OT - surviving pandemic from personal experience (no trolling, PLEASE)

[Asad Ali]

I suspect a lot of ISPs have edge caches for these two networks. In XBox's case don't they use Akamai?

They do use Edge networks but even those have limited capacity and after certain threshold they'll pass the traffic over the network. So you either have to increase the load bearing capacity for these nodes or cap the traffic so they remain within the capacity threshold.

That's exactly why they're capping Netflix/YouTube traffic because their Edge nodes are not sustaining the load and passing traffic over the network.

 

[heysoundude]

ISP's should seriously consider capping PSN/Xbox game downloads and torrent traffic as well including streaming services to free up the load for essential services.

SMH - no. disagree. dislike too, for that matter.
Internet access should be opened, not closed. Everything is essential to someone. This is the type of pipeline everyone needs access to in this century and moving forward; the internet and sharing of knowledge and experiences is the economy of the future. This is probably the best stress test it has ever faced, and it's bearing up pretty damned well.

 

[Asad Ali]

SMH - no. disagree. dislike too, for that matter.
Internet access should be opened, not closed. Everything is essential to someone. This is the type of pipeline everyone needs access to in this century and moving forward; the internet and sharing of knowledge and experiences is the economy of the future. This is probably the best stress test it has ever faced, and it's bearing up pretty damned well.

Downloading games or watching a movie/show is not equal to someone in a hospital who needs to use the internet to collaborate with other doctors in the world or someone in the house to do the banking transactions or pharmacies to do their tasks properly, or researchers to collaborate and share their findings with others all over the world or teachers who wants to use it to teach their students or employees to do their work from home and the list goes on. Right now we're not in a normal phase of the world where we can apply black and white rules to everything, we need to make some priorities and compromises to tackle the situation gracefully but in the end everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.

 

[heysoundude]

That’s exactly what I suggested - making everything grey. Everything is as important as everything else. Opening it up so that nothing needs priority. You, on the other hand, want gatekeeping and fast lanes and THAT leads to control and haves/have nots. Maybe a researcher needs their kids to be distracted by a movie or gaming so they can focus on what they’re doing for a few hours, maybe that ICU nurse needs to watch a little porn to unwind or for some perspective on what they see at work.
The infrastructure is obviously 50% or more undersized. Globally, it seems.
Your reaction...I can’t share it. I respect it, encourage opposing points of view to be discussed especially in times like these, but I disagree sir.
DM me if you’d like - I’ve been warned about posting too much of MY observations opinions and truth by mods, and I think even this reply may be pushing their limits.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[dosborne]

My ISP increased their capacity by 20% in recent weeks, expecting a usage spike. They also temporarily removed any monthly quota from their packages (quite a few still had a 400 GB limit).

One of my ISPs, not going to mention which one to shame them just yet, INCREASED the monthly rate by $5, effective May 01. They are "suspending" overage charges though for those with limits.

 

[Asad Ali]

That’s exactly what I suggested - making everything grey. Everything is as important as everything else. Opening it up so that nothing needs priority. You, on the other hand, want gatekeeping and fast lanes and THAT leads to control and haves/have nots. Maybe a researcher needs their kids to be distracted by a movie or gaming so they can focus on what they’re doing for a few hours, maybe that ICU nurse needs to watch a little porn to unwind or for some perspective on what they see at work.
The infrastructure is obviously 50% or more undersized. Globally, it seems.
Your reaction...I can’t share it. I respect it, encourage opposing points of view to be discussed especially in times like these, but I disagree sir.
DM me if you’d like - I’ve been warned about posting too much of MY observations opinions and truth by mods, and I think even this reply may be pushing their limits.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As I said in the last line of my reply, everyone is entitled to his own opinions but at least I'm happy that those who have the power to make things right are already doing the right thing, that's exactly why we're seeing Youtube/Netflix lowering thier default bit rates to lessen the load and stop choking the whole system.

 

[RMerlin]

Internet access should be opened, not closed. Everything is essential to someone.

Some things are more essentials that others. Having 911 calls properly dispatched is more important than the 1-800 psychic hotline right now., for example. Slowing down a Steam download by 20% will not prevent someone from downloading and installing a new game, and it might just allow that critical video conference between medical researchers to work properly. Limiting your movie to 1080P instead of 4K will not prevent you from watching it, but it might allow your neighbour to be able to do a voice chat with his 75 years old parent who lives alone, and is on the verge of a panic attack.

Same reason why people are allowed to go do their groceries, but are asked to stay home and to avoid going at the movies. Right now, we have to prioritize certain things above others, as it can save lives. This is temporary, everyone has to do his share.

It's called resource management.

 

[dave14305]

Some things are more essentials that others. Having 911 calls properly dispatched is more important than the 1-800 psychic hotline right now., for example. Slowing down a Steam download by 20% will not prevent someone from downloading and installing a new game, and it might just allow that critical video conference between medical researchers to work properly. Limiting your movie to 1080P instead of 4K will not prevent you from watching it, but it might allow your neighbour to be able to do a voice chat with his 75 years old parent who lives alone, and is on the verge of a panic attack.

Same reason why people are allowed to go do their groceries, but are asked to stay home and to avoid going at the movies. Right now, we have to prioritize certain things above others, as it can save lives. This is temporary, everyone has to do his share.

It's called resource management.

But all the better when it's a voluntary choice to throttle or limit by either the service provider or customer, and not a blind policy by an invisible third-party like the ISP.

 

[Asad Ali]

But all the better when it's a voluntary choice to throttle or limit by either the service provider or customer, and not a blind policy by an invisible third-party like the ISP.

ISP's are the backbone of internet infrastructure and they know the exact real-time situation of how much network load they can handle without sabotaging the system so only they can decide what's good for everyone, a customer doesn't have the necessary data for that. Furthermore, unfortunately in the world we live in there's no such thing as voluntary throttling and we have the facts to back that, just look at the graphs of streaming services and gaming downloads since the world lockdown started, they are at an all-time high level, so high that they had to enforce limits to keep the pipeline free for essentials. Most people who use such services don't even know that this can impact overall global network infrastructure else they might start capping their use.

So if we just count on customers to start doing that voluntarily it'll not work because 98% won't follow it and that 2% who will they can't make much of an impact.

 

[Val D.]

They also had to increase all packages by 5$

INCREASED the monthly rate by $5

I believe we all use the same ISP, but I would rather pay them than others. No issues for me here with the price increase, I'm supporting those guys for like 8 years already. Even if they have network overload troubles during COVID-19 times, I'm OK with that. Even half of the speed I pay for is good enough for what my family uses Internet for.

 

[RMerlin]

But all the better when it's a voluntary choice to throttle or limit by either the service provider or customer, and not a blind policy by an invisible third-party like the ISP.

I agree. That way, nobody can accuse them of having ulterior motives. An ISP throttling video streaming could be accused of trying to promote their own cable/IPTV service. But when Youtube and Netflix themselves decide to reduce throughput, then it's obvious the motivation is to help everyone regarding the current congestion, and not to deliberately degrade their own product.

I believe we all use the same ISP, but I would rather pay them than others. No issues for me here with the price increase, I'm supporting those guys for like 8 years already. Even if they have network overload troubles during COVID-19 times, I'm OK with that. Even half of the speed I pay for is good enough for what my family uses Internet for.

The CRTC and the incumbents screwed them up (plus, they were far too quick in dropping prices after the CRTC decision, and the appeal is forcing them to come back on these price drops).

I don't see any congestion issue so far (aside from a very minor one I recently noticed as I happened to be doing a speedtest at that time for a completely unrelated reason), but then I'm on vCable. They tend to be quite aggressive with node splits when compared to, for example, rCable.

 

[Val D.]

The CRTC and the incumbents screwed them up

Yes, I know the story. In my area they had some congestion issues after last summer promotions, but things improved as they promised. Again, I'm happy with the service and have no intentions to complain even if I see some struggles in next few months. If the Internet slows down, this is a good indication of more and more people staying home. And this is what we need now to slow the COVID-19 spread.

 

[dosborne]

I guess the timing was not the best. With many companies reducing prices and waving fees to help people out during the COVID-19 crisis, seeing an increase was surprising. For me, it is just a low speed (25mbps) DSL backup for my cable ISP (1gbps) so the increase in price, although minor, makes me reconsider if I really need the backup capability. I've been with them for years, and added the cable service about 6mths ago when it became available in my area. My domain registrar also sold out and transfered my domain to a different company, so I need to figure that situation out too.

Anyhow, back on topic, I hope everyone is following the directives where you live and staying safe!

 

[OzarkEdge]

Anyhow, back on topic, I hope everyone is following the directives where you live and staying safe!

We've stayed home and away from others for 3 weeks. Went out for food once. Going out again next week... will wear N95 masks (had 'em already for dusty work) and gloves and will stage the cleaning of items before bringing them into the house, cold stuff first. Same for deliveries. No visitors inside. Glad I got a yard and a few nice places to go hiking. I expect this to continue into June. Retired with cash in the bank and bills being paid. Very lucky so far but that doesn't extend very far and could change overnight for anyone.

Should wear eye protection when out for food but not that desperate yet.

OE

 

[OzarkEdge]

There is foreshadowing in that story for all of us.

OE

The foreshadowing is that the pandemic and the consequences will not go away for anyone until there is a vaccine... it will never go away for the anti-vaxxers.

OE

 

[plun]

Thank you for a thread without trolling, my english is terrible but I want to share this story from a swedish newspaper.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/...-and-fines-would-have-little-effect-in-sweden

Sweden is not closed down and I work myself and can also do it from home (thanks for VPN)

In Sweden the goverment and epidemiologists believes more in understanding and then to be a responsible citizen. But for the moment we have problem with elderly and hospital fills up with sick people.

 

[Val D.]

Thank you for a thread without trolling, my english is terrible but I want to share this story from a swedish newspaper.

I did some research why recommendations only seem to work in Sweden and some of the data I found is actually not something to be proud of. Sweden is a country with very high % of single person households, the highest in the World perhaps. Looks like Swedish people are practicing social distancing long before the coronavirus. Swedish healthcare system is not really testing much for COVID-19 and there are already 6000+ cases registered. That means thousands more just walk around spreading the virus. Let's see how effective this model is in a month from now. I'm not very optimistic about the outcome, honestly.

 

[OzarkEdge]

I don't think Covid-19 cares how clever you are (Sweden). The greater the density of hosts, the faster it will spread and infect. It is significantly more contagious and more deadly than the Flu. And it can easily overwhelm health care's ability to save you, unless the numbers are kept low enough to manage with the available resources. It has been amply demonstrated that it is difficult to keep the numbers low enough without severe action, and that the available resources (beds, PPE, medical personnel) are in short supply due to inadequate preparation and coordination, except for in a few forward thinking countries like South Korea and Taiwan.

OE

 

[plun]

Swedish healthcare system is not really testing much for COVID-19 and there are already 6000+ cases registered. That means thousands more just walk around spreading the virus. Let's see how effective this model is in a month from now. I'm not very optimistic about the outcome, honestly.

Well, our experts believes it's no meaning with mass-tests when you are within the pandemi.

It's better to test special groups as health-care personal, elderly and of course sick people.
A mass-test gives you just a "snapshot" and the day after a person can be infected.

Most important is to test people for antibodies, especially healthcare personel. ( alot of work is being done for antibodie tests)

Let's see how it goes, for the moment it looks rather dark but the world have no vaccin and therefore it will end will a lot of dead people (mostly elderly).

 

[plun]

Another question... Sweden is the country which every year gives the Nobel prize

In Sweden there has been discussions about pharmaceutical company's and patents.

It was rather strange or a coincidence during the latest Ebola epidemic that a anti viral drug suddenly was founded.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidk...pharma-the-army-and-big-tobacco/#56f6e6a7358e


What do you guys believe? Can the world co-operate or is patent and money more important?