Traffic Shaping (again)

[dev]

Originally Posted by RXP

I want a 4mbit line that runs at 4mbit. I also have Sky, it runs fine at 8mbit.

go pay for a line that somes with a 100% sla then ntl do not give any guarentees to available or speed on their internet connections (residential anyway)

Originally Posted by RXP

No it doesn't. It allows them to enact whatever measures they see fit if I go over a threshold of usage. However for our services this is 'unlimited', a cap only applies to 'Freedom internet services'. Therefore they cannot slow anyone down no matter how much they use it.

http://www.home.ntl.com/page/termsresidential

in particular:

17.2 We reserve the right to suspend the Services or terminate this Agreement in whole or in part if your use of the Services (a) risks degradation of service levels to other customers, (b) puts the ntl Network at risk and/or (c) is not in keeping with that reasonably expected of a residential customer.

and same link, Part C:

4.3 We reserve the right to monitor and control data volume and/or types of traffic transmitted via the Interactive Services and/or Internet Services. In the event that you exceed the usage allowances applicable to your Internet Services as detailed in the User Policy, we reserve the right (at our sole discretion) to reduce, suspend or terminate your Internet Services. During any time of reduction or suspension, you will remain liable for the payment of your original level of Internet Services charge. We also reserve the right (at our sole discretion) to re-grade your Internet Services to a different speed and/or usage allowance at the appropriate charge.

looks perfectly fine to me.

Originally Posted by PWS

Hi All,

Just a point to note

A contract is an agreement between two or more parties.

If one side can change the contract within the terms then so can the other.
Anyone thought of trying it out lol

Just make sure you've got better lawyers, and can afford the legal bill

[RXP]

What has that got to do with the fact that they're moving heavy users onto the router and shaping their traffic? I'm confused. Other ISP's dont seem to be having users on less than 5% of their advertised speed.

To use your speed limit analogy, our government says all cars go at 70mph max on the motorway. It doesn't say that BMW's travel at 10mph and Skoda's travel at 70mph. It applies to everyone and to all.

And FFS, the relevant limitation for our internet services is UNLIMITED AS PER THE CLAUSE IN 20.2. SO NONE OF THE LIMITS CAN BE INVOKED BECAUSE YOU CANNOT GO OVER AN 'UNLIMITED' THRESHOLD.

[dev]

Originally Posted by RXP

What has that got to do with the fact that they're moving heavy users onto the router and shaping their traffic? I'm confused. Other ISP's dont seem to be having users on less than 5% of their advertised speed.

To use your speed limit analogy, our government says all cars go at 70mph max on the motorway. It doesn't say that BMW's travel at 10mph and Skoda's travel at 70mph. It applies to everyone and to all.

And FFS, the relevant limitation for our internet services is UNLIMITED AS PER THE CLAUSE IN 20.2. SO NONE OF THE LIMITS CAN BE INVOKED BECAUSE YOU CANNOT GO OVER AN 'UNLIMITED' THRESHOLD.

what i quoted has nothing to do with limits, it simply states, if you impact another users speed, they can slow you down regardless if you do 1mb a month or 1000000000mb a month

[RXP]

The contract and policies don't though.

17.2 Does, I agree. However as you also cited 4.3

n the event that you exceed the usage allowances applicable to your Internet Services as detailed in the User Policy, we reserve the right (at our sole discretion) to reduce, suspend or terminate your Internet Services

If you exceed the usage allowance applicable to you as per User Policy. What does User Policy say? It's unlimited.

Construed as a whole, the terms and conditions do not allow for what NTL are clearly doing. While 17.2 does give them broad powers if someone is effecting others connection. It is in contradiction with everything else I have cited.

Even so 17.2 does not give them broad reaching powers to slow down all these internet connections. I'm *not* a heavy user and I get 5% of 10mbit. Actually I'll correct myself, I guess it does because it is at their sole discretion. So we're getting screwed over by the fact that NTL can define 1mb a month use as impacting on another user. Even though it's not reasonable.

Originally Posted by RXP

On the Newshosting support group their representative posted this in a thread that I thought was interesting:



and also

Question.

why can i get full speed from giganews at any time of the day. I have until the 10th of November a account with Newshosting and for the last 2 months have NEVER been able to get above 600kB with them unless i use lot and lots of slots, then they send me emails saying they will close my account unless i use only 8. So i voted with my feet and went to giganews. I have had perfect speeds since. ?

I cannot see NTL picking on just 1 NGP and if they are traffic shaping NTTP then why is Giganews not affected ?.

Oh and i am a heavy user trust me. There are some on this forum who know just how heavy.

I do tend to do most of my downloads overnight so as to not affect other users at peak times.

[dev]

Originally Posted by RXP

The contract and policies don't though.

17.2 Does, I agree. However as you also cited 4.3



If you exceed the usage allowance applicable to you as per User Policy. What does User Policy say? It's unlimited.

Construed as a whole, the terms and conditions do not allow for what NTL are clearly doing. While 17.2 does give them broad powers if someone is effecting others connection. It is in contradiction with everything else I have cited.

Even so 17.2 does not give them broad reaching powers to slow down all these internet connections. I'm *not* a heavy user and I get 5% of 10mbit.

there are multiple reasons they can slow you down, one being you affecting other users (this is a single condition, regardless of other factors). going off the aup they cant slow you down for going over a usage limit (as one doesn't exist) but that doesn't stop them slowing you (or anyone) down for affecting others speeds. you can affect others speeds even if you are a light user, the average user i would guess is a light user but one who only uses it from say 6pm to 10pm. too many of this type of user means people affecting others speeds, for ntl to give everyone a level playing field they'll slow people down to the minimum needed to not slow anyone else down so if theres 100 people on a single 100mbit line, they'll all get 1mbit which is as fair as possible. granted this isn't the most ideal solution, but will help with pings and the like. it is also probably a temp solution untill ntl get more capacity in those areas

[RXP]

Hmmm, that's true I agree they can arbitrarily claim that my slow down is due to this reason. However, in the past they've sent out letters to heavy users or slowed them down to an unlimited 512k service.

Also the slowing down is occuring on a mass scale, since they are shaping and moving users around routers. The shaping is not something they can do, or move users around because of

[clause 26] - we reserve the right to change the terms and conditions of this Agreement and/or the Services which we provide to you as soon as is reasonably practicable by giving written notice to you prior to the changes being introduced. We will also publish details of any changes (including the operative date) in each of our main offices and/or on our website as soon as possible prior to the changes being introduced.

Traffic shaping and moving heavy users around is a change in the terms and conditions. All ISP's I have seen have this in their contract, Sky actually specifically say you'll be moved with heavy users if you continue to abuse the service. Yet they haven't written anything on their website, or told me I'm a heavy user that's why my net is being slowed down.

Originally Posted by RXP

Hmmm, that's true I agree they can arbitrarily claim that my slow down is due to this reason. However, in the past they've sent out letters to heavy users or slowed them down to an unlimited 512k service.

Also the slowing down is occuring on a mass scale, since they are shaping and moving users around routers. The shaping is not something they can do, or move users around because of



Traffic shaping and moving heavy users around is a change in the terms and conditions. All ISP's I have seen have this in their contract, Sky actually specifically say you'll be moved with heavy users if you continue to abuse the service. Yet they haven't written anything on their website, or told me I'm a heavy user that's why my net is being slowed down.

I honestly believe that within 2 years ALL isp's will traffic shape as it allows them to say they are unlimited. How hard they shape is the question.

[RXP]

Originally Posted by Bill C

I cannot see NTL picking on just 1 NGP and if they are traffic shaping NTTP then why is Giganews not affected ?.

I agree, I said that NH's routing is at fault earlier. But the fact is NH found out something about NTL that we didn't know what was going on. So they're not shaping NNTP but something is going on with all these slow speeds.

Do you get full giganews speed at prime time?

---------- Post added at 17:04 ---------- Previous post was at 17:02 ----------

Originally Posted by Bill C

I honestly believe that within 2 years ALL isp's will traffic shape as it allows them to say they are unlimited. How hard they shape is the question.

But the future is IPTV, big heavy bandwidth uses. The ISP's who don't upgrade their networks will loose out to the ones that can offer high bandwidth services. Also shaping will become a problem, especially since NTL themselves are using bittorent.

Also no amount of shaping in the world will control NNTP now, since providers are introducing SSL.

[dev]

Originally Posted by RXP

Also no amount of shaping in the world will control NNTP now, since providers are introducing SSL.

still easily possible, just traffic shape everything then whitelist http, dns, ftp, ssh, pop, smtp etc

[RXP]

Easynews used to do NNTP over a HTTP webinterface. It was HTTPS.

*think it was Easynews, long time ago.

[brundles]

Originally Posted by RXP

But the future is IPTV, big heavy bandwidth uses. The ISP's who don't upgrade their networks will loose out to the ones that can offer high bandwidth services. Also shaping will become a problem, especially since NTL themselves are using bittorent.

Also no amount of shaping in the world will control NNTP now, since providers are introducing SSL.

Traffic shaping is designed to help exactly the applications you describe - by shaping/restricting (relatively) non-time critical applications like NNTP and Bittorrent tehy can give priority to time critical applications like VOIP and IPTV.

Bandwidth is expensive and has the problem that you can't account for the extremes. Any ISP will only provide enough bandwidth to cope for their average busy hour (as it were). Even with higher average bandwidths I wouldn't want to try watching a major football match over IPTV - what happens when everyone is trying to use the same high bandwidth app? Compare it to mobile phone networks - they work fine 99% (actually 99.999% if engineered properly) of the time, but when it comes to New Year just how many calls can you actually get through that network?

There are ways around it and to make the network more effective but as a business they will (probably) do a cost/benefit analysis to work out the best solution. At the end of the day as someone has already said if they can make 10 customers happier by throttling one that's what they're going to do.

Oh, and if everyone starts shovelling high bandwidth traffic through SSL in an attempt to dodge traffic shaping you'll just force the ISPs to shape SSL too.

[RXP]

Traffic shaping could also be an excuse for ISP's to oversubscribe their network without making upgrades, thus increasing profit margins.

I dont have a problem with shaping if it's done legally and works well. Doing it behind the door, however is a big no no to me. And everything is slow for me at prime time, not just P2P.

What part of the country you guys in - it was pretty poor about two weeks ago, in Leeds, and has now gone back to normal.