[adriancr]

Oversubscription is an ISP trick to make more money.

People do pay for a certain bandwidth. They should be able to get it.

Same thing with overbooking on airplanes. You paid for a seat you should be able to use it.

Your argument wouldn't work there either.

[Hikikomori]

Its a cornerstone of building cost efficient networks. People pay for a certain sized pipe, what they pay also covers the rest of the ISPs networks and costs. With no oversubscription the ISP would need maybe 20-30x more infrastructure, do you think it would have an impact on what you pay?

Not sure why I have to say this, but, networks are not airplanes.

[Neonlicht]

The water company makes sure that everyone can flush their toilet during Superbowl half-time.

[rockskon]

Utter nonsense. Network tech hasvimproved by orders of magnitude over the past decade to let ISPs transmit more data than ever for cheaper than ever.

Oversubscription is not the cost-restrictive mandate it once was.

[Hikikomori]

And last mile access didn't improve?

Not oversubscribing is a cost multiplier at every level. 1 million 1 Gbit customers in a city is going to need 1000 100Gbit connections out of that city and the same for transit, and that will have no impact on pricing? And everything is on average used at 1% of capacity.

[michaelt]

If my ISP can only afford to supply me with 1TB of transfer at 1Gbit, that's fine. They can put it in the adverts, the contracts, and the pricing. For customers who want 10TB of transfer, they can offer a higher cost option.

And if they choose to gamble, advertising and entering into contracts promising "unlimited data", which they think will be more profitable across their entire customer base? Then they've got to do supply what they promised in the adverts. They chose to gamble that way, and if they lose money gambling that's their business.

[Hikikomori]

You have that on mobile subscriptions usually, heavy users pay more and low usage users are not subsidizing them.

I take you are fine with paying 10x or even more for your no oversubscription Internet connection then?

Oversubscription is not gambling. The way it works after your last mile connection is that ISPs look at link usage in their network, city level distribution, city to city, transit, peering, etc, once it reaches 60-80% utilization at peak you start looking at adding more capacity. Bad ISPs (most US ISPs) will let this go too far though.

[michaelt]

> Oversubscription is not gambling.

Sure it is.

If I promise 30 people they can have a burger at my barbecue, but I only buy 20 burgers, I'm gambling that 20 people or fewer will show up.

It might be a reasonable gamble, based on past barbecues - but the guests left hungry will still be hungry, and I'll have broken my promise to them.

[adriancr]

I have a 10gbps fiber LAN. It was cheap to set up and have it running.

I do not buy your argument.

People buy a certain level of service, they should be able to enjoy it as in the rest of the world.

[sgjohnson]

10gbps transit at the rock bottom rate costs $600/mo.

Please max out the line rate for a month or so straight and then tell me how happy your ISP is with you.

They are banking on the fact that you’re pulling 100mbps at the most, with bursts to 10gbps occasionally.

[mindslight]

> 10gbps transit at the rock bottom rate costs $600/mo.

So then 300Mb/s transit, which is around the services these incumbent dinosaur ISPs are offering, is $20/mo? And $20/mo is only 10-20% of their large monthly bills? You're basically proving the opposing argument here in the general case [0].

For reference, I've asked my 1Gb/s municipal provider if they have bandwidth caps, and they told me "no" and that they are not concerned with how much bandwidth I use.

[0] The specific case is that most users are streaming video from large entertainment providers, for which the ISP isn't even paying transit but rather merely the electricity and rack units of CDN edge boxes.

[Hikikomori]

Let me know when you've built that out to a million customers without any oversubscription.

[adriancr]

ISPs are free to oversubscribe as much as they want.

As long as they also provide people the bandwidth sold to them when they want it.

Otherwise compensation should be in order if they throttle.

[Hikikomori]

The point of oversubscription is maintaining a network that keeps costs low while providing a good service without congestion. They monitor their network (not your last mile connection, everything else) and once links start reaching 60-80% of capacity at peak times you start adding more capacity. Bad ISPs (like most US ISPs) let this go way too far though.

[abduhl]

And does your cheap and easy to set up 10gbps fiber LAN cross under the interstate 10 feet deep?

[adriancr]

The same fiber I have for 10gbps can be used for 400gbps... just by changing sfp modules.

Same logic for interstate. You lay fiber once and scale equipment as needed. If you already have the fiber there then just use better modules.

[BenjiWiebe]

It's oversubscription all the way up, and it works. What doesn't work is when a greedy/lazy ISP tries to increase the oversubscription ratio too far.

[abduhl]

It appears that your ignorance on the topics of infrastructure and the advancement of technology over the past five decades makes having a useful conversation impossible. Not every cable in the ground was installed with today's state of the art technology. Enjoy your apparently unthrottleable internet connection.

[adriancr]

throttling should be an exception, not the norm.

If ISPs sell you a bandwidth per month they should deliver it.

You're the one that's short changed if you accept the throttling.

[dataflow]

Overbooking and oversubscription are inherently very different.

Flying is a one-time service with a specific and fixed point at which the service is provided. Its peak usage is the expected usage.

Internet access is a continuous service promise where it's nonsensical to expect the provider to predict exactly when every customer would want to use it. The peak usage is not the expected usage.

These are not comparable situations.

[adriancr]

They are comparable for expectations.

You pay for a certain level of service, you expect it delivered.

[dataflow]

First: No, they're not. That is an unreasonable expectation divorced from the reality. What exactly do you think would happen if everyone in town switched off and on their AC-powered devices at the same time? What do you think would happen if everyone in town moves to the same street and starts using their cell phone to stream 4K videos at the same time? Do you seriously think it's reasonable to expect every system to deliver at its peak with arbitrary demand and load on it?

Second: If you're going to play the "I paid for this" game: this stuff is generally in the contract anyway. It is the level of service you paid for. The overbooking possibility? You paid for it, it was in your contract. Throttled service? That was in your contract too. You're getting what you paid for.

[adriancr]

> What exactly do you think would happen if everyone in town switched off and on their AC-powered devices at the same time?

Large systems have their own rules.

If everybody watches the superbowl at the same time I'd expect the power grid not to fail.

If everybody gets home at around the same time from work and start powering on devices I'd expect power grid not to fail.

If it suddently gets cold and people turn on heating around same time, I'd expect it not to fail.

Those seem valid expectations and are met.

Therefor when I say if everyone starts streaming netflix it should work, then this is also valid expectation and should be fine.

> It is the level of service you paid for. The overbooking possibility? You paid for it, it was in your contract.

I get what I pay for when I want. I have 1gbps, I can run full speed as much as I want and sometimes it's nice to do that.

I am also in europe. I don't get throttled service and what you say is not in my contract.

What do you say to that?

[dataflow]

You're not addressing the question.

> If everybody watches the superbowl at the same time I'd expect the power grid not to fail.

"I get what I want immediately" to "the system won't fail" is a nice way to shift goalposts. If everyone shows up to their flight then the flight won't crash, it'll depart just fine with the capacity it has and offer everyone else on the next available flight. You know, the same thing that happens when the power grid is turning back on. They do it one piece of the grid at a time. Which results in you getting less than what the person next door paid for. Because that's reality.

> I am also in europe. I don't get throttled service and what you say is not in my contract. What do you say to that?

When there are a ton of people crammed in the same location overloading the network, you get throttled, whether intentionality or not, whether you like it or not. There is no way on Earth that you being in Europe somehow makes you immune to reality.

[adriancr]

> offer everyone else on the next available flight.

Plus compensation which is an admission of fault on airlines.

> There is no way on Earth that you being in Europe somehow makes you immune to reality.

Perhaps you can think of how that might work, i can think of:

- large fiber pipes capable of accomodating spikes

- average out traffic for large systems - have predictable traffic at scale, scale up as needed, power on/off equipment, etc

[abduhl]

From the first google result (although this was 5 years ago): “Europe gave internet service providers the right to throttle online traffic to prevent congestion as network demand spikes amid coronavirus stay-at-home and quarantine orders. Netflix and YouTube have already agreed to switch to standard-definition streaming in Europe to reduce bandwidth demand.”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/coronavir...

[adriancr]

Right does not mean it's used. I would change provider if I were throttled.

> Netflix and YouTube have already agreed to switch to standard-definition streaming in Europe to reduce bandwidth demand.”

You can change quality back to whatever. You can also use other services or use the connection for other things.