the "net neutrality" FCC Court decision thread, I have no idea about this stuff

[RevDisk]

"Packet discrimination"

 

Let the market decide, not the government.  If a some providers want to optimize their service by denying problematic types of traffic, and if customers want to use those sorts of networks, then so be it.  If other providers want to offer unlimited and unrestricted access to all types of traffic, and if some customers want to use those sorts of network instead, then so be it.

There's no reason for the government to step in and interfere in either case.

The common carrier thing is a red herring.  Knowing the type of traffic does not mean a carrier knows the content of that traffic.  For instance, Comcast can tell when they're transmitting P2P traffic without knowing whether the content of that P2P is legal content vs kiddie porn vs copyrighted material.

Deep packet inspection, yes.  Which means they must examine the payload on the packet to determine its function.  That is well beyond the information necessary to route the packet.  It is the difference between a phone number and listening to your conversation.  That is already illegal. 

Unfortunately, public utilities are one area where there is little competition.  You don't have much of a choice in who provides the electricity off the grid.  It is not realistic to lay down multiple lines (be it water, electricity or telcom).   Additionally, said public utilities are also granted enormous government assistance in both direct (free use of land) and indirect (immunity from competition and anti-trust laws) terms.  They are granted these heavy advantages with the understanding that they must follow certain rules.  For instance, they can't change your rate to $500 per kilowatt hour or gallon overnight.  But they are essentially guaranteed customers and guaranteed a healthy profit.

Unless you are in an urban area, you likely only have one telecom.  If you open up the phone book, you might find plenty of DSL or dialup ISP's.  Guess what, they are likely leased off that one said telecom.  Again, that telecom is also receiving huge direct and indirect federal subsidies.  Land, loans, grants, legal immunity, etc.

As a network geek, I assure you that common carrier status is not a red herring, for the reasons I outlined previously.

[GigaBuist]

Or if the provider attempted to reconstruct multiple packets worth of data into the full, original content, then view/read/analyze that content, that'd be a problem.  

That's pretty much what Comcast was doing with BitTorrent traffic and then injecting false information into the stream to shut it down.  Just dropping the packets would have kept the clients looking for a working communication stream.  I could be wrong on this.  Perhaps somebody very familiar with the case and the protocol will weigh in.

Anything beyond simple port filtering is going to require them to start looking at the actual data in each packet or reconstruct the stream in an attempt to figure out what the user is really transmitting.  You can run a full VPN solution over HTTPS these days.  The more they try and shut down P2P clients the more sophisticated they will get and the cat and mouse game has gone on long enough now they HAVE to look at content to figure it out.  And if that last statement of mine isn't technically correct it will be if they keep pushing.

[mtnbkr]

Unless you are in an urban area, you likely only have one telecom.  If you open up the phone book, you might find plenty of DSL or dialup ISP's.  Guess what, they are likely leased off that one said telecom. 

Psst.  I said that already.

I used to work in a provider network as an engineer.  This is bad.  On that one project, if the upstream provider decided to start diddling with traffic (throttling based on content or destination for example), it would cost us six to seven figures to change providers (we needed at least two for disaster recovery purposes) and would result in service interruptions for our downstream users (large organizations, not individuals).

Chris

[mtnbkr]

Anything beyond simple port filtering is going to require them to start looking at the actual data in each packet or reconstruct the stream in an attempt to figure out what the user is really transmitting.  You can run a full VPN solution over HTTPS these days.  The more they try and shut down P2P clients the more sophisticated they will get and the cat and mouse game has gone on long enough now they HAVE to look at content to figure it out.  And if that last statement of mine isn't technically correct it will be if they keep pushing.

If it gets to that point, they'll just start blocking encrypted traffic.  Since they wouldn't be able to tell whether or not it was legit, they would have to block it all or block it randomly.  Ask me how I know that...

Chris

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

This is why most (all maybe?) providers have a tiered structure.  They don't get to choose how their customers use the bandwidth they are paying for.  I pay Verizon $40ish a month for 20mb/5mb (down/up).  That's all the control they have over my content.  If they can't afford to let me use the full pipe I'm paying for, then they should either not sell me that size pipe or raise the price beyond my willingness to pay.  Claiming some types of traffic or some destinations are worse than others is nonsense.

Chris

Meh.  If the plan you're buying is based on a straight "total bandwidth" concept, then for your purposes it would indeed be nonsense.

That's no reason for other plan concepts to be forced out of the marketplace.  Consumers are not all exactly like you, and there's no reason providers shouldn't be able to tailor plans to others.

For instance, my mother would benefit considerably from a "no P2P allowed" type of plan.  She has no idea what P2P is, doesn't use it, and doesn't want it.  Verizon should be free to offer a plan to that provides an optimized, limited functionality no-P2P network that would be faster and/or cheaper for her purposes.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

How, precisely, are the providers determining which traffic is P2P vs which traffic is not?

Is Bit Torrent traffic encrypted or otherwise concealed?  Bit Torrent traffic is based on IP packets, no?  Basic header and payload?

If the payload is in the clear, and includes obvious Bit Torrent content, then I have real problem with ISPs limiting that traffic.  (So long as they aren't lying to their customers about doing so.)

I still maintain that it's possible for providers to ID data as being P2P without knowing the content.  As such, filtering based on protocol (not content) should not be a factor in determining common carrier status. 

Conceptually, you can be a common carrier without being equipped to handle every conceivable type of traffic.  The US Post Office cannot deliver a 2,000 pound package.  They aren't equipped for that sort of thing.  Does that make them any less of a common carrier for the ordinary letters which they are equipped to carry?

[mtnbkr]

Meh.  If the plan you're buying is based on a straight "total bandwidth" concept, then for your purposes it would indeed be nonsense.

That's no reason for other plan concepts to be forced out of the marketplace.  Consumers are not all exactly like you, and there's no reason providers shouldn't be able to tailor plans to others.

For instance, my mother would benefit considerably from a "no P2P allowed" type of plan.  She has no idea what P2P is, doesn't use it, and doesn't want it.  Verizon should be free to offer a plan to that provides an optimized, limited functionality no-P2P network that would be faster and/or cheaper for her purposes.

They're not asking to create "non-P2P" plans.  They're claiming the right to control traffic within existing price structures/contracts.

How, precisely, are the providers determining which traffic is P2P vs which traffic is not?

Really?  Is this a serious question?  We see P2P traffic all the time.  For the record, I work for a network security monitoring company.  We take feeds from customers' IDS/IPS, Firewalls, and other devices, apply correlation, and a bunch of other stuff you also probably don't know about to find patterns, attacks, etc.  P2P is VERY easy to detect without decrypting or otherwise looking deep into a packet.

Chris

[GigaBuist]

Bad analogy.  You don't fully own the land the utility poles live in.  You'd have no more right to chop one of those down than you'd have right to bulldoze your neighbor's house.

You are correct.  It was a horrible analogy and RevDisk explained it much better than I.

Still, point is we granted these companies special privileges to put their lines up.  Until a 3-4 years ago it was well understood that they were common carriers and now they're trying to buck the system, but only kinda, and RevDisk has pointed out their games.

They absolutely do NOT want to lose that common carrier status.  Kiddie porn arguments aside they know that people commit copyright infringement all the time using their internet connections.  It might not be blatant P2P sharing of movies or albums for everybody.  Simply emailing a copyrighted image, or a single song, to a friend is something they know we do but they don't want to be held accountable for it.

In other recent news the MPAA is going to slam 30,000 people with copyright lawsuits.  They're taking the same approach the RIAA did a while back even though that back fired on them when it came to light that 80 year old women that didn't even know you could download music off the internet were in court.  It's expensive to try this approach because ISPs charge about $60 just to track down what user had what IP at what time.  They could easily automate it, I'm quite sure, but they don't to keep the barrier somewhat high and prevent massive lawsuits like this.  It scares their customers when they find out it's happening.

So, they're OK with us sharing copyrighted works, but only kinda sorta.  They want to stop it sometimes but for the most part they don't care.  They can't have it both ways.

[mtnbkr]

Conceptually, you can be a common carrier without being equipped to handle every conceivable type of traffic.  The US Post Office cannot deliver a 2,000 pound package.  They aren't equipped for that sort of thing.  Does that make them any less of a common carrier for the ordinary letters which they are equipped to carry?

To use your phrase, false analogy.  Packets are packets.  There isn't an IP equivalent to the 2k lb package (there is actually, but networking devices handle that by design, it isn't a policy issue).  It's a volume issue and even that's a poor analogy.  The ISPs in question don't care if I download many gigabytes in html content, but are uptight if I download the same via P2P?  It shouldn't matter, the bandwidth used is the same.

Chris

[GigaBuist]

Meh.  If the plan you're buying is based on a straight "total bandwidth" concept, then for your purposes it would indeed be nonsense.

That's no reason for other plan concepts to be forced out of the marketplace.  Consumers are not all exactly like you, and there's no reason providers shouldn't be able to tailor plans to others.

They don't want to offer other plans as it'll confuse the common consumer.  You can't market an "unlimited 10Mbit down/1Mbit up" plan and then turn around and tell people you didn't really mean it and you can't market it as unlimited HTTP, SMTP, etc. traffic because then the P2P gang will just push their stuff over those protocols.

What they should do is just cap the amount you can transfer at the advertised rate and then drop you back when you hit that monthly limit.  And set windows where the bandwidth doesn't count against you. The big users would understand that, but the dad that lets his kids stream NetFlix stuff all weekend over the Xbox isn't going to get it and he'll be PISSED when his connection goes to crap even though he was engaging in perfectly legal activities.

They're just not being honest with consumers about what they can deliver to them, really, and it's only the last-mile providers.  The big guys aren't messing with this nonsense.  You got data to move?  They move it and at the rate the contract states.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

To use your phrase, false analogy.  Packets are packets.  There isn't an IP equivalent to the 2k lb package (there is actually, but networking devices handle that by design, it isn't a policy issue).  It's a volume issue and even that's a poor analogy.  The ISPs in question don't care if I download many gigabytes in html content, but are uptight if I download the same via P2P?  It shouldn't matter, the bandwidth used is the same.

Chris

You're right, it is a volume issue.  The providers built networks (and entire businesses) around the kinds of volume that existed prior to P2P.  Along came P2P, engulfing their capacity.  I've read (dont' have a cite) that Bit Torrent now accounts for a third of all internet traffic.  BT didn't exist just a few years ago.  ISPs didn't plan for BT, didn't build up their infrastructures for this sudden onslaught of new traffic.  I don't see why ISPs should be prohibited from restricting these new protocols that they aren't equipped for, if they and their customers can agree on it.  

ISPs are trying to adapt to the new and unforeseen circumstances, trying to find ways to provide their traditional services in the ways their customers want.  This is the market at work, and it's a good thing.  If some customers want high-bandwidth P2P traffic, and a given provider can figure out how to deliver it to them, then they'll earn a competitive advantage and thrive.

The post office analogy is a good one.  They've built infrastructure to handle delivering letters and small packages.  But if people suddenly start demanding to ship one ton objects the same way they've always shipped letters, it becomes a problem for the carrier.  They aren't set up for that.  They'd be happy up to deliver one ton of letters and small packages for you, but they can't do the new heavy packages that suddenly became all the rage.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

They don't want to offer other plans as it'll confuse the common consumer.  You can't market an "unlimited 10Mbit down/1Mbit up" plan and then turn around and tell people you didn't really mean it and you can't market it as unlimited HTTP, SMTP, etc. traffic because then the P2P gang will just push their stuff over those protocols.

What they should do is just cap the amount you can transfer at the advertised rate and then drop you back when you hit that monthly limit.  And set windows where the bandwidth doesn't count against you. The big users would understand that, but the dad that lets his kids stream NetFlix stuff all weekend over the Xbox isn't going to get it and he'll be PISSED when his connection goes to crap even though he was engaging in perfectly legal activities.

They're just not being honest with consumers about what they can deliver to them, really, and it's only the last-mile providers.  The big guys aren't messing with this nonsense.  You got data to move?  They move it and at the rate the contract states.

Ah.  I see.  Some customers are stupid.  Therefore government should force all customers into "stupid-people-safe" plans, whether you're stupid or not, whther you want that kind of plan or not.

Wait, how does that go again?

[GigaBuist]

Ah.  I see.  Some customers are stupid.  Therefore government should force all customers into "stupid-people-safe" plans, whether you're stupid or not.

Wait, how does that go again?

You're really not getting what I'm saying but that's probably my fault.  I've been playing with this issue for about 15 years so I might skip over the basic stuff sometimes.

Here's the crux of the problem:  Your cable or DSL provider cannot deliver on what they sold you.  Period.  Game over.  End of match.  They lied to you.

It's a concept rather foreign to us folks that have shoved Cisco gear into racks, wired up to Tier 1 ISPs, and watched data flow through for years on end at the advertised rate.  We've played with the guys that consider themselves "common carriers" for years and would fight tooth and nail to keep that status.  Now, I'm not a network geek like RevDisk is, but I've got some experience in that arena.

I laughed my behind off at my liberal buddy that brought this whole "net neutrality" thing up to me years ago.  He thought it not being the rule of law was the end of the world because to him Time Warner was like, top dog in the Internet business.  They're not.  The company that home consumer of internet data pays their bill to is small taters in the grand scheme of things.  They're scratching away at the public for a few coins to make a profit.  I'm a firm believer that if the last-mile providers push this crap too far a free market alternative will arise in every locale.  Wireless ISPs are the easiest to put up, and I've actually help build one, so a crack-down that actually pushed common consumer away from cable and DSL outfits would probably benefit me greatly.

But I don't like the games they're playing.  One day they're a common carrier and the next they're not.

And it all boils down to how they have to market their plans.  They don't want to take my simple approach to capping bandwidth usage at peak times because common folk wouldn't get that.  Likewise they don't want to advertise that you can actually get 3Mbit downstream because that's what they can guarantee because 95% of the time they are sure you can get 10Mbit down.  So they put 10Mbit in the ads.

They're selling on big numbers that they can't deliver on and when they hit their capacity they start pulling stunts you can't do as a common carrier.  That's wrong.  It's fraud.  They have to pick one or the other.  Either sell what you can deliver or stop being considered a common carrier.

[mtnbkr]

You're right, it is a volume issue.  The providers built networks (and entire businesses) around the kinds of volume that existed prior to P2P.  Along came P2P, engulfing their capacity.  I've read (dont' have a cite) that Bit Torrent now accounts for a third of all internet traffic.  BT didn't exist just a few years ago.  ISPs didn't plan for BT, didn't build up their infrastructures for this sudden onslaught of new traffic.  I don't see why ISPs should be prohibited from restricting these new protocols that they aren't equipped for, if they and their customers can agree on it. 

Providers didn't plan for the graphical web either, but they didn't try to throttle http requests when they became the norm.  If this is strictly a volume issue, charge for the volume.  ISPs already have mechanisms in place to bill on a bandwidth basis.  Companies buy this sort of service ALL OF THE TIME.  You can buy a Fractional T-1 for 256kb for $20/month and get charged X% when you burst above that (dated example, but it works).  They're blocking the traffic, which can have legitimate purposes and exist at lower levels for a given customer. 

ISPs are trying to adapt to the new and unforeseen circumstances, trying to find ways to provide their traditional services in the ways their customers want.  This is the market at work, and it's a good thing.  If some customers want high-bandwidth P2P traffic, and a given provider can figure out how to deliver it to them, then they'll earn a competitive advantage and thrive.

Actually, the P2P is a red herring, the larger issue is that a provider can use this ability to block sites, companies, or other entities it doesn't like.  Kind of like China...

Switching providers isn't always an option, especially if this is discovered after the contract is signed (assuming there are alternatives to begin with).  When I worked with that provider organization I mentioned earlier, we switched one of our two OC-3s from one provider to another when that provider's contract was up for renewal.  It took us months to affect the switch. 

The post office analogy is a good one.  They've built infrastructure to handle delivering letters and small packages.  But if people suddenly start demanding to ship one ton objects the same way they've always shipped letters, it becomes a problem for the carrier.  They aren't set up for that.  They'd be happy up to deliver one ton of letters and small packages for you, but they can't do the new heavy packages that suddenly became all the rage.

No, actually, it isn't a good analogy.  Continuing to use it illustrates your lack of operational knowledge into this industry.

The PO is more than happy to deliver thousands of letters from you to ABC and XYZ corporations as long as you pay the price.  They will not block your letters to XYZ corporation because they are complaint letters or postcards instead of letters.  That is the issue.  If this were really about volume, they would just charge based on volume.  They have the capability and the legal right to do so.

Chris

[RevDisk]

You're right, it is a volume issue.  The providers built networks (and entire businesses) around the kinds of volume that existed prior to P2P.  Along came P2P, engulfing their capacity.  I've read (dont' have a cite) that Bit Torrent now accounts for a third of all internet traffic.  BT didn't exist just a few years ago.  ISPs didn't plan for BT, didn't build up their infrastructures for this sudden onslaught of new traffic.  I don't see why ISPs should be prohibited from restricting these new protocols that they aren't equipped for, if they and their customers can agree on it.  

ISPs are trying to adapt to the new and unforeseen circumstances, trying to find ways to provide their traditional services in the ways their customers want.  This is the market at work, and it's a good thing.  If some customers want high-bandwidth P2P traffic, and a given provider can figure out how to deliver it to them, then they'll earn a competitive advantage and thrive.

The post office analogy is a good one.  They've built infrastructure to handle delivering letters and small packages.  But if people suddenly start demanding to ship one ton objects the same way they've always shipped letters, it becomes a problem for the carrier.  They aren't set up for that.  They'd be happy up to deliver one ton of letters and small packages for you, but they can't do the new heavy packages that suddenly became all the rage.

You're not like to believe a single word I'm gonna say.  Any network tech would in a heartbeat.

Sigh.  Telecoms by law are supposed to constantly expand their infrastructure.  Why is this by law?  Because they are given money to do so.  Guess what?  They aren't.  Yes, it's probably illegal, but that's besides the point.

Telecoms make very large amounts of money by pocketing the infrastructure funds, doing minimal expansion, overcharging for bandwidth and intentionally overselling their capacity.  Most of this is basically, again, illegal but it's not like anyone is going to arrest them.  Reason why is because they cooperate in illegally wiretapping US civvies.  Again, sorta off-topic.  Consumer bandwidth is basically pennies to telecoms.  They make their money off selling to businesses.  Dedicated DS-3's run you ten thousand per month, easy.  It's basically the speed of a cable modem should be, but (usually) without the overselling capacity games that ISP's play on noncommercial user.  The difference between consumer and business connections is strictly the fact that telecom's won't play the "intentionally throttle down your bandwidth" game.  For this, businesses pay through the nose and a vein.

Why do I know this?  Because I used to be part of DISA, which makes Comcast look like a Mom n' Pop dialup ISP from the 90's.  I know exactly how a global telecom network runs when you do not play games and concentrate on building a functional network.  I've worked with traffic shaped OC-192's and had tracert's bouncing through multiple dedicated satellites.  Their network topology is a friggin joke.

Comcast could bloody easily sort out their traffic management with ease.  Lock me, mtnbkr and gigabuist in their central NOC with their OOB control network, a stack of pizzas and several cases of good beer and we could sort it out in a weekend.  No joke.  It won't happen, because they're making significantly more money through planned incompetence.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

They're selling on big numbers that they can't deliver on and when they hit their capacity they start pulling stunts you can't do as a common carrier.  That's wrong.  It's fraud.  They have to pick one or the other.  Either sell what you can deliver or stop being considered a common carrier.

Sigh.  There are other options, such as selling more elaborate plans, or filtering out troublesome traffic so that you can more fully deliver on your promises.  P2P traffic volume is one of the biggest reasons consumers can't surf at higher speeds, ya know.

Ans I think you under-rate the average consumer.  Most folks understand that "10MB peak" means they won't get all 10MB all the time.  And anyone who understand what "10MB" means would also be able to understand what "10MB for normal web surfing, 3MB for other traffic" means.

Ultimately the problem you describe comes down to marketing and clear disclosure, not to mention good ol' caveat emptor.  If it really is a problem that people can't understand what they're buying form their ISP, then the solution is to require clearer disclosures from the providers.  There's nor reason, no need, to try to regulate network performance and do convoluted common carrier lawsuit stuff to solve the problem you describe.

I think my gripe here is that I dislike the premise that because some consumers are stupid, government must step in and try to idiot-proof the world for them.  People should take care of themselves, and government should stay out of the way.  Businesses should be free to choose their business model, and customers (whether individual consumers or middlemen companies) should be free to choose which model they wish to buy from.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Believe it or not, I don know a thing or two about this stuff.  One of my job responsibilities right now is to provide data access to remote testing sites around the world, using an odd protocol that our hardware requires, a protocol that some providers don't want to deal with.  I'm not whining about common carrier BS, I'm shopping around for the provider that will deliver what my company needs for the lowest price.  We've already had to rule out a few options because they were squirrely about guaranteeing us that we could run our particular protocol now and into the future.

And I can find multiple service provider options in middle of nowhere Arizona, Spain, Italy, and India.  So I'm not giving much credence to the notion that there's always a monopoly on service.

Now, RevDisk, you seem to be advocating that we build new bad law because the existing bad law doesn't work well, basically saying that two wrongs make a right.  If telecom companies are being bad about not growing their infrastructure the way they're supposed to, then force them to grow their infrastructure.  Don't limit the kinds of service plans they can sell to willing customers under the guise of common carrier nonsense.  

And if it's just a matter of you guys re-designing Comcast's systems, then get to it.  If it's as easy as you say, then it shouldn't take you long.  I suspect there's more to it than that, though.  And not merely "they're being bad and mean".  

Chris, tell me why anyone should be forced to grant you access to any particular website or internet protocol against their will.  Really, I'd like to know.  There are some providers I'd love to force to carry my protocol.  I'd save my company bajillions and be a hero for a while.   

[GigaBuist]

If it really is a problem that people can't understand what they're buying form their ISP, then the solution is to require clearer disclosures from the providers.

They won't do it.  They will fight tooth and nail to keep overselling their products.  I'd gladly pay what I already do for a guaranteed 3Mbit down connection instead of the 10Mbit down they promised, but I actually understand the issues at hand.  I remember transfers coming over at 118 bytes per second!

If it  There's nor reason, no need, to try to regulate network performance and do convoluted common carrier lawsuit stuff to solve the problem you describe.

Going the common carrier route is the easiest method.  But that requires work on the part of the low level ISPs out there and they won't do it.  I'm NOT a fan of Net Neutrality as devised by the FCC.  It's actually counter-productive to the last-mile providers solving their problems.  All they have to do is be honest, use published QoS rules to shape traffic, and be done with it. Net Neutrality is counter productive to my needs as a consumer.  I use QoS in my own home to keep my BitTorrent traffic from stifling my Vonage phone or my wife from lagged out my games on XBOX Live as she shoves photos on to Facebook.  But that's complicated and would require them to put together a team that knows their stuff to do it.  Far easier to shank the customers for them.

I think my gripe here is that I dislike the premise that because some consumers are stupid, government must step in and try to idiot-proof the world for them.

I get that, and I'd usually agree with it, but these local ISPs are pretty much engaged in fraud at this point.  They promise things they can't deliver and then change the rules when they see fit so that they can satisfy the majority of their customers.

[RevDisk]

Believe it or not, I don know a thing or two about this stuff.  One of my job responsibilities right now is to provide data access to remote testing sites around the world, using an odd protocol that our hardware requires, a protocol that some providers don't want to deal with.  I'm not whining about common carrier BS, I'm shopping around for the provider that will deliver what my company needs for the lowest price.  We've already had to rule out a few options because they were squirrely about guaranteeing us that we could run our particular protocol now and into the future.

Huh?  Why aren't you running PVC's to your remote sites?  All it should take is calling up your account rep and saying "I want a PVC from each following T-carriers (insert list) to this T-1/DS-3 (insert your home office circuit ID)", taking a long coffee break, reprogramming your edge routers and start flowing traffic.  If they're port filtering your PVC's, you need to shoot the person that signed your SLA's.

Now, RevDisk, you seem to be advocating that we build new bad law because the existing bad law doesn't work well, basically saying that two wrongs make a right.  If telecom companies are being bad about not growing their infrastructure the way they're supposed to, then force them to grow their infrastructure.  Don't limit the kinds of service plans they can sell to willing customers under the guise of common carrier nonsense.  

No, I am specifically NOT advocating any new law.  I'm saying enforce the CURRENT LAWS on common carriers and felony wiretap as it is already written. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Huh?  Why aren't you running PVC's to your remote sites?  All it should take is calling up your account rep and saying "I want a PVC from each following T-carriers (insert list) to this T-1/DS-3 (insert your home office circuit ID)", taking a long coffee break, reprogramming your edge routers and start flowing traffic.  If they're port filtering your PVC's, you need to shoot the person that signed your SLA's.

When I said remote test sites, I meant remote.  Nearest building is miles away.  Nearest electricity is miles farther.

It ain't just a matter of plugging it in and turning it on.

[mtnbkr]

Chris, tell me why anyone should be forced to grant you access to any particular website or internet protocol against their will.  Really, I'd like to know.  There are some providers I'd love to force to carry my protocol.  I'd save my company bajillions and be a hero for a while.   

For the same reason your telco (or cellular company) should allow you to call any number you want and speak about any subject you wish to speak about.

What protocol are you trying to use?  Why not encapsulate it at your local border and De-encapsulate it at the remote?  Just wrap it in another protocol and send it on its way.  Which, btw, is what will happen to P2P if the providers are allowed to throttle it. 

I've surfed the web without being seen as doing so by connecting to my home network via SSH and routing the traffic through that encrypted tunnel.  It's easy to do and looks like normal SSH traffic to the local network (have to make changes to Firefox so DNS queries also go through the tunnel though).  I appear at the destination as having come from home rather than my true origination.  Double whammy, not only did I hide my traffic, but I hid my source.  I'm sure you could come up with something similar to route your protocol over normal IP networks.

And I can find multiple service provider options in middle of nowhere Arizona, Spain, Italy, and India.  So I'm not giving much credence to the notion that there's always a monopoly on service.

As has already been pointed out, many "ISPs" in a given area are just resellers for a larger entity.  If the larger entity is playing the throttle/block game, it doesn't matter who you choose as the billing agent.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

When I said remote test sites, I meant remote.  Nearest building is miles away.  Nearest electricity is miles farther.

Easy.  Encapsulate your traffic in something else and send it over satellite.

I've run VOIP through an IPSEC tunnel over a satellite connection before.  It works, though can be a bit choppy at times.

Chris

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

We're looking at cellular first.  But as I said, they're being squirrely.  We;re reading the contract and finding things that do not look encouraging.

[RevDisk]

When I said remote test sites, I meant remote.  Nearest building is miles away.  Nearest electricity is miles farther.

Easy.  Encapsulate your traffic in something else and send it over satellite.

I've run VOIP through an IPSEC tunnel over a satellite connection before.  It works, though can be a bit choppy at times.

Chris

We're looking at cellular first.  But as I said, they're being squirrely.  We;re reading the contract and finding things that do not look encouraging.

mtnbkr is right.  VPN and satellite is the way to go.  Probably your ONLY way.  QoS it proper and build the apps to be somewhat lag friendly.  If packets are not flowing, check your TTL's first.  It's really not that bad.

[GigaBuist]

When I said remote test sites, I meant remote.  Nearest building is miles away.  Nearest electricity is miles farther.

It ain't just a matter of plugging it in and turning it on.

Uh, for a telcom geek remote means you can only get 4 copper wires there.  Two twisted pairs of copper wire is enough for a 45Mbit connection last I recalled.  RevDisk might be able to correct me.  If you can get a PHONE there then you should at least be able to get 1.5Mbit over a T1.

I'm guessing you have to deal with an X.25 connection of some type.  Is that correct?