Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors

Mon Mar 28 11:27:56 UTC 2005

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Robert Bonomi wrote:
|>From owner-nanog at merit.edu  Sat Mar 26 12:37:15 2005
|>Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 13:35:31 -0500
|>From: Eric Gauthier <eric at roxanne.org>
|>To: "Fergie (Paul Ferguson)" <fergdawg at netzero.net>
|>Cc: nanog at merit.edu
|>Subject: Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors
|>
|>
|>
|>>http://www.advancedippipeline.com/news/159905772
|>>
|>
|>"...In what the company claims is an effort to preserve the performance
|> of its pre-standard WiMAX network, Clearwire says it reserves the right
|> to prohibit the use of a wide range of bandwidth-hungry applications, a
|> list that apparently includes VoIP as well as the uploading or
|> downloading of streaming video or audio, and high-traffic Web site
|> hosting."
|>
|>Hrm... Isn't a VoIP call realtively low bandwidth?
|
|
|   "*ALL* things are relative."   <grin>
|
|>                                                    I haven't studied
|>this, but Vonage's site seems to imply that the maximum data rate is
90Kbps
|>(http://www.vonage.com/help_knowledgeBase_article.php?article=190).  I
|>typically see speeds greater than this from my web browser...
|
|
| There's a big difference.  web browser activity is typically *very*
bursty.
| 'Average' data rate for a any single user is probably in the range of
1%-3%
| of the burst peaks.
|
| VoIP, on the other hand, has an "average" utilization that
approximates 50%
| of the burst rate.  In _both directions.
|
| I suspect that that latter factor is a fair part of the "problem".  That
| the cable company has allocated fairly limited bandwidth for the
'upstream'
| direction (from the customer to the head-end).  That that 'available'
| bandwidth is *grossly* over-subscribed, on the "presumption" that traffic
| in that direction would generally be "small", and "infrequent".  When
those
| assupmtions get violated, _everything_ goes to h*ll.  <wry grin>
|
| Not just for 'he who' commits the violation, but everybody else who is
| sharing that over-subscribed link.

Well,

Since I run an ISP that is very small time,
has (at this time) only a single T1 upstream,
all my "subscribers" are wireless clients,
I guess if I have more than 2 subscribers,
I am over subscribed?

Hardly seems fair.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFCR+o80STXFHxUucwRAt6lAJ9/khqQ0iFFCwReKleCYvsPLePGzwCfZGbd
Tg8q8nyPcYZQSpXSD9hajbA=
=wZfh
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----