COVID-19 vs. our Networks

Fri Mar 20 15:32:33 UTC 2020

>
> You will be changing your tune when your mother is sick and can't get the
> care she needs because the system is overwhelmed because we (communities,
> not just network operators) didn't do what was necessary because of some
> idealistic hard line people drew in the sand.
>

The medical system is going to be run over by lack of trained professionals
/ beds / equipment long before it is unable to provide care because of
transient internet congestion.

I know you're under a lot of stress Mike, and I wish you all the best
getting through these current events.

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 11:09 AM Mike Bolitho <mikebolitho at gmail.com> wrote:

> "It is something that matters, because it has the potential to set a
>> dangerous precedent."
>>
>
> Can we stop with this talk... around everything? We're literally living
> through an unprecedented event right now. My 86 year old grandmother said
> she's never seen anything like this in the US. My friends 94 year old
> grandmother in Italy said she hasn't seen this since WWII. Nobody is going
> to say "Well we did this during a global pandemic so we can now do it
> because we feel like it". People will laugh them out of the room. I live in
> Phoenix, the mayor shut down bars and restaurants (carryout only) in order
> to help stop us from becoming Italy. One of our city councilmen was saying
> the same thing: "This is martial law and sets bad precedent! We must open
> everything up!" Of course, they then held a closed to the public meeting
> because city council can't be exposed. The point is, the mayor isn't going
> to do the same thing in six months on a whim because traffic on the freeway
> is bad. Thankfully calmer heads prevailed and the rest of the council told
> him to pound sand, at least for now.
>
> Something that keeps happening on this mailing list over the last few
> weeks is this tendency to try to take the "Moral high ground". And from way
> up there people are looking at the whole topic from an idealistic point of
> view like we live in some Network Operators Utopia with perfect conditions
> where money doesn't exist and we can do whatever we want because there is
> no upper management. We should be having a practical conversation that sits
> within the confines of reality. We don't have perfect networks built. We
> don't have unlimited resources. We are facing a global pandemic. Money is
> tight. In principle, I agree with what you guys are saying. But in reality,
> we're going to have to bend our convictions in order to protect populations
> from COVID-19. You will be changing your tune when your mother is sick and
> can't get the care she needs because the system is overwhelmed because we
> (communities, not just network operators) didn't do what was
> necessary because of some idealistic hard line people drew in the sand.
>
> - Mike Bolitho
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 7:44 AM Tom Beecher <beecher at beecher.cc> wrote:
>
>> It is something that matters, because it has the potential to set a
>> dangerous precedent.
>>
>> If you say "$Service should reduce their bit rates because this is an
>> emergency!" , I guarantee that exact same argument will be made well after
>> this crisis has passed with a different definition of "emergency", and
>> adding on "well it's an emergency to me!".
>>
>> Some of the pipes Netflix goes through is also used by other services
>>> that aren't as adaptable.
>>>
>>
>> And how is that Netflix's responsibility? They have already taken action
>> to ramp down bitrates when they detect congestion. Why should other
>> applications be able to say piss off, I don't want to? Didn't we just have
>> a 10 year net neutrality argument that we're not supposed to want to treat
>> the bits differently?
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 10:17 AM Mike Hammett <nanog at ics-il.net> wrote:
>>
>>> It's one of those most important things that matters.
>>>
>>> The end user likely won't notice the difference between 4k and 720p.
>>> They also aren't likely to notice the transition from one to the other.
>>>
>>> The person on the VPN, VoIP call, video conference, video game, etc.
>>> will very much notice the congested link, even if it's only a few seconds.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, Netflix video is very efficient, if not the most efficient. They're
>>> also one of if not the largest slingers of bits on the Internet. Small
>>> changes in usage of such a huge player totally eclipse most other usages on
>>> the Internet.
>>>
>>> https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
>>>
>>> Netflix recommends 25 megs for Ultra HD, while only 5 megs for HD.
>>> That's a 5x difference in something people likely won't notice and would
>>> make a big difference on the additional VPN, VoIP, video conferencing, etc.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----
>>> Mike Hammett
>>> Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
>>> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL>
>>> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb>
>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions>
>>> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
>>> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
>>> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix>
>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange>
>>> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
>>> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
>>> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
>>> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *From: *"Blake Hudson" <blake at ispn.net>
>>> *To: *nanog at nanog.org
>>> *Sent: *Friday, March 20, 2020 9:01:18 AM
>>> *Subject: *Re: COVID-19 vs. our Networks
>>>
>>> Yes, but does that matter? If there's extra capacity on the link,
>>> Netflix runs at full rate. If there is not extra capacity Netflix rates
>>> down to prevent congestion. While streaming video (including Netflix) uses
>>> a lot of bandwidth, I don't see Netflix causing congestion. It gets a bad
>>> wrap, and I think that's unfair because Netflix is actually really
>>> efficient and really conscientious compared to others.
>>>
>>> On 3/20/2020 8:52 AM, Mike Hammett wrote:
>>>
>>> Some of the pipes Netflix goes through is also used by other services
>>> that aren't as adaptable.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----
>>> Mike Hammett
>>> Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
>>> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL>
>>> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb>
>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions>
>>> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
>>> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
>>> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix>
>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange>
>>> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
>>> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
>>> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
>>> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *From: *"Blake Hudson" <blake at ispn.net> <blake at ispn.net>
>>> *To: *nanog at nanog.org
>>> *Sent: *Friday, March 20, 2020 8:32:45 AM
>>> *Subject: *Re: COVID-19 vs. our Networks
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/19/2020 12:22 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:
>>> >
>>> > On 19/Mar/20 18:07, Matt Hoppes wrote:
>>> >> Agreed... 720 or 1080 Netflix will work just as fine as 4K for the
>>> >> next month or two.
>>> > Well, the article claims "Drop stream quality from HD". That means 4K,
>>> > 1080p and 720p.
>>> >
>>> > If you have an OCA on your network, how does this encourage consumers
>>> to
>>> > use the "extra bandwidth" for anything else?
>>> >
>>> > Are we assuming we know how consumers want to spend their time now?
>>> >
>>> > Mark.
>>>
>>> Across several eyeball networks I'm not seeing any noticeable increase
>>> in peak (95%) demand between now and January. Since Netflix
>>> automatically scales down data rates in the event of congestion, the
>>> only thing I foresee forcing Netflix to reduce data rates [ahead of any
>>> congestion] would accomplish is causing excess link capacity to go
>>> unused (wasted). This sounds like a policy decision made without a
>>> technical argument... e.g. not a data driven decision, but a decision
>>> made out of fear or panic.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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