random thoughts an non-Mbps plans

[rebelwireless]

I've been thinking a lot about how the Mbps plans don't line up with consumer knowledge. So, I thought I'd lay out what I've been thinking about here for comments.

First, a couple points

1) Consumers generally think more is better.
2) They have little knowledge of latency.
3) They don't understand the correlation between online video, browsing, gaming and how each has different needs.
4) They are easily swayed by the Cable company's big speeds, or they are biased and don't see a good internet service for what it is unless it advertises similar numbers.

So, I'm thinking of eliminating speed based plans all together. Removing each customer's aggregate speed, and targetting services.

Here is a basic outline of a 'base' service plan

because netflix offers plans with either 2 or 4 streams, my plans would be simple. This should also cover other streaming services like youtube, hulu, etc.

2 SD netflix/streaming video (or 1 HD) (2x1.5Mbps=3Mbps)
4* SD netflix/streaming video (or 1 HD and 1 SD) (6Mbps)
2 HD netflix/streaming video (9Mbps)
4* HD netflix/streaming video (18Mbps)
*in my testing, streams attempt to go HD so this can lead to some buffered starts on the 4th stream

I would create a queue tree for each overall plan, for input there would be a top level 'in', then second level for the actual plan, and a third level as follows:
video, according to previous list
100Kbps for VoIP, raised priority AND tagged DSCP
3Mbps WEB*, with two subqueues for http (middle priority and full 3Mbps) and for torrents (low priority and 2.5Mbps)
512Kbps for online gaming, high priority
etc, etc.


The purpose being to offer a service plan like:
2 HD Videos plus fast web browsing!
or
Dedicated Netflix streams plus fast web browsing!
or
Dedicated connection for online gaming plus web and video!

I've had a discussion with a few people and there are two sides of this. 1 is the 'net neutrality' one, but I don't see it that way, I like option 2 that I'm providing a traditional 3Mbps internet service that can be used for whatever they like, a net neutral service. Then customers can purchase dedicated connectivity for the video needs, that doesn't trample on their web browsing. In other words, I think that this is net neutral because I'll sell a standard internet connection at various speed grades that isn't filtered etc *except lowing priority on identifiable p2p.

Thoughts? Be vicious if you like, this is just a concept and I appreciate the devil's advocate ;)

[amishgenius]

Would that be like 2 physical connections, or some kind of QOS setup?

[rebelwireless]

Queue trees. Putting each client's WAN address in an address pool for the plan they chose, then using PCQ so that only a single instance of each plan needs to be built in the queue tree.

[rebelwireless]

If I were to implement this, I would script a pull, diff, alter, and a push for the address lists and put everyone in plans in a sql database so it would be easy to maintain. Address lists in 'tik are not well organized.

The whole premise is that the DSL company doesn't have fast enough speeds to offer more than SD streams for the most part, the Cable company has a big pipe but will still buffer you to death on Netflix, and other area wISPs are overselling like it's 2005. I don't want to try to offer up a fat 20Mbps pipe to get hammered by bittorrents, which are bad enough just for throughput but then CPU load routing a gazillion packets takes it's toll too.

So, I'm toying with the idea of abandoning that model and just getting people to pick the plan that matches how they want to use the service. Netflix is a nice, predictable stream with only a handful of connections (same goes for hulu, youtube, etc). It's throughput, but it's not bittorrent, and I don't really have an issue with upstream bandwidth as I'm connected to a datacenter with gigabit directly to netflix.

[mhoppes]

I'm not sure if this would work well... at least in my market most customers want to know speeds as this is what they have learned about all the past years.

[rebelwireless]

I'm not sure if this would work well... at least in my market most customers want to know speeds as this is what they have learned about all the past years.

Yeah, I think that's the struggle. I have that issue now with Charter selling 30Mbps and they will be offering 60 and 100 within the next 6 months or so. They are massively oversold and their latency is horrendous, but customers only see the Mbps, it's very effective marketing. I don't really go directly after Charter customers, but those are the ads seen on TV so 10Mbps doesn't look that impressive in comparison. Just so happens coming out of a very well connected datacenter and have excellent latency and pages load faster and netflix doesn't buffer at all, so in a sense my service is superior.

I'm just brainstorming ways to improve the customer's experience without having huge Mbps numbers and be able to market that effectively.

I've also thought about doing a fat oversell on web access and partitioning out netflix etc like described above. I feel like a 3-5:1 ratio for 'blended' internet access is where I want to be, but web browsing is pretty comfortable at 20:1 if you scrape out online video and get torrents and p2p QoSed. Maybe sell an 'up to' 20Mbps web browsing +dedicated 2 Netflix HD streaming? Still deprioritize identifiable p2p.

I also want to be careful not to lean on net neutrality much. As a wISP I have to prioritize good service to everyone vs untouched connections...