Re: Traffic Shaping
 

It's an "up to 10mb" service not a dedicated 10mb service

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Erm no. Traffic shaping will NOT affect anything like your Modem, if you're having these problems, I suggest you contact Tech Support.

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Your electricity company may charge you different rates for daytime and nightime usage. This is a kind of traffic shaping designed to tempt you to move some of your consumption to offpeak hours.

Your water company may ban the use of hosepipes and other things during periods of low water reserves.

Your telephone company may charge you more for use during peak periods.

Traffic shaping goes on in many walks of life. Often this is done by differential charging which makes you think twice about when you use something.

The big problem with the internet is that some users want the fastest speeds with the lowest latency at a cheaper price than anyone else charges. This is something that no ISP can offer. As internet speeds get faster and faster something has to give. Maximum speeds will become harder to achieve. To give a reasonable level of service at a reasonable price to the majority of customers every ISP will have to take some action which will upset some of its customers. Users who expect an unlimited service with constant ability to achieve the maximum speed may get what they want for a short period of time after they have jumped ship from an ISP who cannot provide it but will soon find themselves looking elsewhere when their new ISP fails to deliver what they want.

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Well I did say capable

"made so as to be able to: a car capable of doing 90 miles an hour

As my dictionary puts it.

I just feel ISPs need to be clearer and more transparent about their products and that the ISP should only be the carrier and not dictate peopleââ‚Ã⠀šÃ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s usage beyond a fair use policy.

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Traffic shaping is here to stay yes. But My ISP should have the guts to admit they are doing it instead of releasing the information on a friday night and hope noone see's it.


On the point of jumping ship and times that speeds should be available.

I have been a customer of cable for more than 6 years and have been an employee of cable for over 11 years. However they have managed in the last 6 months to lose all of my custom. Why you might ask.

A. Not supplying the services i require. When other companies have had those services for years.

B. NOT telling me they are or have changed my level of service and hoping i will not notice "that was the final straw BTW"

C. I do not expect to achieve full speed on my broadband at all times and in fact do not make heavy demands on it during peak time and try not to use p2p software that fills the upstream. what i do ask and expect is.At least 75% of my speed on any given time. Check another thread showing my speeds over the last month that showed speeds less than 20% of my speed on a Sunday morning :Yikes:. My isp to clearly inform me of changes to my service which would in fact change the above.

And finally when i do phone up to report a fault i do not expect a its not us gov check your pc for Spyware, virus,cold,flu or anything else they can blame instead of admitting that they might have a problem.

However i am glad to say that will not be my problem soon :)

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Thats true but the phone companies are open about it, users know what their paying for. They don't cut you off 30 minutes into a call, or interrupt your call if its just chit chat in favour of someone making and important business call.

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Already done, it's called peering and transit.

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Peering is about the route not the destination.

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

i know, but the OP said "restrict traffic to destination X over destination Y because NTL has some deal with Y", NTL will probs send some data over a particular crappy peering/transit link to slow it down (restrict), rather than on their "ultra speedy" high priced link.

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

I have no problem with them being legally obliged to be able to monitor my phone. I'd have a serious problem if they routinuely did with no legal compulsion.
That hits the nail on the head and is I believe a failure with the legal system. I also wonder wether existing statutes could come into play with the likes of VOIP traffic? I'm no lawyer so I'll leave that to the legal beagles but there is a definite link between PTSN statutes and data networks that carry VOIP (IMO).
That's all fine, but the fact that they know, or at least, look at what I'm doing is an invasion of my privacy.
Unfortunately there's no reassurance in what's been said. I'm not trying to be argumentative but the above in it's own right is an invasion of my privacy. Why the hell should NTL know that I'm using FTP or HTTP or NTTP etc etc. That is none of their business. I pay for a data connection not a data connection that looks at what I'm using it for and decides wether to slow down my traffic flow.
Very true but it is becoming increasingly possible to 'hide' traffic through encryption. so even Layer 7 shaping is ineffectual. Whose betting that over time we will see all encrytped, or non identifiable traffic, shaped?

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

or... as lack of investment continues and sending technical support to a call centre in Indian, eventually some customers will have to give up.

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

I dont know the contracts ntl have regarding their peering but there is some flaws to the shaping rules mrben mentioned if they accurate and I understand it right.

If the peering is on the basis that equal traffic is going both directions and ntl start shaping only outbound traffic that could breach the contract.

If ntl pay fully for the peering and as such any traffic going over it is probably at ntl's discretion and they can shape as they please.

If the shaping is only for traffic from ntl to other isps presumably meaning upload traffic this will have no affect to the current downstream congestion which is clear on their network.

Also all the isps that I know of that use shaping are shaping downstream traffic so I just cant believe this is true, I think they will shape on type of traffic regardless of which way its going and the only traffic that will probably remain truly unshaped is VOIP services charged for by ntl themselves and traffic that an external isp may have paid ntl a premium for to have it unshaped (an example maybe bbc pay ntl to have their imp prioritised.)

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Thanks Ignition. I'll try it.

Must admit I had a problem this morning with the box and had to phone customer service. A very helpful chap sorted it out very quickly. I* was surprised to receive an unsolicited call from him 15 minutes later, when he told me he had been checking my line and I had had a few noise problems yesterday. Told me he was fixing it as we spoke and not to worry if my TV froze for about 30 sec and the box rebooted. I always wondered what customer service was and now I know!;)

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

Re: Traffic Shaping
 

that part is scary, it seems to indicate its ok to have that kind of congestion and shaping is the necessary fix. This is what I dont like, if congestion is emulating a DOS before shaping then questions need to be asked.

Also heavy users are never going to cause that kind of congestion only overselling can, we have figures coming from isps where they say under %3 are heavy users and the other 97% are normal so tell me how %3 users can cause congestion to the level where it feels like a denial of service.