5% of user use 90% of bandwidth

Article wrote:

Research conducted by Ellacoya Networks shows that up to 5 percent of broadband subscribers can consume nearly 90 percent of network bandwidth, primarily by using high-bandwidth applications such as streaming media and, especially, file sharing. These demands are more than doubling network capacity requirements each year.

link to the article

Not a surprise really. One argument for the heavy users could be:
"I am paying for a 2Mb connection, why should I be penalised for using the full potential of it"

There should be a minimum level of service though, so it shouldn't be slow for any users. But how would you define slow? Anything under 30% max capacity (0.6Mb/s)? If heavy bandwidth users paid more for what they use, I think it would actualyl make things worse. Filesharing services would not be as popular (some may say this a good thing), Skype wouldn't exist and a lot of innovative web applications would not be developed.

With more online gaming possible in the future, the 5% will probably grow. Although online games don't take up that much bandwidth (latency is more of an issue) - so someone with a 256kb cable connection would get a better service than someone on super fast satellite broadband. I've run BitTorrent (not big downloads, only a couple hundred megs) and a game at the same time, with no serious problems.


I wonder if the problem can be solved if IPv6 was rolled out more (as there is less overhead than IPv4)? TCP/IP wasn't designed for the kind of traffic and number of users we have on the internet now. A more efficient protocol should be used.



Edit:
I would also like to add that heavy bandwidth usage does not always impact other users. For instance, if you are on a street with very few users, or you are online when others are not you should not be penalised (by paying more, or getting slower speeds).

zzzzz wrote:

The problem is  these 5% users are killing the internet BackBones with P2P file sharing.

Hence one of big arguments of limiting bandwidth

What does someone do with VoIP and people making 911 phone calls?

Packet prioritising. I see no reason why ISPs couldn't tag emergency VoIP packets with a higher priority than non-essential packets.

Problem solved.

I have been annoyed at my ISP as they have imposed some bandwidth limits on me, 6Gb to be exact, and I believe this has cause me to have to go without an internet connection for a day or two. I use a fair amount of bandwidth, but I don't think that I use an amount that would make much of a difference, they should only penalise people who have used a massive amount of bandwidth.

Angus Higgins

Angus wrote:

I have been annoyed at my ISP as they have imposed some bandwidth limits on me, 6Gb to be exact, and I believe this has cause me to have to go without an internet connection for a day or two. I use a fair amount of bandwidth, but I don't think that I use an amount that would make much of a difference, they should only penalise people who have used a massive amount of bandwidth.

j0 got pwnt

This is a suprise?

I wonder at people who imagined that the internet did not follow the Pareto Principle.

W3bbo wrote:

zzzzz wrote: The problem is  these 5% users are killing the internet BackBones with P2P file sharing. Hence one of big arguments of limiting bandwidth What does someone do with VoIP and people making 911 phone calls?

Packet prioritising. I see no reason why ISPs couldn't tag emergency VoIP packets with a higher priority than non-essential packets.

Problem solved.

Exactly. Of course, how would you differentiate emergency VoIP and standard VoIP? Unless a different protocol is used. I didn't know 911 used VoIP.

With fibre optics though, bandwidth is virtually unlimited. The bottleneck is routers/switches/firewalls, but they will only get better with time. Copper cable should hopefully be replaced with fibre (as it has far less potential).

If an ISP limits bandwidth it just makes users want to switch providers. So it is not in their interests to do so (unless they have a local monopoly and the user has no other ISP to go with).