Did A Google Earth Mistake Cause A Couple's Brutal Murder?
Tumblr 101: Tips And Tricks To Get Started
Bandwidth Throttling and Small Business
Internet Service Providers are coming at high bandwidth users from all directions, but mostly poorly. Dave Winer once again is at the forefront with his Comcast controversy where the ISP threatened to cut off his service for using "too much" bandwidth but wouldn't tell him how much "too much" was. You can hear the DLS podcast here. Comcast is sending out threatening letters labeling customers as abusers, without telling them how much their download or upload caps really are.The bottom line for Comcast appears to be: you're using too much. We're just not going to tell you how much is too much, because we're the ISP.
It's not just Comcast, either, back in 2002, CNet wrote that ISPs are considering new pricing plans that would adversely affect file-swapping. Bell Canada customers suffered through a 10Gb cap but complained that the monitoring software wasn't BC's responsibility.
Internet bandwidth usage is growing, some say wildly, for US businesses. Most companies buy broadband with speeds much higher than their workers have at home and with an inexpensive Flash key, a worker can download movies or songs and transfer them to their pockets with little trace, except for that pesky bandwidth usage.
ISPs are accused of bandwidth throttling, or traffic shaping, to slow down people using P2P software file sharing. Bell Canada calls it "downgrading the internet services of bandwidth hogs," and this month the Canadian Association of Internet Providers has asked the Canadian federal regulators to prohibit BC's throttling of Web traffic on their network.
The implications for small business? Last month, Bell informed smaller Internet Service Providers that it was bringing in traffic-shaping policies on the network space it sells to them, effectively downgrading the services these smaller companies are able to provide to their customers. How about US businesses? What sort of bandwidth regulation might they be looking toward?
According to Ars Technica, since last year [2006], Comcast has grown increasingly aggressive about cutting down on the bandwidth used by its subscribers. Tactics started with going after the highest-volume users of its service, and suggesting they needed to pay for higher levels of service. But the company really grabbed the spotlight once word slipped out that it was throttling P2P traffic, a practice that drew the ire not only of its users but, more significantly, the FCC. We see through leaked memos posted at Ars Technica that Time Warner is proposing different subscriber plans with varying bandwidth caps.
An increasing number of small businesses are starting as home offices and some rarely need to move into rented space to work effectively and become profitable. Relying primarily on Internet connectivity to work, home-office users might be the most impacted of any bandwidth cap enforcement by major ISPs. And don't bother reading Comcast's AUP to determine how much bandwidth you're allowed: it's pretty vague when it comes to bandwidth limits (there are no hard numbers). Comcast isn't the only player heading down this road; in fact, ISPs have begun turning to bandwidth caps in an attempt to cut down on the amount and type of traffic flowing through their networks.
What should small business do?
- Monitor your bandwidth. A Free Bandwidth Monitor for Windows is available from the OS folks at Sourceforge.net and Rokario offers a free "lite" version to meter traffic in a Windows environment. More free and shareware bandwidth monitors are here.
- Keep track of your bandwidth usage over time with Cyber Bandwidth Monitor, a little Windows utility that plots your network activity visually on a graph.
- Get a pro tool to manage bandwidth usage. Netequalizer has some great unsolicited reviews, but make sure you've got IT people to install it and show you how to use it.
How serious is the situation? A 2007 report by the US firm Nemertes Research warned that the information superhighway could become clogged with data by 2010. The report warns that decreasing bandwidth availability could effectively neutralize the development of creative online endeavors like Google, YouTube or Amazon. The implications are serious; the situation real.
Bandwidth usage is outpacing new infrastructure development and in just a few years, Web pages will again be agonizingly slow to load and streaming videos a mere memory. Expect bandwidth throttling or capping to become new policy and anticipate paying more for the same speed you're getting now.
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsPeterJun 2nd 2008 10:01AM
Or you could pay for a "business" account which generally don't have caps. Sure, you're going to pay more, but if you are running a business based on your connectivity, then you should be paying business rates.
In the long run we're going to see metered pricing, where you pay for the bits you use. It really doesn't make sense for someone who is checking their email 3 times a week to pay as much as someone who is downloading torrents all day long.
Aron TJun 2nd 2008 11:29AM
You're missing the point though - a large part of the problem is that ISPs are claiming "unlimited" yet not providing anywhere near that level of service.
What would happen if a dealership leased a car to someone with an "unlimited" mileage cap? Then randomly one month the dealership sends you a letter saying you've driven too many miles, you need to drive less. Besides the fact that they now have /lied/ to you they won't tell you how many miles you can drive. So what happens next in the story? Well if you're unlucky your car gets towed back to the dealership.
As a former Comcast customer I find it disgusting that I would have to pay higher rates in order to get what I was promised in the first place - bait and switch.
It is a ridiculous idea to cap the amount that you download - where am I? 1995 and signed up with Compuserve? Come on! I totally can agree with capping the speed at which you download, though. There are a ridiculous amount of legitimate, high-bandwith uses for the internet. Hulu, Flickr, YouTube, and yes, torrenting Linux ISOs.
It seems that the main issue is that Comcast (and others) enjoyed the profits of "unlimited" pricing for too long without providing any real network upgrades. Now that demand is getting too high for their infrastructure they want to go backwards!
Sue PolinskyJun 2nd 2008 11:42AM
My company has a business account and pays for it; we were just assessed a monthly "surcharge" that is to pay for gas, among other things, for at-business visits (something we were lured into the contract to receive). I wonder if the ISP will exchange such charges or bandwidth capping for QoS standards to deliver us the download bandwidth promised in our service agreement in a reliable fashion?
You think that's a reasonable request for business-level contracts?
JoeJun 3rd 2008 7:36PM
Agree with Aron. ISPs make an offer (unlimited connectivity) with no caps in their terms of services then try to jack around users based upon excessive bandwidth use. If there is a cap, advertise it, and put service levels into the contract. Plain and simple. Instead, ISPs wish to make up ever shifting rules of service as they go along without clearly informing the user where the benchmarks are at.
toddJun 6th 2008 7:19PM
I would really love to have a personal t1 right about now.
Jarrod B.Jun 9th 2008 6:20PM
NetEqualizer actually really is "plug-n-play". A Tech guy helps, but it can be done without an expert.
Wm J. RountryJul 13th 2008 12:56AM
DATA MODEMS ( todays terminology[i don't know] servers or what ever**
data is still data), and the ability to adjust for speed of traffic,[flow],has
many other variables involved.
1. This: every person whom is a consumer of "'ELECTRICITY" , AND HAS
EXPERIENCED!: ANY OF THE following,{ brown-out/black-out, Voltage fluctuation [deliberate or mandatory for maintenance reason], these and many other {affect/effect}, not only The Subscriber end equipment; ALSO! [any thing that
runs{ operates} on electricity, Including these [PC's] are affected by these minor fluctuations and variants! .
The complaint about throttle [ speed adjustment ] is relatively a minor one!.
jamming a SYSTEM, ANY WITH THESE PACKET [ P2P] AS YOU DIGITALS ARE
CALLING THEM, Is some-what comparable to : a stuffed up TOILET, some of it
needs to be, "'DROPPED", OR JUST LET THE SYSTEM !![ ANY COMMUNICATIONS]
RUN TO A HOT{ Signal =HOT }CONDITION, AND IT WILL CORRUPT THE PACKET
INFORMATION ANY WAY!. hence loosing and [ a] lost of that packet stream!.
2. Corruption of the signal , digital, FM or other-wise also has an exceptional , set of variant [s] that will cause stated , conditions ! {ergo} loss of information
[ including partial to full corruptions].
3. More way[s], to have the tax payer pay; for your play toys!!. might just as well
find the largest provider to manipulate , the telecoms, and provider's networks??.
4. Than of course , there is the MINOR problem, of every imaginable ""Moron-
Idiot "' trying desparetly, scanning, ping[ing], and try[ing] to squeeze every
possible bit&baud out of the consumers PC's ,this also causes even more
"'SERIOUS SECURITY PROBLEMS!.
SLOWING DOWN THE PC AND OTHER ODD BEHAVIORS, **WHY** CONSUMERS
GROUPS JUST CAN NOT: SEE TO CALL[ing] THIS ;"'STRONG ARMING" HAS ME
SOME-WHAT ! PERPLEXED???.