Servers on @Home: Policy Is Unjust

[66GT]

Well, since my previous thread was nixed, i just want to say that there is no harm in posting thse techniques, and can actually help @home by letting them know were they need to beef up security and implement better ways to catch people.

This is something i DONT get however... maybe someone could enlighten me.

User A.) Leeches all day all night using 100% of their bandwidth from FTP and Hotline servers, maxing out his connection, and @home says nothing.
User B.) Cant run a web server, cant run an email server
* would he tax the bandwidth any more than User A ? NO
especially since they have a strict upload cap in place...

Senseless policy's

[Bouncer]

1) If your stated goal was to help @home then you should contact @home.

2) @home pays more for outgoing bandwidth than incoming. Every ISP does. If you want to be able to run a server, buy an @work account. The increased cost of the account is partly because of the increased cost for outbound bandwidth.

You are trying to use a recreational service in a semi-business or business like way. You are increasing costs to the provider because of the type of usage you are engaging in. Since they'd like to stay in business they cannot permit everyone to do so. If they permit some but not others to do so they run into a legal issue since they could face lawsuits for defrauding those who cannot run servers. Right or wrong. Which would cost even more money.

They're not out to stifle you. They're out to make money. If you run services that interfere with that then expect them to react.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

[subzero]

your also hogging bandwith

[66GT]

*zoom*

Well, looks like you both missed the question.
User A vs User B
User A is using upload and download bandwidth 100%
Bandwidth is bandwidth rite?
user B may or may not be using all of his alloted bandwidth, yet it is not alowed??? come one, thats just not rite.

[Kip Patterson]

You missed the point.

The ISP owns the business and they set the rules. If you don't like it, go elsewhere.

If you run an open mail server that gets used for spamming or an unprotected web server that gets attacked and used for DOS or other nefarious business, it is the ISP's problem to deal with.

Give it a rest. Your agenda is not the agenda of many of us that use and support this forum.

For me, the english language is god, mother, and country. Instead of spending your time here, maybe you should be using some of it to learn the language. It doesn't do your arguments and objectives any good when they are expressed in poor grammar and awful spelling.

Kip Patterson

[joepassavanti]

@home would make it easier for everyone if they would establish limits (and make their customer base aware) on the amount of data can be sent upstream and on the amount of data that can be brought downstream in a given period of time. this way, it does not distinguish nor favor someone who can upload entire cd's to other computers (technically within the aup) vs someone who runs a small website that gets very little traffic and does not consume much bandwidth(technically violating the aup). that would define how much bandwidth you are entitled to in each direction, and then it would not be such an issue as to how you choose to use it. of course, this is my opinion.

by the way, these limits already exist, but you will not hear about them until you violate them.

[BoOmEr2120]

I fully agree. I think that @home should set a limit on the amount of bandwidth used in any particular time frame, and I think that the user should be allowed to do anything with that bandwidth.

[Kip Patterson]

Absolutely! One of the best way to get in trouble with any kind of business is to set your margins such that you make money on a small part of what you sell and break even or lose on the rest. Someone can come along and offer your high-margin items at a lower margin and kill you. This is a greatly oversimplified version of what happened to Ma Bell. Sprint sold better and cheaper long distance, leaving Bell with the underpriced local service.

The cable industry needs to make sure they don't do this. It's a lot more important here because the market is continually changing. If they don't restrict (or charge per byte) for the bandwidth used, they will be in trouble.

They still need a solution to the open servers and hackers, however.

Kip

[66GT]

Those two seemed to get the just of it fairly easy :)
Also: an AUP or TOS isnt going to stop hackers at all, obviously it is an injustice to most users, and they need to rethink their strategy :)
Thanks for all your insight Kip

[CompGeek83]

ok, i can handle upload caps, and i can put up with download caps, but a transfer limit, if im paying for a 384k connection, which i am, how can u justify that? its like saying u can drive on the interstate at a maximum of 70 mph and a minimum or 50 mph (this is the case on some interstates) but you can only drive 60 miles in an hour, when the speedlimit will get you 70 miles per hour!

[joepassavanti]

to continue with your analogy, transfer limits do not keep you at 60mph, they would instead say that you could only travel 1500 miles in a weeks (at which ever speed your connection will allow). that way, if you want to use your miles for business or pleaseure, it does not matter. they would be your miles to use however you wish.

[CompGeek83]

uhhh... joe i think you took the wrong exit ramp from my analogy

[tomsykes]

Originally posted by BoOmEr2120
I fully agree. I think that @home should set a limit on the amount of bandwidth used in any particular time frame, and I think that the user should be allowed to do anything with that bandwidth.


Excellent business decision for ISP's. Only problem is, the small minority of users who 'hog' the service cause uproar. Take the following example: Here in Australia, the dominant broadband provider, Telstra, has limited users to 3GB of traffic per month. Now, for 90% of users, this wont make a difference - as the average user consumes no where near 3 Gigabytes per month. However, for the heavier users, this will cause problems. High prices charges by US transit providers (read, Verizon, UUnet) prevent truly 'unlimited' offerings here. Previously it was 'unlimited' , but costing Telstra an absolute fortune in data from the USA.

As for users running servers - Kip is correct here. If you have open mail relays / denial of service attacks, it just creates administrative nightmares for ISP's when they have to deal with it.

You've signed a contract for a residential service - use it like one....

[YARDofSTUF]

@home should cut their webspace and use the money going into that crap to raise the upload cap IMO

they're now gonna charge 45 bucks a month for this service, i should either be allowed to run a game or light ftp server or have a higher upload cap, say 512bps.

[martialcomp]

I am with Bouncer on this one. @Home is just that, it is not @Server, @Business, @Work, etc. Further, upstream costs the ISP significantly more than downstream. This has been discussed here before. First, a Docsis node only has 2 megabits of upstream per node. High upstream slows down the downstream. Also, it only takes a few people uncapped sending at high speeds to choke out everyone elses acks and slow down the downstream for everyone else on the node. Second, a heavy upstream user could easily COST the ISP $80-100 dollars a month just to keep online. Meanwhile the heavy user is only paying approximately $40.00 a month. People need to read their phone bills to realize what upstream costs. Typical residential broadband connections are asymetrical, meaning the capacity going to the customer is much higher than the capacity coming from the customer. The national average for a T-1 symetrical internet connection is $795.00 a month yet people still insist on attempting to use residential broadband connections (SBC DSL, Road Runner, @Home, etc) like T-1's. They are NOT T-1's. In the coming years, we might see FTTP (fiber to the home) more and more. In 5-10 years, we may even see low cost symetrical broadband residential connections. But, for now, they do not exist. I personally use very little upstream.

Compgeek questioned why he could not use his 384k upstream constantly, the answer is simple addition. Per hour he would be sending around 86.4 megabytes of data. In 24 hours, he could probably send around 2 gigabytes. This would equal about 60 gibabytes a month. It would cost Time Warner a lot more than what Compgeek is paying a month to send the data. Probably at least 2 1/2 times what he is paying for his connection, maybe more. As you can see, that does not make good business sense.

[CompGeek83]

your right, it wouldn't make too much sense, however, if im paying for the 384k and i want to use it to continuously download information at 40KB its my right to do so, and the only thing that can tell me not to is the origional contract I signed, which didnt seem to mention any restrictions other than the 384 download cap, thats plenty for me, i dont plan on running a server (although i sometimes run SimpleServer from AnalogX when I have a file a friend wants from me, but thats only for a few minutes, not continuously for a full month.)

[Bouncer]

Your "right"?

Under what law, pray tell, does this "right" exist?

I'm not trying to dump on you, but what people need to understand is that there are basically two types of agreements in the industry.

You either have a signed contract, or you have a service agreement. There is a difference. A contract will have a fixed term (usually one year) at a fixed rate, and you are usually liable for the entire ampount of the contract (or remaining portion) upon early termination. This is usually how dsl is sold.

Cable, is usually sold as a service agreement. There is NO contractual obligation other than to pay for service you use and any equipment you may be renting. It is an "at will" agreement, which means you OR THE CABLE COMPANY/ISP may terminate the agreement AT ANY TIME.

My point is this. If you go to @home and try to assert your "rights", they're going to get up, what into the back room and have a good laugh. Then they will come out and politely tell you that you only have one "right".

You can always terminate the service.

That's your "right".

Of course you can only excercise it once.

I encourage you to go find your agreement and read it carefully. There are few if any guarantees as to performance etc.

Again, not to dump on you (or others), but you're buying a RESIDENTIAL, RECREATIONAL USE service. It's simply not in the same class as a business service. Trying to use it as one won't work. Trying to behave as if you had one won't work either.

As always, none of the above constitutes legal advice, nor do all systems everywhere follow the same pattern. Most do though. If in doubt re-read your service agreement or contract.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

[YARDofSTUF]

Bouncer, i agree with u but feel teh way others do, but either way, running a CS or UT or any other game server isnt a job and is CERTAINLY a RESIDENTIOAL and RECREATIONAL thing to do, yet as an @home user i cant run one, well i can for a "short amount of time" lol

[CompGeek83]

coming soon to a computer near you YARDOFSTUF's UT server. just dont tell @home or they'll shut it down for taking away precious bandwidth from the pirate down the street downloading warez left and right

[cyberskye]

I think the isp's see how easy it would be for someone to charge for hosting game or other servers. I think the policies stem from their desire to be the only ones profiting from their bandwidth. The best way to prevent commerce is to eliminate servers. I have @home and SDSL from Covad. I use the SDSL line to telecommute and it allows me to host servers.

Costs my company $299/month for 386/384 with a guarantee, hw vpn router, and 6 static ips. Cable is $40/month with 1800-2400 down and 128 up.

If you download, get cable. If you host servers and want reliable speeds get business DSL. If you can get ADSL, then someone in your area will most likely sell you SDSL, though not necessarily.


Have fun,

Skye

[subzero]

@home raised our nodes cap to 256kbps becuase not many people upload:sleep:

[YARDofSTUF]

yeah i recently got that cap raise to sub, but i use to have 128KB cap which was much nicer!!

[TRILL]

Originally posted by Kip Patterson
You missed the point.

The ISP owns the business and they set the rules. If you don't like it, go elsewhere.

If you run an open mail server that gets used for spamming or an unprotected web server that gets attacked and used for DOS or other nefarious business, it is the ISP's problem to deal with.

Give it a rest. Your agenda is not the agenda of many of us that use and support this forum.

For me, the english language is god, mother, and country. Instead of spending your time here, maybe you should be using some of it to learn the language. It doesn't do your arguments and objectives any good when they are expressed in poor grammar and awful spelling.

Kip Patterson

Just because you and some others don't agree with something doesn't mean it can't be discussed. Furthermore, the last paragraph of your reply was somewhat rude.

[HalfLifer]

First of all, "nodes" dont change your QoS. Its all in the database. Your local cable company probably did it.