Re: [81attendees] sucky Delta hotel network (and bufferbloat)

[Ole Jacobsen <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, 3 Aug 2011, John C Klensin wrote:
>
> Ole,
> 
> Sure, but...
> 
> First of all, while I think it is sensible and prudent for 
> IETF-related guests to avoid, e.g., extensive movie downloads on 
> already-overloaded hotel networks, I don't think we should be 
> spending energy worrying about or casting blame on IETF participants 
> as network abusers.  If, e.g., some movie downloaders are going to 
> cause poor network performance, almost any guest with a laptop can 
> induce the same problem.

I wasn't suggesting otherwise. All I am saying is that we have some 
actual data on typical useage of IETF guests (whether reasonable or
not) and we could maybe use this data to judge if an overflow hotel
is likely or not going to be able to deal with such a load. Again,
nothing scientific and, yes, other "abusers" may exist -- not that
I am calling them that.

> 
> In my experience, many, if not most, hotel networks are woefully
> underprovisioned.  Sometimes that is just cutting costs,
> sometimes it it having installed network arrangements when one
> guest in 20 (or one in 50) used them, only to see that number
> rise to one in five (or, with an IETF group, 49 of 50).
> Sometimes it is just ignorance and/or stupidity.  But the effect
> is the same.  

I agree.

> 
> In addition, while the problems are often with the available
> bandwidth on the hotel's connections to the outside world,
> underprovisioned or congested hotel LANs aren't unusual either.
> I don't think any estimate or report of total available
> bandwidth is going to help.   

Well, it may be a starting point, that's all. And since the underlying 
thread here is "you should have known/told us that the Delta network
was going to suck" we can either try give some indication of this or
we can simply say "you're on your own".

> 
> That brings me back to three things as being potentially useful:
> 
> -- When a block of rooms is negotiated with a particular hotel,
> especially if "free Internet" is part of the negotiation, we
> should exert reasonable efforts to be sure that the hotel
> understands that we tend to all arrive with computers, than we
> tend to be heavy and demanding network users, and that poor or
> sucky Internet service is likely to result in a lot of irritated
> (and probably irritating) customers.

That is already being done.

> 
> -- Independent of how well or poorly a hotel responds to advice
> of that type, we should all understand --with reminder warnings
> as appropriate-- that random-hotel Internet service is often
> going to suck when a much larger-than-usual  percentage of the
> guests are intense Internet users, or Internet users at all.

I agree.

> 
> -- And all of us should be courteous enough to each other, and
> adult enough, to cut back on any bandwidth-hogging activities at
> the first sign of hotel network problems.

Absolutely. 

>    john
> 
> 

Ole