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A story in today's Washington Post brings the "bandwidth crunch" issue to light, and shows what Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are doing to try and regulate the flow of ones and zeroes.

First, here are some quick excerpts and a link to the whole story.

Heavy Internet Users Targeted
Providers to Test Charges, Delays

By Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 4, 2008; D01

 

Cable service operators Comcast and Time Warner Cable said yesterday that they would begin testing new approaches that would slow Internet access for heavy users and charge more to those who want additional speed.

The tests come as the Federal Communications Commission wraps up an investigation on complaints that Comcast blocked certain users from sharing video, music and other files. The complaints fueled a larger debate, with hearings in Congress and by the FCC, on how much control Internet service providers should have over the flow of data.

"The cable companies see a hammer hovering above their heads and are scrambling to find ways to reduce the appearance of wrongdoing," said Ben Scott, head of policy for the public interest group Free Press, which advocates for better oversight of cable operators. He called the plans "Band-Aids" on the bigger problem of network capacity, which he said can be solved only by larger investments in the cable companies' networks.

Comcast said that on Friday it would begin tests in Chambersburg, Pa., and Warrenton, Va., that would delay traffic for the heaviest users of Internet data without targeting specific software applications. Public interest groups complained in November that Comcast targeted users of BitTorrent, a file-sharing application, by blocking or delaying video and other files exchanged with the technology. Free Press said the practice discriminated against certain content and impeded users from having full access to the Web.

Analysts said the test would not differ significantly from Comcast's current network-management practices. The new approach would, however, target a broader range of heavy bandwidth users instead of delaying all traffic using BitTorrent. Roger Entner, a senior vice president at Nielsen IAG, said about 5 to 10 percent of peer-to-peer users -- those who directly exchange files with other users -- gobble up about 50 percent of all Internet bandwidth. (bold mine)

"This is the politically correct version of doing what Comcast had been doing before, though it takes the occasional [peer-to-peer] user off the hook," Entner said.

Time Warner Cable is trying a different approach with a test that will charge customers more for larger volumes of data and faster Internet access. The metered-billing test, which the company compared to cellphone billing structures that charge extra for those who go over their minutes, will begin tomorrow with new customers in Beaumont, Tex. The company said its approach allows customers to choose plans that fit their needs.

"Instead of raising prices across the board, consumers who are excessive users would pay," said Alex Dudley, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable. "It is clearly the fairest way to fund the investment that is going to be required to support that use."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/03/AR2008060303248_pf.html

Note that five to ten percent of all Internet users consume fifty percent of all Internet bandwidth.  And much of that is peer downloading of crap, usually in the form of illegally pirated music and movies.  That makes it very difficult for the other ninety to ninety-five percent of the rest of us, who only occasionally download crap.

The ISPs all want to move to a "metered" system, similar to how you pay for electricity today.  You pay for what you use.  Personally, I think this is a wonderful idea, and I will expand on this idea over at my blogsite on Computerworld.com.  Paying for what you use could be exported as a fee to university students, where a good deal of this illegal file sharing and downloading goes on.

It is not the only answer, however.  Internet providers must continue to invest in bigger pipes and newer solutions. 

What does this all have to do with a pandemic?  As I have mentioned many times, "telework" or "work at home plans" will not be successful in a severe pandemic.  Why?  think about the bandwidth that will be consumed at home, while Jimmy plays XBox Live and his mom and dad are frantically trying to log into the corporate mainframe and email systems at their jobs.

Cable Internet connectivity is a communal experience.  that means a neighborhood is sharing a single point of access back to the home office.  They may tell you that a five jigabit connection is coming to your home, but it is divided by the number of packets of ones and zeroes that is simultaneously being transmitted and received by every other Internet connection in your community.

DSL claims that it is a "home run" cable pull all the way back to the Central Office of your Telco, but I seriously doubt that.  That is because DSL connectivity is horrifyingly unreliable.  I speak from experience: In my day job, I have over 120 "edge routers" connecting back to my network, and about 73% of those connections are DSL.  Failed DSL connections represent 93% of all my wide area network outages.  In any given week, up to 21% of all DSL connections can fail for extended periods of time.  I have the metrics to prove this.

So the chances are extremely good that if you are a cable subscriber, you will experience extremely slow activity at home during a pandemic.  And if you are a DSL subscriber, count on your DSL failing repeatedly  in a pandemic of any severity.

So your telework will be thrown out the window, along with your computer.  Businesses that depend on such telework will reluctantly call their employees back into work, because nothing will get done otherwise.  This is especially true for government employees, because government overall still moves on paper while business moves digitally.

Will those employees report for work?

Have their bosses bought them masks, gloves and hand sanitizer?  Have they trained their people to know what to do and what to expect in a pandemic?  Have they prepared them for the pain, the PTSD that will inevitably occur, while giving them the resources and the knowledge to think and act for themselves?

Employers, you can answer that question a lot better than I.  Perhaps it's better not to ask at this time.  Much better that your employees ask you these things now, rather than later.

Because the next pandemic might not be H5.  It could be H7.