[LINK] compelling Content wrecks broadband (was Volume charging)

[bscott at gtlaw.com.au]

[snip]s not shown

> bscott@gtlaw.com.au wrote:
>
> > The key problem is that the internet is (a) packet switched and, as a
> > result, (b) a best efforts service.
>
> Sitting on a packet-switched network that isn't best-effort
> for telephony services, I think I could dispute that :-)

Yes but AARNet is hardly a typical user. You guys aren't happy unless
you're pushing the envelope.

> The technical issue is authenticating access to that reserved
> bandwidth.  In the worst case you need a coherent authentication
> platform across all Internet users.  Ouch.

? Is this b/c users will spoof normal traffic as VoIP to get better QoS?

>  > To provide an adequate quality of service you need to make sure
>  > peak usage will never congest the network, which is an extremely
>  > difficult task (esp. because you have a limited ability to
>  > throttle access to the pipes).
>
> Not so.  You can't ever guaruntee that peak usage won't
> exceed link capacity.  It you have a network where you
> think that is true, let me put our users on one side and
> the AARNet's mirror.aarnet.edu.au on the other side on the
> day of a Red Hat Linux release.

And we love you for it.  Imagine what the international interconnect costs
would otherwise be.

> The *whole point* of quality of service technology is that
> the voice and video class of traffic has no packet loss even
> when the best effort class of traffic is hammering the link.

Hmmm...
Don't you still need to size for peak usage of QoS guaranteed traffic?  Or
does QoS guaranteed usage cannabalise the other capacity on an as needs
basis?

> Interestingly, we're about to try a reverse QoS for the
> mirror -- defining a 'worst effort' service with a a lower
> priority than normal 'best effort' traffic.  This is
> intended for file transfer traffic, such as the mirror.


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