[ NNSquad ] Re: define: "service providers have to manage their networks somehow, especially during peak times."

[Colin May <colin@myfi.org>]

On 27 Mar 2008, at 20:30, Wes Felter wrote:

> > - supporting an accepted "Internet Standard"-level QoS method so  
> > that users
> > can identify which of their packets require special handling during  
> > moments
> > of congestion
>
> I like the idea of customers marking their traffic, but  
> realistically customers would have to rely on their Linksys router  
> to mark traffic for them, and right now the router doesn't do that.  
> In the near term, ISPs are going to have to treat all traffic from a  
> customer equally.

Generally speaking it can often be said that a minority of high speed  
broadband connected end users account for the majority of ISP traffic  
- with this in mind,  I cannot realistically see any ISPs wanting to  
pay attention to any QoS bits that may be set in the TCP headers that  
originate from beyond the network edge (e.g. any connection coming  
into DSL termination equipment from end users).   Surely there is too  
much chance of abuse from the people who are using the majority of  
bandwidth to flag all their traffic up for preferential treatment?

In an ideal world the ISP itself would determine the traffic type  
using packet inspection technology and then place the traffic into  
appropriate preference queue, ensuring that time-sensitive  
applications and protocols are dealt with promptly.  The queueing  
mechanism would also have to ensure that non-time critical  
applications are not throttled back (but that requires the bandwidth  
to be available and the queues are big enough if there is a lot of  
pref traffic on the network).

Although as we've all seen from postings on this list, for whatever  
the reason there are a lot of ISPs far from that ideal right now :-(

Cheers,

Colin.