Re: "download" caps

[Andrew Meaden <ameaden () optusnet com au>]

Peter Gutmann wrote:

> J Edgar Hoover <zorch () totally righteous net> writes:
>
>  
>
> > I'm wondering if you could effectively DoS a capped account for a month by
> > sending a lot of unrequested data.
> >    
>
> This has happened quite a lot here, with full-rate accounts where you get
> charged for traffic over a certain level, and rate-limited accounts with no
> charges.  The traffic is billed based on what heads your way at the DSLAM, so
> you end up being billed for syn floods, traffic aimed at whoever last had your
> IP, etc etc etc.  There are no figures on this, but from anecdotal evidence a
> large number of users are abandoning full-rate for rate-limited DSL which
> doesn't have this problem (I switched after DSLAM records showed I'd done
> 130MB of traffic in two days while my external router recorded < 30MB).  It's
> a pain for everyone, users go from 8MB/s to 128Kb/s, and the provider loses a 
> lot of revenue when people switch to the DOS-proof non-capped (and much cheaper
> because of the slow speed) accounts.  One possible solution is to run at full 
> rate until you've used your monthly quota, then switch to rate-limited, but 
> apparently the DSLAM technology being used makes this impossible.
>
> Peter.
>
>
>
>  
Telcos in .au are starting to introduce plans (optus@home cable, iinet 
adsl etc) whereby you get a monthly cap that's soft; at the time the cap 
is reached, the rate is limited (either severely or lightly, depending 
on the quality of the plan) and no excess data charges are inflicted 
upon the user.

This technology is definately possible, and the plans look extremely 
inviting because of this. Especially since a growing number of them are 
also allowing the running of services (previously almost unheard of on 
flat rate plans.).

At the end of the  day I think everyone prefers a financially safe plan 
that has permanent connectivity; I know for me at least always-on is 
much more important than excessive download speeds.

-- Andrew