Traffic Shaping

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

So they'll be forcing people off the, relatively easy on the network, newgroups and onto, bandwidth sapping, bittorrent? Sounds like a plan

Great post, but there's a reason why, I think...

Originally Posted by Rob C

I wonder how traffic shaping of P2P stuff relates to the Bittorent trial

Bingo!

Originally Posted by Toto

Absolutely Frank.

The implications that an ISP would cache files for download, where the distribution of those files could be, and will likely be in breach of copyright laws are interesting indeed. I am not sure an ISP can hide behind conduit laws if this was the case.

But what makes you think stuff on ntl's servers will be illegal....

Originally Posted by mudkumpf

Hehe - not wishing to start a flamewar here, but what's "not legit" about bitTorrent in and of itself? You can download 5 CD Linux Distros on BitTorrent and that's 100% Legit.....Muds

err, theft legal??

Originally Posted by Chris W

If people want to leech and leech that is fine, ........

but ntl don't make any money out of it....

Is it not obvious...???

[2||Para]

Yes theft is illegal,so is doing 150mph on the M6.Didnt stop Ford building the the ST Focus.What i do with my connection [as long as i dont go over the cap] is my business?

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by 2||Para

Yes theft is illegal,so is doing 150mph on the M6.Didnt stop Ford building the the ST Focus.What i do with my connection [as long as i dont go over the cap] is my business?

I'm not unsympathetic to this for a very good reason But ntl is not a charity, it's there to make money out of whatever it can....and with several billion pounds of debt, it needs to get on with it.

[Fawkes]

I don't have a problem with traffic shaping or caching as a way of reducing costs or improving network performance but I'm a bit of a cynic and not sure I trust some ISPs not to use it as a substitute for investment in network infrastructure.

It also feels like the thin end of the wedge.

Why the net should stay neutral

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation is considering making changes to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and one of the ideas being floated is that network providers should be allowed to offer preferential service to some of their customers instead of providing a neutral data carrier service.

<snip>

....once we get away from the idea that the pipes just move bits around without really caring what data is being transmitted, it's a small step to discriminating against some forms of content and then targeting specific sites, services or users.

Instead of an "end-to-end" network, we would end up with something more like the phone network, along with a complicated array of charging schemes for "0800", "0845" and "0871" sites.

Taken from here

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by Neptune

I'm not unsympathetic to this for a very good reason But ntl is not a charity, it's there to make money out of whatever it can....and with several billion pounds of debt, it needs to get on with it.

Perhaps they should have considered their debt before they decided to stump up a mostly cash bid for Telewest then throw a billion towards Virgin Mobile

[DVS]

To be effective then surely NTL would need to be doing Layer 7 shaping. Does this not have privacy implications? Why should NTL, or any ISP, be permitted under privacy laws to undertake deep packet inspection of my network traffic.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Frank

Did any ntl customers get an email about this change to the User Policy from ntl?

I didn't...

Originally Posted by Neptune

I'm not unsympathetic to this for a very good reason But ntl is not a charity, it's there to make money out of whatever it can....and with several billion pounds of debt, it needs to get on with it.

Why should i have a substandard service just so NTL can continue with its insane obsession for buying other companies. I think that money should be spent on there network myself not on the purchase of other companies.

We have seen before where that gets them. In the book of how not to run a company look under CHAPTER 11.

---------- Post added at 23:50 ---------- Previous post was at 23:49 ----------

Originally Posted by Ramrod

I didn't...

Nor Me

[Graham M]

Originally Posted by Neptune

err, theft legal??

Im not sure what you're getting at with this response, you can download a full Linux Distribution on 5 CDs or a DVD totally legally (as most Linux distributions are free) BitTorrent in itself is legal, its the content that can be aqquired with it that can be questionable. And the term "theft" is an odd one (no im not supporting it) to use as Theft implies taking something of value where as in my mind anyway, a Piece of software you haven't bought (or wouldn't have bought) in the first place isn't of value to the company as they wouldn't have had your money in the first place

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

I didn't...

It's odd. given the low cost of email, and the fact ntl spam us with junk such as their "monthly" magazine, you'd think that could include references to changes in policy. Or it could be attached to bills.

OK so they don't want to get buried in queries from the customers who are "not tech enough to understand" (a famous ntl quote from the cap days, thanks Mr Goodland), but surely they owe it to tell customers who might be affected?

[AndrewJ]

Time i looked for a new isp.

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Zeph

Im not sure what you're getting at with this response, you can download a full Linux Distribution on 5 CDs or a DVD totally legally (as most Linux distributions are free) BitTorrent in itself is legal, its the content that can be aqquired with it that can be questionable. And the term "theft" is an odd one (no im not supporting it) to use as Theft implies taking something of value where as in my mind anyway, a Piece of software you haven't bought (or wouldn't have bought) in the first place isn't of value to the company as they wouldn't have had your money in the first place

Yep, your correct. I apologise, I misread. Linux is free. If it wern't, that would be a diffrent matter.

Originally Posted by unlimited

Why should i have a substandard service just so NTL can continue with its insane obsession for buying other companies. I think that money should be spent on there network myself not on the purchase of other companies.

We have seen before where that gets them. In the book of how not to run a company look under CHAPTER 11.

Originally Posted by Ignition

Perhaps they should have considered their debt before they decided to stump up a mostly cash bid for Telewest then throw a billion towards Virgin Mobile

I agree!!! This is a very thorny issue with me....

I'm a ex-shareholder who cashed about £20 worth of cheques last week. If the company had been run properly there would have been a few more zeros on that cheque...Because of all the debt-for-equity swap, I lost the bulk of my money to the yanks who now own UK Cable PLC. (I can hear the violins now ) Although really our American friends always did own/control the UK cable networks from the very start.

Believe me, ntl's bosses are very aware they need to make money...This is how they're going to do it, I think...The legal downloading of film/tv and other content, for a fee, from ntl's own systems using bittorrent or such like system. Which has already been publicly announced. Of course to free up bandwith, those pesky folk illegally downloading stuff needs to be controlled a bit more than as is now. I'm whiter than white on this issue of course..

The question is, if people are getting stuff for free now, would they pay for it in the future? Perhaps that's why a "nudge" is needed now to turn people away from the dark side and into the paying light

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Saxo

Time i looked for a new isp.

Think there may be a lot of others joining you and Bill!

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by unlimited

Same here however if the problems i had between 6.00pm and midnight was a test of the traffic shaping then there is no way in hell i want that. Therefor ukonline will be getting a call from me tomorrow followed by ntl disconnections on Monday.

eh? I thought you'd already signed up to BEunlimited?

[Fawkes]

There is no escaping it, this is the shape of things to come (sorry Nugget).

How many ISPs capped users before NTL?

Going to another ISP is just delaying the inevitable.

The future of the internet is corporate control.

I'm all for websites like this and the EFF, but users stamping their feet didn't change ISPs capping policy. At the end of the day there are only a relatively small number of subscribers that know what caching, capping and shaping is all about. The majority only care about being able to access content and price.