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Quality of Service Is the Only Metric When Internet users complain that they don't have enough bandwidth, adding bandwidth may not be the solution. By Leon Hubby ■ Te Mesh Networks I nternet service providers, rushing to ensure that their networks can meet the ever-increasing need for band- width, are struggling to keep up with the bandwidth curve. Tey create and tweak networks to optimize the transport of video, audio and streaming content. Tey work diligently to ensure that abusers, or "bandwidth hogs," don't negatively af- fect their networks. Tey use bandwidth shaping techniques, deep packet inspec- tion and pure brute force to ensure they can deliver bandwidth to clients. Tese efforts are generally effective, but they tend to offer near-term solu- tions and ignore the one metric that matters most in the long term and that best correlates with customer satisfac- tion: quality of service, also known as QoS. (In this context, high QoS refers to stable, reliable Internet service that has no noticeable slowdowns, packet loss or errors.) A different approach can help man- age networks to ensure optimum band- width delivery and, by its very nature, also ensure that customers receive the highest level of QoS possible on any given network. ALIENATING GOOD CUSTOMERS Every provider on the planet struggles to provide bandwidth to clients while staying on guard for network abusers. In some cases, this effort includes em- ploying usage caps to limit the damage abusers can do. Usage caps, however, pose the risk of alienating loyal, average customers with sticker shock when they occasionally go over limit. Alienating good customers is an un- intended consequence encountered in Simply staying ahead of the bandwidth curve does nothing to ensure quality of service. pursuit of a good solution to a problem. Te Internet has been a tremendous benefit to society, business and enter- tainment, but, like all good things, it carries some bad things along with it. In this case, the bad thing is the bandwidth hog – an end user who consumes much more bandwidth (that is, moves much more data) than the average user. An end user who, on a consistent, day- to-day basis, moves more than three or four times the volume of data that an average user moves can be described as a bandwidth hog. Tis benchmark is not as arbitrary as it seems. A bandwidth hog's actions affect other users on a net- work in the form of low QoS. Any good solution must be able to differentiate good customers from bandwidth hogs and must protect good customers' QoS. THE CONVENTIONAL SOLUTION A conventional approach focuses on the issue of not having enough bandwidth to go around. "Trowing bandwidth at the problem" quickly leads to diminish- ing returns and does not directly address About the Author Leon Hubby is the CEO, president and co-founder of Te Mesh Networks LLC and an engineer with experience in the telecom and semiconductor industries. For more information, visit www.themeshnetworks.com. 32 | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | OCTOBER 2012 the real problem – low QoS. Simply staying ahead of the bandwidth curve ensures only that the network has suf- ficient bandwidth; it does nothing to en- sure high QoS for the majority of aver- age users. It is a stopgap solution at best. In fact, increasing bandwidth capac- ity leads to increased use as customers find that their QoS has increased and they can effectively use the Internet. Because bandwidth hogs respond in the same way as average customers, they again begin to use bandwidth dispro- portionately and adversely affect the QoS of the average users. AN UNCONVENTIONAL SOLUTION If using standard, conventional tech- niques to manage and shape bandwidth is effectively a circular, stopgap solution, what is the correct solution? Tat is a good question, and the answer can be found by focusing on the real problem – not on bandwidth availability but on the level of QoS for the average user. Focusing on bandwidth plays right into the wants and desires of bandwidth