From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 2 23:02:11 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1946E106566B for ; Wed, 2 Apr 2008 23:02:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C87988FC1C for ; Wed, 2 Apr 2008 23:02:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from TEDSDSK (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.197.130]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with SMTP id m32N29cU032300; Wed, 2 Apr 2008 16:02:10 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: , Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 15:03:09 -0800 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1914 In-Reply-To: <20080402085030.27651sl3kwru19ok@mail.top-consulting.net> Importance: Normal X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]); Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:02:10 -0700 (PDT) Cc: Subject: RE: FreeBSD Traffic Shaping X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:02:11 -0000 > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of > freebsd@top-consulting.net > Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 4:51 AM > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: FreeBSD Traffic Shaping > > > As far as I know, every carrier bills by 95th percentile. You better call your carrier and confirm this. The last carrier we had in that did this did in fact NOT bill by peak, they billed by average. However, the contract language SEEMED to say peak. We were naturally concerned about this after the first month due to our graphs indicating that we had exceeded the peak. However, the carrier (AT&T) did not bill a surcharge. After that we regularly peaked over the designated MBs during the contract term with no billing surcharge. The last 2 months of the contract we got nailed with very high surcharge fees for the last 2 month use period. Needless to say we did not renew the contract and the matter is in litigation now. We never got a satisfactory answer from anyone there as to what calculation they used to determine how the surcharge was calculated. Of course it was our dumb fault. In the future if we ever sign any of those bandwidth contracts again we will require the carrier to supply in the contract the mathematical formula they use to calculate whether or not a surcharge applies. We will then read the formula and determine for ourself whether it means peak or average. > This particular server is colocated and the bandwidth average is > 2.35mbps while the 95th is 3.7mbps. > > I don't want my clients to have to compete for bandwidth - if 1000 > users share a 3mbps fixed pipe, they will each get 3k/sec -. Rather I > want to guarantee a fixed output for each client. This ensures > adequate speed for everyone AND flattens out my peaks. > Except that during the vallys of your utilization your clients will be limited as well - meaning that if for example your bandwidth from 2-3am is only .5Mbps, 3Mbps would be available - and if one of your clients happened to want to use 3Mps, his transfer will be pushed forward out of the 2-3am time period and into the 2-8am period. Meanwhile your carrier gets away scott-free because they didn't have to supply you with the 3.5Mbs during the night, even though you were entitled to it. Anyway, I'm sure your going to do what you feel like and damn the advice everyone is giving - hopefully it works out for you. I personally think these kinds of contracts are devices to make the carrier a windfall they don't deserve, and I hope that you manage to "beat" the contract and extract your last available byte without penalty - because the more people that manage to do this the less lurative these dumb contracts will be and the less incentive the carriers will have to offer them - but I think in your case your up against a telco who has a lot of experience screwing over customers, and they will find out some way to apply the surcharge no matter what you do. Ted