Traffic Management
Broadband services are based on the principle that many users share the same network resources. From time to time, there is a chance that the demand for the available bandwidth will exceed the capacity of the network. At Tiscali we have opted to deploy mechanisms that aim to create a level playing field, ensuring a fair and quality service for every customer.The task of delivering equitable bandwidth for data, video and voice traffic carried over our network is called traffic management. It is the mechanism by which different types of traffic are recognized and handled to best effect for the overall performance of the network.
The network traffic generated by customers is identified according to its application type. Some types of traffic are more sensitive to delay and packet discard than others. The traffic management system will look to provide the optimum performance for the benefit of the majority of users and applications.
There is no time based application of the traffic management policies because congestion could potentially occur at any time. The policies are amended to changing conditions and optimized regularly. Our typical peak times however are between 6pm and 10pm weekdays and weekend afternoons.
The general principles we adopt are as follows:
- All traffic is identified by application, and assigned to a class.
- Prioritisation of traffic is given according to the class of service.
- No ports or protocols are blocked.
- Tiscali operates no time of day criteria for traffic management.
The negative results of traffic management are that some users may experience reduced throughput rates, for some applications, during heavily congested times. This is especially likely for Peer to Peer (P2P) and News Group applications.
P2P applications are those used for downloading, typically very large files such as movies, over extended periods. If left unchecked, P2P can be responsible for consuming over 70% of the available bandwidth, despite being used by a fraction of the user base. Peer to Peer applications can be left running during non-peak times, to enable content to be delivered.
Peer to Peer applications include, but are not limited, to the following:
- Bittorrent
- Gnutella
- eDonkey/eMule
- Kontiki
News Groups are applications used for discussing topics or more often the sharing of large data files. Like P2P applications, Newsgroups are considered as non-time sensitive traffic. As such the traffic is given a lower priority compared to other types of traffic.
