not so much hogs but poor contention ratio's & policies associated to it.. and then in Sa, we have companies who deemed it fair to charge and make huge% profit using a cost saving mechanisms(shapping, contention ratios, caching, ..) designed to make end prouct cheaper! So in the end we have an expensive system where hogging is almost impossible and when possible abused for all its worth. Until the norm is not overpriced people will abuse loop holes or hog where possible.(till they got bored but then switch to a cheaper scenario.. cost always matters in Sa)

 

[afrodeity]

No. The real hogs are the telcos who over-subscribe, stealing bandwidth from their customers in order to sell services they don't actually have. Telkom currently throttle cusomers in order to justify higher premium rates. We should all be guaranteed fibre to the door. At lightspeed & real-time IPall the issues about hogging bandfwidthego away. The issue becomes one of time not bandwdth. There are only so many hourd in the day. Storage on the desktop falls away. The cloud will take over.

 

[AndrewAlston]

Andrew, your 800gigs of IPTV is not considered bandwidth hogging, because the ISP receives one stream and can multicast it to thousands of users.

Bandwidth hogging is a real problem, even one 1gb international with uncapped local user can rock up an account for the ISP of R20k+. Take one user that is averaging 1TB local over a year and it ends up costing R250k pa. That user only generated revenue of R70x12=R840.

It is a real problem, these people exist and it is expensive not to keep them in check.

I kind of dispute that, and here is why. The IPC cost is a MAJOR portion of this cost (Costing an ISP with a gigabit or so of IPC somewhere in the region of R3k to R4k per megabit). You cannot multicast to the DSLAM, so your multicast stream is still being duplicated to every DSL user and still using nUser*StreamSize bandwidth on the IPC. Hence, that means that people using this content ARE considered "bandwidth hogs"

Also, keep in mind that any ISP who is using IPC is not charged based on volume, they are billing to their customers based on volume, but they pay for fixed speed lines and then are translating back to volume. So rocking up a bit of R20k in a non-reseller model isn't totally accurate, you'd have to do some pretty advanced calculations on speed of line versus total data throughput etc etc to get an accurate number here

 

[rurapente]

vort saves the day with his logic

 

[porchrat]

We should all be guaranteed fibre to the door. At lightspeed & real-time IPall the issues about hogging bandfwidthego away. The issue becomes one of time not bandwdth. There are only so many hourd in the day. Storage on the desktop falls away. The cloud will take over.

While we are asking for crazy things could I just say that I would also like a unicorn and a flaming monkey riding a unicycle.

 

[chubster]

Bandwidth Hogs only exists thanks to contention ratios. If the ISP had guaranteed bandwidth e.g. 1:1 contention ratios then it would have never existed. Yes there are low contention ratios but only for businesses willing to pay through their neck.

Contention ratios exists to advertise "best effort speed". Probably the new term going to be used as cell phones companies still charge for a best effort service, voice/text to cover their arse.

This country has no moral fibre left and every company seeks to get the best from you. Nothing to do with race.

 

[Nortic]

I kind of dispute that, and here is why. The IPC cost is a MAJOR portion of this cost (Costing an ISP with a gigabit or so of IPC somewhere in the region of R3k to R4k per megabit). You cannot multicast to the DSLAM, so your multicast stream is still being duplicated to every DSL user and still using nUser*StreamSize bandwidth on the IPC. Hence, that means that people using this content ARE considered "bandwidth hogs"

Also, keep in mind that any ISP who is using IPC is not charged based on volume, they are billing to their customers based on volume, but they pay for fixed speed lines and then are translating back to volume. So rocking up a bit of R20k in a non-reseller model isn't totally accurate, you'd have to do some pretty advanced calculations on speed of line versus total data throughput etc etc to get an accurate number here

100Mb IPC works out to R3k per mbs. Yes, signification but international is still the determining factor. While this is not true multicasting due to the nature of half duplex vrf's, it is still more cost effective than streaming IPTV internationally, which is considered data. Now sticking with the IPC example, although this is not the only broadband in SA, the ISP can exclude the 'on net' data from your data package. Therefore something to the effect of unlimited on net IPTV streaming and 10GB int data.

Rocking up 20k is realistic, repeatedly over several months, take my word for it. On a non-reseller model, yes, not quite the same, but take 1TB over a month, it works out to a 4mb line running close to 100%. What does 4mb 1:1 cost? It is unsustainable when charging a few hundred rand. Someone is going to pay for it and the ISP is depending on the subscribers to cover the cost, hence all the users effectively club in to pay for it as 'ads' explained.

While you can take a piece of bread or fish and multiply it to feed thousands, those events are rare.

 

[snail]

bandwidth hogs my ass....it's simple....dont offer what you cant support......if you going to offer a certain speed, then you must be able to supply your customer with it. You dont see the motor industry advertising a vehicle with 160KW of power...only to find out when you purchase it for a quarter million rand it only comes with 60KW of power..........same concept....different industry....

i rest my case