Shaping / Hardcap

[Sneeky]

If Telkom *spit* are going to be hardcapping from 1 Nov, what is the point of bandwidth shaping?
I dont see what the reason behind it is now, you get the gigs you pay for and when they are finished you are cut off, so do I not have a right to use them where I see fit?

 

[enx]

they can make more money selling unshaped.

its like being the only restaurant in town, and charging people extra money if they want their coffee hot.

or just being a big fat african dictator. doing what big fat african dictators do.

we are living in magical times!

 

[woobydog]

they can make more money selling unshaped.

its like being the only restaurant in town, and charging people extra money if they want their coffee hot.

or just being a big fat african dictator. doing what big fat african dictators do.

we are living in magical times!

Bingo....give the man a cookie

 

[MaD]

If Telkom *spit*

OMF ROFL!!
That was just what I needed this morning.. definite reputation points coming your way

 

[Arcadies]

If Telkom *spit* are going to be hardcapping from 1 Nov, what is the point of bandwidth shaping?
I dont see what the reason behind it is now, you get the gigs you pay for and when they are finished you are cut off, so do I not have a right to use them where I see fit?

i was thinking the same thing a while back, if u pay per gig wtf cant u use it were YOU want to use it, but then again i guess ppl would "abuse" it on p2p and then the "non abusers" would get a lesser service? not like there is in service atm anyway

 

[Franna]

WTF Arcadies??????????

...but then again i guess ppl would "abuse" it on p2p and then the "non abusers" would get a lesser service?...

Please explain to me how somebody that buys a 1Gig package - then goes and download 1Gig of movies on P2P or whatever - can then be called a bandwidth "abuser".

It's like you going to the shop to buy a litre of milk - drink everything up outside the cafe - and then get called a milk "abuser".

 

[Roman4604]

If Telkom *spit* are going to be hardcapping from 1 Nov, what is the point of bandwidth shaping?

Discussed and answered many times before ....

ISPs use capping and shaping for one purpose .... to force their user base to collectively spread their demand for bandwidth as evenly as possible over the entire month.

Why ... cause ISP wish to ensure that there arent periods in the month that their service degrades to a point where the majority of the users find it unsatifactory.

 

[pimal3]

I think the shaping equation is geared too much towards HTTP. Most people I know use P2P and/or Usenet for serious downloading. I get at best 57kBs on a 1024kbs line for usenet. What good is paying the extra money for then?

Competition for Electrolux from Nov. 1

Nothing sucks like Telkom sucks!

 

[Roman4604]

use P2P and/or Usenet for serious downloading. I get at best 57kBs on a 1024kbs line for usenet.

Again discussed and answered before ...

ADSL is a highly contended service and that is why its price/throughput ratio is so much better than a leased line with a small fixed contention ratio and guarenteed throughput.

The whole ADSL pricing model is based on the premise that users demand for bandwidth will be sporadic & bursty, and that statistically only a portion of the users will demand maximum bandwidth at exactly the same instant.

P2P breaks this model as the bandwidth demands it introduces are steady and continuous, and this is why Telkom are so eager to continue with P2P shaping (throttling).

Not agreeing or disagreeing, just stating why they shape down P2P and leave HTTP to get the best priority.

 

[Daveogg]

Again discussed and answered before ...

ADSL is a highly contended service and that is why its price/throughput ratio is so much better than a leased line with a small fixed contention ratio and guarenteed throughput.

The whole ADSL pricing model is based on the premise that users demand for bandwidth will be sporadic & bursty, and that statistically only a portion of the users will demand maximum bandwidth at exactly the same instant.

P2P breaks this model as the bandwidth demands it introduces are steady and continuous, and this is why Telkom are so eager to continue with P2P shaping (throttling).

Roman i think the point people are trying to make is that even without shaping on a CAPPED account peoples bandwidth will be sporadic and bursty, as unless you are Bill gates you will not be able to afford a steady and continuous demand on the bandwidth.

IMO shaping is used by telkom to limit your access to non cached protocols. ie they want to sell you "international" bandwidth and then in effect provide a lot of local cached content thereby lining the pockets of the shareholders even more.

 

[Roman4604]

Roman i think the point people are trying to make is that even without shaping on a CAPPED account peoples bandwidth will be sporadic and bursty, as unless you are Bill gates you will not be able to afford a steady and continuous demand on the bandwidth.

I understand this argument, but refer to my first post.

ISPs enforce caps so that ppl cant demand continuous bw through the whole month, as its not economically feasible to provision that kind of bw for every user. ISP hope that ppl will self regulate their non-continuous bw usage so that its still evenly spread across the whole month, however they know some ppl wont have that discipline.

Since this non-uniformity of usage causes some abnormaities in bw demand (i.e. 1st week of the month -> some try to use up cap as fast as possible, and last few days -> some must finish off whats left of their cap) they also do shaping, to at least limit the continuous usage types such as P2P.

This is all to ensure that their network does not 'brown out' during these abnormality periods.

 

[pookfuzz]

I don't really buy into the spreading the bandwidth idea - from what I have seen come end of month people try to download as much as they can, yet the network shows no noticeable degradation so clearly the capacity is not an issue.

Bitcaps are a business decision, not a technical decision, just like the whole dynamic IP situation. Considering that with the current shaping rule sets the network is permanently in "brown out" mode I think it is fairly obvious there is little technical merit to any argument defending bitcaps.

As for users having to be disciplined the concept is laughable, how would you like it if the next time you went to the fridge to get something to eat it refused to open ( and was advertised as high capacity and always available ) since the fridge manufacturer had decided you had eaten enough for the month. Not willing to starve? Buy another fridge I guess! Seems a stupid analogy but it is fair comparison to how things are currently working.

Asking for service and pricing comparable to other countries is not unreasonable, it does not matter what creative rational Telkom or anyone else dreams up, the reality is that other countries have done it so we can too.

The single purpose is bitcapping and shaping is to protect more profitable revenue streams.

 

[Valerion]

ADSL is a highly contended service and that is why its price/throughput ratio is so much better than a leased line with a small fixed contention ratio and guarenteed throughput.

Actually, unless my maths are fundamentally flawed, ADSL is actually MORE expensive than a no-contention international link.

Assumptions:
1) 30 days in a month (2592000s)
2) For DSL I am going to use WebAfrica's pricing, since it's the only prices I have for extremely high-cap accounts.

If you spot any errors in my maths, please let me know.

First, let's see what a 1024kbps down / 256 kbps will cost us total per month if you use it to its full capacity:

1280 Kbps full speed
1.25Mbps full speed.

This means

3240000 Mb in 30 days
3164.0625 Gb
395.5078125 GB in 30 days.

92 + 650 + (R125 * 395.5078125GB) = R50180.4765625

Therefore, an unshaped ADSL line will cost you R 50,180.48 per month when used to its full capacity (1:1 contention).

Now, let's look at the prices of an international link:

Based on MTN's submission to ICASA at the ADSL hearings (R1,500,000 for a 45Mbps STM1), and Telkom's subsequent price drop, I estimate a 45Mbps STM1 on the SAT-3 cable to cost R1,000,000.00 / month, for an unrestricted 1:1 contention ratio.

This mean 116640000Mb in 30 days

Which is 113906.25Gb, or 14238.28125GB.

If you take into account that it is full-duplex, you can transfer 28476.5625GB in 30 days.

R1,000,000.00 / 28476.5625GB = R 35.11659807956104252400548696845 R/GB

So R 35.12 vs. R125 ... and if you apply the contention ratios that was mentioned on the forum before (50:1, 128:1) you get some interesting numbers.

 

[Roman4604]

I don't really buy into the spreading the bandwidth idea - from what I have seen come end of month people try to download as much as they can, yet the network shows no noticeable degradation so clearly the capacity is not an issue.

I would beg to differ, especially at the begining of month instead on end.

As for users having to be disciplined the concept is laughable, how would you like it if the next time you went to the fridge to get something to eat it refused to open ( and was advertised as high capacity and always available ) since the fridge manufacturer had decided you had eaten enough for the month. Not willing to starve? Buy another fridge I guess! Seems a stupid analogy but it is fair comparison to how things are currently working.

I agree ... reasonable analogy, however the way you put it (i.e. 1 fridge, 1 owner) is closer to a leased line.

The reality of ADSL is that the fridge in question is shared by you and your mates, and its contents is paid for equally by all. Now what if you ate out (i.e did other things) at the begining of the month, and only wished to get something from the fridge mid-month.

Low and behold your mates had already emptied it. Wouldnt you be miffed, and wouldnt you mind a mechanism to periodically lock the door so that your mates didnt unfairly empty the fridge before you got your fair share.

Asking for service and pricing comparable to other countries is not unreasonable, it does not matter what creative rational Telkom or anyone else dreams up, the reality is that other countries have done it so we can too.

I'm sure the same thing happens overseas, the scale just changes. Power users will bitch that their 50Gig cap is restrictive and why shouldn't they have 500Gigs.



@Valerion

ADSL is a highly contended service and that is why its price/throughput ratio is so much better than a leased line .

I agree with your calculations, however thats not what I said. Throughput does not equal traffic .... rather it refers to line speed (e.g. 1 Mbps).

 

[doobiwan]

Nice Analysis.

 

[Juice]

I don't really buy into the spreading the bandwidth idea - from what I have seen come end of month people try to download as much as they can, yet the network shows no noticeable degradation so clearly the capacity is not an issue.

You're kidding, right?

On average, on my shaped connection, I play World of Warcraft at a steady 800 latency. During the last week and first week of the month, this will settle at around 2,500 and as an added benefit I will enjoy ENORMOUS packet loss, sometimes escalating my latency to 14,000.

Juice

 

[Daveogg]

Yes Juice BUT

Your wow is non prioritized, so lumped into the same pool as p2p. There may well be plenty of bandwidth available for the "priority" protocols which is not being used at month end. I am willing to bet that if no shaping was done you would notice a slight degradation at month end on all protocols but the impact on your wow would be much less then currently occurs.

Put another way having shaping means that at the end of the month you wow is treated the same as p2p. It is not protecting you from the effects of p2p in fact it is maginifying it.

 

[pookfuzz]

What people seem to be forgetting is that there is sufficient capacity, it does not matter what you happen to experience or the reasons Telkom gives, these are artificial. It is a well known fact that the SAT3 cable is underutilized.

If your WOW ping times are bad, it is not due to P2P or hordes of people surfing - it is because Telkom have very specifically chosen to make only a small portion of the bandwidth available.

As for latency which is what you are really complaining about, there is no possible reason Telkom can provide to explain the huge differences in latency on the various products. I cannot think of a logical technical reason why a 512K ADSL package would perform worse than a 64K diginet line or even a dialup. Clearly it has nothing to do with capacity since you can download much faster on the ADSL line.

Shaping has not made the network better for anyone, all it has done it make it equally bad everywhere. Trying to blame bandwidth hungry users for the problems is simply a tactic to try validate and gain support for something that really is not in the users best interest. The whole bit capping and shaping thing is utterly ridiculous when you consider that our ADSL can barely even be called broadband, how is it possible to abuse the network when our access speeds are so ludicrously low to start off with.

I still maintain that if you really want to know why we have bit caps and shaping look not for a technical reason but a business one. Always remember Telkom only cares about money and will do whatever it thinks it can to get more.

 

[Sneeky]

What people seem to be forgetting is that there is sufficient capacity, it does not matter what you happen to experience or the reasons Telkom gives, these are artificial. It is a well known fact that the SAT3 cable is underutilized.

I also get the feeling that Telkom are trying to walk before they can crawl when it comes to the local network and the hardcapping while moving forward with other bandwidth intensive products, SAT3 aside.
Gearing up to offer TV and cr@p over the net on the exisiting network at the expense of the exisitng adsl speeds/costs/allocated bandwidth.
Obviousely this type of application will have a huge impact on local bandwidth traffic and perhaps they are trying to do it all without any further 'major' capex.

 

[Floruroruro]

Is https also shaped like p2p now?
Try downloading the latest ATI drivers from their site www.ati.com
Since ATI switched to https from normal http the downloads have gone from max throughput to around 7kb/sec.

I am really getting sick of ADSL these days. Everything is getting shaped to hell