I keep hearing PPP argument for many years. At some point it was true, for sure, but does still so many people play online games through dial-up connection ? IMHO most gamers these days have ADSL/cable. I’m not sure - does TCP header compression also apply to ADSL/HDSL/etc ?
Simple question… how small do you want to make your market?
Broadband is still in the minority for home users. We tech-heads tend to forget that because we represent a large part of thge existing broadband market. And even in broadband, many providers are using PPPoE.
I live in Poland, which is certainly not very advanced technically. Looking at my friends which have computers, 2 of them use dial up, 2-3 does not use net at all from home and rest (at least 10) have broadband. By broadband, I do not mean it is really broad - in many cases it is per-flat internal ethernet which is later connected through ADSL/radio to provider.
Of course, this data means nothing statistically, but it is enough for me to ask question if modem-centric world is still true. Are there any recent tests about it ? Remember that we are talking about gaming community, not generic housewife-with-aol.
I’m sure that significant percentage of gamers still use modems. But question is, if this ‘significant’ is 20%, 50% or 80% at this moment?
Remember, that by using UDP, we are not putting modem users away - just taking a bit more of their bandwidth, which, while limited, is still large enough to play most UDP-based games.
I should qualify that I was talking about the US market, where it is DEFINITELY still true that Boradband is a minority and a luxury.
(I pay $55 a month for my cable modem. Many people can’t afford to plunk down an extra $600+ a year just to get faster net access.)
Every country will be different. But at least for US developers and destributors North America is the primary market target. Japan is the first foreign target. Europe is a lagging third.
Do most people live in areas of the US where broadband costs $600 per year??
[quote]Do most people live in areas of the US where broadband costs $600 per year??
[/quote]
It’s pretty common in the US for broadband to be anywhere from $40-$60 for basic service. I’ve had three different ADSL providers so far and while the cost is dropping (some) so are the data rates. I started with 1.5M/768K and slowly dropped down to 512K/368K every time I moved. Oh, and PPPoE sucks. Not to mention that the SBC managers apparently have no qualms about lying through their teeth about it. “Oh no, sir! We don’t use PPPoE!”
Broadband is available to approx 80% of Canadians. Most of those without access are living in small towns and villages. There’s a federal government program to push broadband access out to every rural and northern community.
(Edit: I should also add that I’m paying $37.95 CAD, which works out to about $28.20 USD.)
[quote]Broadband is available to approx 80% of Canadians. Most of those without access are living in small towns and villages. There’s a federal government program to push broadband access out to every rural and northern community.
(Edit: I should also add that I’m paying $37.95 CAD, which works out to about $28.20 USD.)
[/quote]
Wow! Does the government subsidize it?
[quote]Broadband is available to approx 80% of Canadians. Most of those without access are living in small towns and villages. There’s a federal government program to push broadband access out to every rural and northern community.
(Edit: I should also add that I’m paying $37.95 CAD, which works out to about $28.20 USD.)
[/quote]
The Joys of Socialism. In general the more socialist the country the faster infra-strcuture changes like moving to broadband will happen.
And actually my cable modem went UP this year from $45/mo to $55/mo. (Frickin Comcast, but thats a long story.)
JK
The government isn’t subsidizing my montly bill. As for the fairly large difference between my bill and the average bill in the US … I’ll leave that conjecture to others.
The push to get broadband out to small rural and northern sites is partially subsidized, I believe up to half the cost. See http://broadband.gc.ca for details.
Well, I’m in a very un-techie location in south-central-eastern US, and I’m paying $44/mo for a pretty damn fast cable connection, which is less than the cost of a phone line and dialup access (runs about $20/mo in these parts for dialup and $32/mo per phone line). Where are you getting this $600 figure from Jeff?
JavaBear, who is your service provider?
I’m paying $45 Canadian for ADSL… (which incidently uses PPPOE, does this effect the header compression stuff?)
The average price that I know of in Ontario is $39.95 to $44.95 Candian per month for ADSL or Cable… around $30 US.
I’m not sure of the 80% quoted above, but most people I know (geeks) have broadband… so I wouldn’t be suprized if it is acccurate.
[quote]JavaBear, who is your service provider?
I’m paying $45 Canadian for ADSL… (which incidently uses PPPOE, does this effect the header compression stuff?)
The average price that I know of in Ontario is $39.95 to $44.95 Candian per month for ADSL or Cable… around $30 US.
I’m not sure of the 80% quoted above, but most people I know (geeks) have broadband… so I wouldn’t be suprized if it is acccurate.
[/quote]
My provider is Shaw Cable. I’m not sure how far their reach extends outside of Alberta.
I’m pretty happy with my cable access, but I have considered going with Telus and ADSL. They have a promotion on now offering 1 years service for $24.95 CAD per month (about $18.51 USD for comparison’s sake). After that, its $34.95 CAD per month. But the main reason I’m considering the switch is the fact that they encourage their customers to set up servers at home (HTTP, etc), while Shaw forbids it.
Unfortunately, a good amount of DSL is controlled by SBC. And for the first few months, they only charge $30 or so, but then they start charging the full price, which comes to about $600/year. And AT&T recently switched all their consumer DSL customers to SBC (at least in the Los Angeles area).
[quote] (which incidently uses PPPOE, does this effect the header compression stuff?)
[/quote]
I don’t think it affects compression at all. What it does is add unnecessary overhead to every packet. From your side, your router wraps the packet in a PPPoE packet, send it to the other side, the other side unwraps it, then sends it. Here are some of the fine points of what this means:
- Greater transmission latency
- Slower upload/download rates due to wasted bandwidth
- More difficult setup for the end user
- Pushes the MTU higher than is routable thus requiring you to reduce the MTU in order to use the connection. This again reduces performance.
All in all, I hate PPPoE. It has all kinds of problems and no advantages. I really don’t understand why SBC insists on using it.
[quote]Well, I’m in a very un-techie location in south-central-eastern US, and I’m paying $44/mo for a pretty damn fast cable connection, which is less than the cost of a phone line and dialup access (runs about $20/mo in these parts for dialup and $32/mo per phone line). Where are you getting this $600 figure from Jeff?
[/quote]
Well, to start with… 12 * 44 = $528 so you’re pretty close, and you have a good deal.
My cable modem started at $45/mo (12 * 45 = $540) and Comcast just hiked it to $55/mo (12 * 55 = $660). My wife’s SBC DSL is $50/mo I believe (we have a second house in Capitola shes using right now) (12 *50 = $600). So all in all $600/yr seems about average FWIK.
Assuming PPPoE is still PPP protocol (which I assume it is) it actually saves you bandwidth on TCP/IP headers across that link. Its smart enough to move the static header data across the PPP link once and then just use a tag to tell it that future packets are going the same place.
This is why over PPP TCP/IP header costs drop to 8 bytes/packet as opposed to the 30 for UDP.
AIUI the big advantage for them is that its easy to control/administer. (Why its easier then DHCP though I don’t know.)
:o damn you and your math. :-[
;D
For many providers, PPPoE primarily provides authentication without being tied to the consumer’s MAC address. I have had a BB provider who did the “tied to MAC address” and it meant replacing a broken/faulty modem was a complete nightmare.
Most ISP’s are accustomed to using PPP for their millions of existing customers, and have billing systems and staff expertise that work OK with PPP. I’m sure to many of them that PPPoE is a convenient upgrade path at relatively low cost.
AFAICS, PPPoE is actually rather good at making the billing process easy. IP billing is notoriously tricky as an alternative.
It seems to me there is no header compression, but I could well be wrong. Since PPPoE is primarily about billing and ISP’s, there’s little reason why header compression would be included (the ISP doesn’t gain anything out of it!). I can’t seem to find is any mention of whether PPPoE does header compression of IP packets…but then, I didn’t look too deeply, and I’ve never worked with anyone who’d developed with PPPoE. Note, in the last source below: “PPPoE adds another six bytes of overhead, and the PPP protocol field consumes two bytes”.
Have a look at RFC 2516 for more info, or …
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/794/pppoe_arch.html
quote:
Some key advantages of PPPoE and how they differ from PPPoA include:
[]
Per session authentication based on Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) or Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP). This is the greatest advantage of PPPoE as authentication overcomes the security hole in a bridging architecture.
[]Per session accounting is possible, which allows the service provider to charge the subscriber based on session time for various services offered. The service provider may also require a minimal access charge.
[]PPPoE can be used on existing CPE installations that cannot be upgraded to PPP or that do not have the ability to run PPPoA, extending the PPP session over the bridged Ethernet LAN to the PC.
[] PPPoE preserves the point-to-point session used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the current dialup model. PPPoE is the only protocol capable of running point-to-point over Ethernet without requiring an intermediate IP stack.
[] The Network Access Provider (NAP) or Network Service Provider (NSP) can provide secure access to a corporate gateway without managing end-to-end permanent virtual circuits (PVCs) and making use of Layer 3 routing and/or Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) tunnels. This makes the business model of selling wholesale services and virtual private networks (VPNs) scalable.
[] PPPoE can provide a host (PC) access to multiple destinations at a given time. There can be multiple PPPoE sessions per PVC.
[] The NSP can oversubscribe by deploying idle and session time-outs using an industry standard Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) server for each subscriber.
[] PPP can be used with the service selection gateway (SSG) feature.
[/quote]
http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/als2000/full_papers/skoll/skoll_html/
quote:
PPPoE has many advantages for DSL service providers, and practically none for DSL consumers.
[*] Because PPPoE sessions are really just PPP sessions, IP addresses can be very dynamic. There is no possibility to hold on to a fixed IP addresses by renewing a DHCP lease frequently. Service providers can ensure that your assigned IP address is changed each time you connect.
[*] Because PPPoE creates the concept of a ``session'' over Ethernet, service providers can charge based on connect time. This allows them to discourage permanent connections and over-subscribe their IP address pool.
[*] Because PPP sessions almost always require authentication, DSL service providers can bill the correct client regardless of where he connects from (as dial-up ISP's can now.)
In theory, PPPoE offers the following advantages to end users. In practice, these advantages are either negligible or not implemented by the service provider.
[list]
[] PPPoE can encapsulate non-IP protocols. Any protocol which can be encapsulated by PPP can be sent via PPPoE.
[] Service providers can enter into agreements with large organizations to authenticate users and provide dedicated sessions behind the organizations’ firewall (for employees who need remote access, for example.)
No ISP that I’m aware of supports non-IP protocols over PPPoE, and access through a firewall is better achieved with SSH or IPSec.
[/quote]
Well FWIW I know that analog PPP does header compression. It was important to us back at TEN.
Since PPPoE == PPP over Ethernet I’m assuming that the packet protocol is identical.
I could be wrong but I wonder what the value would be in changing it.
JK