Friday, April 26th 2019
Net Netrality Redux: COX Service Provider Launches "Elite Gamer" Fastlane Add-on Service
I'll abstain from commenting and just let you guys sort this news piece out: internet service provider Cox has introduced a new fast lane option to their internet service. Dubbed the "Elite Gamer" add-on, the optional $15 service will work to ensure gamers get the best possible experience in their favorite multiplayer games. According to Cox, this "hidden" fastlane for internet traffic will be routed through a gaming-centric routing network, which will allow for up to "34 percent less lag, 55 percent fewer ping spikes, and 45 percent less jitter" than its existing internet service.
Apex Legends, Fortnite and Overwatch are the current games being touted as having specific routing pathways, and this will work with absolutely no input from the user. Data packets from these applications will be automatically sorted and rerouted through Cox' servers, which also means that this service does exactly - and limitedly - what it aims to. There will be no other improvements to the overall "interneting" experience: it's a cool $15 for what amounts to (prospectively) higher K/D ratios. It remains to be seen what impact this actually has in the competitive scene, and whether or not the listed games' lag compensation techniques serve to even the playing field somewhat. Let me throw a small wrench into the equation here: more services like this will eventually appear, which may or may not be specifically geared towards gaming. Nothing prevents ISP's from creating application or content-specific data caps, for which you'll then have to purchase data bundles or subscription services (this happens in Portugal already, but it's mostly limited to mobile bandwidth). A bright, split-lane future awaits all of us.
Source:
via Tom's Hardware
Apex Legends, Fortnite and Overwatch are the current games being touted as having specific routing pathways, and this will work with absolutely no input from the user. Data packets from these applications will be automatically sorted and rerouted through Cox' servers, which also means that this service does exactly - and limitedly - what it aims to. There will be no other improvements to the overall "interneting" experience: it's a cool $15 for what amounts to (prospectively) higher K/D ratios. It remains to be seen what impact this actually has in the competitive scene, and whether or not the listed games' lag compensation techniques serve to even the playing field somewhat. Let me throw a small wrench into the equation here: more services like this will eventually appear, which may or may not be specifically geared towards gaming. Nothing prevents ISP's from creating application or content-specific data caps, for which you'll then have to purchase data bundles or subscription services (this happens in Portugal already, but it's mostly limited to mobile bandwidth). A bright, split-lane future awaits all of us.
97 Comments on Net Netrality Redux: COX Service Provider Launches "Elite Gamer" Fastlane Add-on Service
Thankfully, Verizon has put up a tower just about 1 mile outside of town which offers JUST 4GLTE. (no 3G or 1XRTT as they shut down both of those networks here) Where I live, US Cellular in their HOME NETWORK in Northeast Missouri, only offers 3G or 1XRTT. (ughh, 1X RTT... It sucks badly... Lucky to even get 30Kbps with it)
UK population density: 275/sq km2 Internett service: BAD
US population density: 36/sq km2 Internett service: BAD
Norway population density: 15/sq km2 Internett service: God
Sweden population density: 24/sq km2 Internett service: God
As evident by the original news story, US policies allows for a internet with more “products” like the gaming service form COX.
I am not saying that either Norway or Sweden are some utopian paradises, but when it comes to internet legislation I get the impression that the end result is better here.
Maybe because I have some Norwegian heritage? or maybe
because the women look better on average?....
We need to consider the density of residential areas here, the areas that actually have wired Internet users.
Much like water & power, many people in the US don't have a choice of internet providers, or don't have a reasonable alternative. Hell, some places only have 1 reliable provider(satellites can still go out fairly easily, some urban places don't allow satellites).
So in many places, it only takes a few ISP's to decide to also create fast lanes for all types of services and, unsurprisingly, all of a sudden you have an absolute anti-consumer crapshoot with no alternative other than to leave, but that doesn't hurt the provider, does it? People will just move into the vacated home/apartment/condo and eventually someone will just have to live with it because there's no alternative, and the likelihood of there being an alternative is slim-to-none because broadband infrastructure is limited(or they attempt to suea city for trying to build it's own).
Keep in mind. My road has Fiber, they ran straight up the road (not a customer line just to carry data) the customer lines are a few thousand feet apart. Spectrum / TWC / Adelphia as they were known literally laid the fiber out about 6-7 years ago, saw a stretch of road with 60 homes and just said fuck it lol. No competition insane prices etc.
Consolidated / Fairpoint well their DSL does offer up to 100 mbps but only in select areas, that said when they were owned by Verizon the lines here made them a large sum of money, They used that cash to improve infrastructure out of state. Once the lines were in need of repair (capitalism) they divested themselves of the company making it a separate entity after taking all its liquid assets. Leaving a shell that can't even maintain its basic business responsibilities.
But yeah lets just toss ones life away to move for better internet. I could move to the next big city and pay 3x the rent for less space, pay for parking etc. To be honest my biggest problem here is internet speeds. It has nothing to do with what my neighbors want. We all want faster speeds Spectrum just says fuck you same as Consolidated this is because some genius for the town signed a contract some 50 years ago with a previous company that is still valid after said companies are bought out. Contract valid cant do anything really. I mean yeah town could sue but town doesnt have the money for that so it wont happen.
I mean i guess I could pay for Hughes net i do live on a massive hill overlooking a huge chunk of blueberry fields and beautiful scenery signal would be good but meh high pin latency problems oh and $150 for 50GB data at which point its basically dial up speeds after that lol.
Hell in the end i would pay up to $100 a month for just 50 mbps when i used to pay around 45 for 100, now I pay 45 for 7 i get 3.5 with an unused DSL cabinet 100 ft away (wiring is in place but its deactivated even the head tech has no idea why instead the company insists on a 2 mile run from the main road through town. I also find it funny that Spectrum ran fiber up a multi mile less populated dirt road that offshoots from the one I live on giving customers service but left about a 1 mile stretch of dead mans land with more even more homes and customers untouched.
If capitalism is all about maximizing profit, why run fiber through a bog and no mans swamp land but avoid 60+ easy to access homes.
Then again could also be because TWC was incompetent hired third party contractors to "save money" only for the Fiber connectors used to be wrong and they had to redo a bunch of their "fiber loop" all over again. You know bad business decisions one after the other lol. But yeah long windy dirt road avg is about 2 ppl per mile vs 1 mile section that is 60 per mile. Where they did 99% of the work said fuck it on the 1% go figure. If i setup a house in a swap in the middle of nowhere i can get high speed straight section of road with 60 homes yup enjoy your 3.5 mbps DSL lol.
But i know why it was done this way. Local ISPs lobby our state for funding to develop last mile infrastructure in rural communities via vast grants. they point to dirt roads and bogs with few homes as an example of the customers they are attempting to service. Makes for good PR.
And yet, 'Merica has all sorts of limits imposed by ISPs all over the place, and ridiculous ones at that. If anything, densely populated areas would be the place where you'd ever encounter traffic so high that setting some sort of limit would theoretically, and at first glance only, make any sort of sense. Real life practically proves that DOESN'T happen though. The technology can easily handle the load, even in the U.S. of A. (as is clear from previous posts made by other users right on this topic).
But let's take a rather extreme example: Bucharest, Romania's capital city. You get 1Gbps fiber for a measly $9.5 (taxes included). You can choose from either one of five major ISPs. Although some of them don't cover some areas of the city just yet, you can still pick from at least three anywhere you may be. Either way, getting 1Gbps fiber connections is nothing and this service is available to literally everyone. And since you're so caught up on population density, you have about 8449 people per kilometer squared, that's about 21882 people per mile squared. New York has 26403 people per square mile. Managing the sheer amount of traffic requires some serious routing hardware along with sheer bandwidth. Cables aren't the issue here anymore. But what limitations are there in place for landlines as a result? None whatsoever. Speed? Hell yeah!!! Anywhere, anytime. Basically, you can use your internet connection whenever you want, for as long as you want, however you want. You can max out the damn thing 24/7 and nobody will bat a single eyelid. The only real bottleneck for Romanians nowadays are the speeds that can be sustained by the gear of the content providers (although Steam does a pretty good job, for example).
Now let's have a little look at the hardware. It's mostly the same hardware U.S. companies use. It's not like we get a price cut because we're from the EU or anything. Your circular logic regarding services being crap because the cost for the infrastructure for remote areas is high doesn't hold up: major population centers still get the crap services and crap limitations for ridiculously high prices that are in no way justified by the cost of the hardware. Sure, wages are a lot higher in the U.S., but saying that the entire amount the users pay goes into wages is like saying that the purchase price of a product should only cover manufacturing costs.
Let's get real here. I don't know what you think about Romania, but business owners here are even more resolute about getting the highest profit they can. What you're all (maybe willfully) ignoring is that what we get here in Romania was made possible by companies having to actually compete to attract users. What y'all get in the U.S. of A. is a result of collusion, price fixing and price gouging. That is, ISPs there have clearly made an arrangement NOT to compete to anywhere near the extent of their possibilities so that they can invest the bare minimum into the networking infrastructure/equipment/etc. while keeping prices sky-high. Cue everything Ferengi.
Y'all probably need a couple more decades of this to realize something that's obvious to people from ex-communist countries: progress won't happen if there's no incentive for it, the lack of progress leads to stagnation, which in turn leads to extinction. That's what happened to the commies: they couldn't compete because the system didn't reward those with the will to strive and improve. They fell behind technologically and when the gap was wide enough it led to the collapse and extinction of the entire system. Finding excuses for the companies' blatant anti-consumerist behavior does the same thing. The capitalist system only works so long as profit is a reward for competitiveness, which can only be gained and sustained by constant progress. People should enforce this by voting with their wallets, but this is impossible without the proper education. With the collapse of education, people can no longer enforce their end properly and that's when you need regulation: laws to ensure that companies hold up their end of the bargain.
And what do you do? You choose to empathize with companies and blame people, mistakenly thinking that as long as there's profit, everything works fine. And when the fall comes, and come it will should you stay this course, you won't even see it coming. It's not democracy that failed you, but your inability to empathize with humans and your over-eagerness to find excuses for corrupt behavior. Thieves have to make money too, not just companies, but you're far too willing to forgive a company for breaking the law.
Later Edit: Just for a bit of background, I work for one of those huge American corporations and part of what I do is to handle the local side of networking projects at all stages in Romania. I work with a lot of top-tier equipment and experts and I've been working since I was 19, which was a rather long time ago. You, Sir, have the right idea here.
Gosh... we are talking about DOCSIS with a chronically penury of upload bandwidth... shared too.
Collusion is just a conspiration theory. If it was that easy, over night 10 people would start up internet companies giving away free stuff. Like Google. There is nothing stopping you...
As for Romania, all the small investors from 90's got gobbled up by four big pocket guys: Telekom; Digi RCS&RDS; UPC; Orange. It's all the same, you step outside a big metropolis, you get jack...
Peace out!
I mean you are talking about a thing way over 75% of the population support (net neutrality). How'd it even get repealed in the first place?
Oh yeah, the FCC head literally came from big telecom.
No problemo, A-OK, this is just capitalism at work to you?
If so, wow. Yeah, and if there was competition, DOCSIS and copper would be pretty much the dead worst you can get in America. As it stands, it's often the best. Woo. ISP collusion for maximal profit you mean? No, no it's not. I live in a friggin' "collusion zone." It's a comcast only hellhole. Qwest/century link used to offer... something, but comcast paid to make them go away... by gifting them a section of downtown.
it's friggin orchestrated man.
I can also point to the fact that the percentage of the population living in uran araeas is the same in Norway as the US, at 82 % according to the world bank.
Link: data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?year_high_desc=true
And I'll just say it again, maybe you somehow missed it the first time around. Just because internet services aren't the best smack in the middle of nowhere is one thing. Saying that because of that internet services should suck just as hard in the biggest cities in the country is quite another, and a daft one at that. Care to clarify that for me? You're just stuck on the "free stuff" conspiracy theory, aren't you? Did it ever cross your mind that, umm, maybe the companies are... LYING TO YOU? You know, just like Google and the rest are. Maybe, just maybe, since ISPs in the quite a few countries DON'T impose retarded limits on their users, upgrade the infrastructure to cutting edge constantly and still manage to churn out a heavy profit, maybe your ISPs are talking out of their rears and clearly LYING to the lot of you? You're all so hell-bent on hating commies and socialism, things that you don't even understand and can't define, that you gobble up any and all BS your companies are showering you with like there's no tomorrow. Maybe you should actually learn what communism, socialism and capitalism really are, what their weaknesses are and how things got to this point. It may jump-start your brains into actually thinking for a change (pun intended) and with that, you could actually improve your lives or at the very least stop the downward spiral you've entered quite a while ago.
As for Romania, you forgot Vodafone. Yes, the small investors got gobbled up. And that's a damn good thing because it gives clients quite a few advantages such as better prices and support and services. Having five major ISPs hard at work attracting clients to their side is worlds better than having hundreds of small ISPs, each with their own little parcel. If I want to move to the other side of the city all I have to do is call my ISP and have them route the fibre to the new location for the router I already have. Nothing else whatsoever. Support is 24/7 and I have had cases when the support team arrived to my place one hour after I called in. And that's for a home user, corporate support is quite a lot faster.
Outside a big metropolis you get a lot more than jack. Most villages get 100Mbps ADSL and it works pretty well. Basically, if they have a phone line (and they all do), they can also get TV and internet services. No limits on total download/upload either, although speeds can vary if there is high traffic. It still sounds a whole helluva lot better than a lot of what people in this thread have said that's available is major cities in the U.S.
we are debating whether that should be a legal right (AKA net neutrality)