Hello Everybody,
Has any body any good and easy setup idea for "Fair Use Policy" service for
my xdsl customers?!
Can do this in the BRAS side and nothing done with accounting and radius?
Thanks
Dear Owen,
As you know in pick time of internet usage like midnight in which we have
free-access times too, some users which really want to use internet for
their daily usage and not downloading or using peer-to-peer services
unfairly affecting this problem.
Some companies are using some polices for users to solve this problem.
Do you have any Idea?
Thanks
What I am talking mostly is some services like COA, in which you can change
users shape time-base and periodically without disconnecting them.
I am using Cisco 7206 VXR with NPE-G2 as my BRAS's.
Dear Owen,
Would you please describe this some how more in my bussiness plan?
I have both limited and unlimited users.
For example I have these services in my package:
512Kb-5GB-1Month
256Kb-Unlimit-1Month
And like this.
Thanks
Hi Shahab,
You can find out how much bandwidth they're using by having that
reported periodically via RADIUS (or at least when the session ends,
worst case). Store in database. SELECT sum(blah) from foo where id="bar".
Next question is what do you want to do to them once they exceed their
bandwidth? Drop them into a walled garden (different Virtual-Template
/ address pool)? Turn their service off? Rate shape the heck out of
them so they feel like it's 1993?
-r
Shahab Vahabzadeh <sh.vahabzadeh@gmail.com> writes:
I how you are talking about 3G or there is a typo.
An ISP with a 5GB cap that is charging the end user more then 5$ total
{including line rental} a month should not be allow to operate.
And if your infrastructure and handle 25% at a minimum maxing out their
connect them don't advertise " unlimited " since you can't provide it and
it is false advertising.
The world would be a better place if ISPs that either throttled, cut off or
added on extra charges to the end users bill were fined to hell for false
advertising and repeat offenders were named and shamed on a public website.
I agree entirely. The US is not exactly known for great broadband access, particularly where I live in the midwest (unless one is in a lucky pocket with FiOS, Google Fiber, or the like), yet I could easily host 200 512kbit/sec subscribers off my residential cable connection without even thinking about caps much less throttling on top of caps. It'd be oversubscribed, sure, but most users don't max out the line regularly so I don't think I'd have a problem. My mobile phone is through Sprint, known for being the slowest of the national 3G carriers, yet I can exceed 1mbit/sec in the middle of a corn field miles from anything resembling civilization and again do not have any monthly cap.
A 5GB cap on 512kbit/sec service could be blown through in under a single day. That's absurd. If a 256k user maxed out their line all month, they'd have transferred just short of 80GB. Why in the world would it make sense to limit someone to 1/16th of that just for the "privilege" of double speed which is still so slow it's beaten by any 3G service?
Wired internet providers should not even be thinking about caps below the 250GB/mo point. Neither of these example speeds can even reach that level, so if you feel the need to cap you are doing it wrong and should rethink your business model. Wireless carriers get a bit more leeway due to spectrum limitations, but even there a 5GB cap is barely reasonable for an entry level offering.
Why? It's a perfectly reasonable business model - it allows you to skimp on
upstream provisioning if on any given day15/16th of your users are at low/zero
bandwidth due to hitting their cap *and* allows you to upsell bigger caps. The
only downside is that if you do this, you'll only get away with it for like 36
hours before public outrage makes the local public service commission step in
with the big hammers and make you behave.
Oh, wait...
An ISP with a 5GB cap that is charging the end user more then 5$ total
{including line rental} a month should not be allow to operate.I agree entirely. The US is not exactly known for great broadband access, particularly where I live in the midwest (unless one is in a lucky pocket with FiOS, Google Fiber, or the like), yet I could easily host 200 512kbit/sec subscribers off my residential cable connection without even thinking about caps much less throttling on top of caps. It'd be oversubscribed, sure, but most users don't max out the line regularly so I don't think I'd have a problem. My mobile phone is through Sprint, known for being the slowest of the national 3G carriers, yet I can exceed 1mbit/sec in the middle of a corn field miles from anything resembling civilization and again do not have any monthly cap.
On a slow connection, "all you can eat" is effectively all "you can sip"
Nonetheless, it appears there are now 2 camps forming where (AT&T +
VZW) want to clamp down access (Facetime?) and increase price
And, in the other camp, unlimited offerings from T-Mobile, Sprint, and Metro
http://www.pcworld.com/article/261247/tmobile_metropcs_roll_out_unlimited_data_plans.html
These 2 camps also cleanly break into Ma'Bell vs Other
CB
And, in the other camp, unlimited offerings from T-Mobile, Sprint, and Metro
Well...sort of. To be fair, the T-Mo version of unlimited is unlimited up to a certain amount
(that you paid for) and then all-you-can-sip at incredibly low speed thereafter.
(At least that's what their marketing literature says... If Cameron knows different, it
would be nice to know.)
Owen
And, in the other camp, unlimited offerings from T-Mobile, Sprint, and Metro
Well...sort of. To be fair, the T-Mo version of unlimited is unlimited up to a certain amount
(that you paid for) and then all-you-can-sip at incredibly low speed thereafter.(At least that's what their marketing literature says... If Cameron knows different, it
would be nice to know.)
Cameron* does know different.
From the link i posted, here again
http://www.pcworld.com/article/261247/tmobile_metropcs_roll_out_unlimited_data_plans.html
"Starting Sept. 5, T-Mobile will offer a new Unlimited Nationwide 4G
data plan that doesn’t have any data caps or speed limits. T-Mobile’s
other so-called unlimited data plans do have caps (2/5/10GB), but once
you go past the threshold, your speed is throttled. The new plan,
T-Mobile says, won’t have such limitations."
And to be "fair and balanced" (TM):
"MetroPCS also joined the unlimited data plan party, but only for a
limited time offer. "
CB
*Works at T-Mobile.
Marketing literature:
The new plans being brought out are supposedly true unlimited, but are not allowed to tether. The previous unlimited but throttled to 2G after X amount of transfer plans remain available for those who tether.
Cool!!! Does that offer include mobile hotspot?
Owen
I how you are talking about 3G or there is a typo.
An ISP with a 5GB cap that is charging the end user more then 5$ total
{including line rental} a month should not be allow to operate.
I don't believe $5 even covers an ISP's typical cost of having a line,
let alone getting data through it, maintaining, supporting it, and
providing upstream networking. Last I checked you can't even buy
dial-up services from national ISPs for that low a price, before the
per-Hour usage charges, and those require simpler less-costly
infrastructure to maintain for the ISP.
With residential broadband, if there is not a heavy degree of
oversubscription, the ISP will either go broke, or the cost of
residential service will be so high that the average person would not
buy it. "I want my line speed 24x7" is a technical argument, it is
a numbers game, and the average subscriber does not make that
argument, or at least, rather, the
average res. subscriber is not willing to bear the actual cost
required to actually pay
what it would cost their ISP to satisfy that for every user trying to
utilize so much.
Why should the end users who transfer less than 1GB a month, with only
basic web surfing, have to suffer periods of less-than-excellent
network performance or pay increasing costs to subsidize the purchase
of additional capacity for users at the same service level expecting
to use 100GB a month?
There is a certain degree of fairness there.
Even if the metric is wrong -- the idea of metering bytes
transferred is broken,
because it does not positively reinforce the good behavior.
It's like trying to reduce congestion during rush hour on the freeway
by imposing a "40 miles of travel per day" limit on each vehicle
owner.
That gives no benefit for those effected by the limit to adjust what
time of day they travel those 40 miles, however.
A "X=10 gigabyte per 4 hours" rolling average limit would make more sense.
Where "X" is varied, based on the actual congestion of the network between
other users of the same service level.
And if your infrastructure and handle 25% at a minimum maxing out their
connect them don't advertise " unlimited " since you can't provide it and
it is false advertising.
There's no such thing as unlimited, period. Even if the provider wanted to,
there will be some physical limits.
I agree the use of the word is confusing... when they say unlimited
what they are
often indicating is "You are not limited by the provider in the
number of hours a day you can be connected to the service".
The world would be a better place if ISPs that either throttled, cut off or
added on extra charges to the end users bill were fined to hell for false
advertising and repeat offenders were named and shamed on a public website.
[snip]
There might be no residential ISPs left
Yeah, totally can't be done. It especially can't be done profitably.
http://fiber.google.com/
http://gigaom.com/2012/07/26/the-economics-of-google-fiber-and-what-it-means-for-u-s-broadband/
Yeah, totally can't be done. It especially can't be done profitably.
Google can afford to start almost any project they want, and they are
in a unique position to negotiate peering and access to a ton of
bandwidth, with their Youtube, Google Search et al. As to whether it
will be profitable, well, obviously, that is their claim. It's yet to
be demonstrated.
I gotta reject the idea that broadband providers should be required to
follow in Google's footsteps though.
For now, Google fiber is another risky experiment, that could have a
great payout if successful, or could be shuttered within a year or so,
or fees/rate incs tacked on, when they figure out just what a mess
they have gotten into.
I how you are talking about 3G or there is a typo.
An ISP with a 5GB cap that is charging the end user more then 5$ total
{including line rental} a month should not be allow to operate.I don't believe $5 even covers an ISP's typical cost of having a line,
let alone getting data through it, maintaining, supporting it, and
providing upstream networking. Last I checked you can't even buy
dial-up services from national ISPs for that low a price, before the
per-Hour usage charges, and those require simpler less-costly
infrastructure to maintain for the ISP.
I agree that $5 is low. Should be more like $30.
With residential broadband, if there is not a heavy degree of
oversubscription, the ISP will either go broke, or the cost of
residential service will be so high that the average person would not
buy it. "I want my line speed 24x7" is a technical argument, it is
a numbers game, and the average subscriber does not make that
argument, or at least, rather, the
average res. subscriber is not willing to bear the actual cost
required to actually pay
what it would cost their ISP to satisfy that for every user trying to
utilize so much.
Agreed.
Why should the end users who transfer less than 1GB a month, with only
basic web surfing, have to suffer periods of less-than-excellent
network performance or pay increasing costs to subsidize the purchase
of additional capacity for users at the same service level expecting
to use 100GB a month?
Here we disagree -- somewhat.
If you are selling an unlimited product, then you take on the obligation of
making it effectively unlimited. If you are selling the same unlimited product
to the 1GB/Month user and the 50GB/day user, then you are not doing a
good job of pricing your products in a manner that is fair to your subscribers
and you will lose in one way or another:
+ Your product is too expensive and your lower-end customers
depart and you're left with only the few high-end customers.
+ Your product is not expensive enough and everyone gets poor
service because you do not have adequate upstream bandwidth
to service all of your customers.
The way you achieve fairness is to provide different products at different
price points to meet different customer needs.
For example:
Metered products for low-tier users:
1GB/month $x
2GB/month $2x
5GB/month $4x
10GB/month $8x
Over $0.9x/GB
Flat rate products for power users:
10Mbps/1Mbps $y
30Mbps/5Mbps $2y
50Mbps/10Mbps $3y
100Mbps/20Mbps $5y
etc.
Note that there's no unlimited product in the list, but, the flat rate
products present limitations in terms of wire speed while the metered
product allows low-utilization customers to take advantage of high
wire speeds for short bursts of transfer.
That way the customer can choose the pricing model and service
that best meets their needs and all you have to do is make sure that
the values of x and y are sufficient to allow you to upgrade your
capacities as needed to meet the demands of increasing customers
and/or customers moving up the usage tiers.
There is a certain degree of fairness there.
Not really. It assumes a single one-size-fits-all pricing model which
is bound to be inherently unfair.
Even if the metric is wrong -- the idea of metering bytes
transferred is broken,
because it does not positively reinforce the good behavior.
While there is truth to this, the bottom line is that selling bandwidth
based on time of use billing to residential customers results in a
product that the consumer simply can't/won't understand and you
can't make any money.
It's like trying to reduce congestion during rush hour on the freeway
by imposing a "40 miles of travel per day" limit on each vehicle
owner.That gives no benefit for those effected by the limit to adjust what
time of day they travel those 40 miles, however.A "X=10 gigabyte per 4 hours" rolling average limit would make more sense.
Where "X" is varied, based on the actual congestion of the network between
other users of the same service level.
Try explaining that to the average residential user... It's just not going to work.
The incentive won't affect the behavior because they just won't understand.
And if your infrastructure and handle 25% at a minimum maxing out their
connect them don't advertise " unlimited " since you can't provide it and
it is false advertising.There's no such thing as unlimited, period. Even if the provider wanted to,
there will be some physical limits.
True... I object to the use of the term unlimited as well.
I agree the use of the word is confusing... when they say unlimited
what they are
often indicating is "You are not limited by the provider in the
number of hours a day you can be connected to the service".
Which is meaningless if being connected doesn't mean you can transfer
data at some reasonable speed throughout those hours as well.
The world would be a better place if ISPs that either throttled, cut off or
added on extra charges to the end users bill were fined to hell for false
advertising and repeat offenders were named and shamed on a public website.[snip]
There might be no residential ISPs left
I doubt it. I think that if they had to, residential ISPs would, in fact, find a way
to develop pricing models (like the one I mentioned above) that fit that criteria,
still allow them to profit, and also pull in enough revenue to build out capacity
as needed to meet demand.
Owen
I how you are talking about 3G or there is a typo.
An ISP with a 5GB cap that is charging the end user more then 5$ total
{including line rental} a month should not be allow to operate.I don't believe $5 even covers an ISP's typical cost of having a line,
let alone getting data through it, maintaining, supporting it, and
providing upstream networking.
If you're talking mobile (3G) then you don't have a physical line. You
have a device which might or might not be making any use of a shared
media (wireless spectrum).
A 56kbps modem can theoretically deliver 18GB of data in a month. My
$125/mo business fios can cough up 8 TB in that time. 5GB on a modern
shared wireless media is... not much.
Why should the end users who transfer less than 1GB a month, with only
basic web surfing, have to suffer periods of less-than-excellent
network performance or pay increasing costs to subsidize the purchase
of additional capacity for users at the same service level expecting
to use 100GB a month?
They shouldn't. The folks who want to use 100 GB a month should be
paying more than $5. 
Even if the metric is wrong -- the idea of metering bytes
transferred is broken,
because it does not positively reinforce the good behavior.
Works for the electric company, the gas company, the water company,
etc. Metering I mean, not a use cap. The notion of a cap is pretty
broken.
Regards,
Bill Herrin
Google can afford to start almost any project they want, and they are
in a unique position to negotiate peering and access to a ton of
bandwidth,
... kind of like all the other major incumbents like at&t, Comcast, and
all those. Of course, the difference is that at&t, Comcast, etc., all
have cable TV offerings, and these companies can all see that inexpensive
high speed Internet access has the potential to destroy the lucrative
existing TV subscription model that they enjoy.
Claims that the US is somehow magically different than other countries
sound pretty feeble at this point; service providers like Sonic.net
are doing FTTH, and municipal broadband projects are sufficiently scary
to incumbents that they've spent years fighting them in court, rather
than just letting them get built and then collapse - so apparently the
incumbents are pretty certain that these projects would be successful.
250GB/month isn't a whole lot of data when you look at high-def movies.
You can exceed 250GB/mo by running a flat 1Mbps. Comcast apparently
has a 305Mbps tier (at quite a steep price). Coupled with a 250GB/mo
cap, that's what, a few hours of 100% use? 
Comcast fans need not
beat me up, I know there've been some "changes" recently, but I don't
know exactly what...
It would be nice to see some useful options. I mean, we all hate frame
relay, right, but the idea of a CIR with an ability to make use of extra
capacity the network might happen to have available makes a certain
amount of sense. I don't expect to see anything like that anytime soon
for all the obvious reasons. Heh.
... JG