Here’s why the fast internet you pay for is sometimes slow as hell
What’s with your jumpy, laggy Netflix stream?
What do we really need from broadband?
So what do we need from our broadband for a good streaming, gaming or conferencing experience? A connection that offers low and relatively constantlatency(the time taken to move data packets from the server to your house) andloss(the proportion of data packets that are lost in transit).
These factors in turn depend on how well your internet service provider (ISP) has engineered and tuned its network.
To reduce latency, your ISP can deploy local caches that store a copy of the videos you want to watch, and local game servers to host your favourite e-sport titles, thereby reducing the need for long-haul transport. They can also provide good routing paths to servers, thereby avoiding poor-quality or congested links.
To manage loss, ISPs “shape” their traffic by temporarily holding packets in buffers to smooth out transient load spikes. But there’s a natural trade-off here: too much smoothing holds packets back, leading to latency spikes that cause missed gunshots in games and stutters in conferences. Too little smoothing, on the other hand, causes buffers to overflow and packets to be lost, which puts the brakes on downloads.
ISPs therefore have to tune their network to balance performance across the various applications. But with the ACCC’sMeasuring Broadband Australia (MBA) Programpredominantly focused on speed-testing, and with a 1% margin separating the top three ISPs all keen to claim the top spot, we are inadvertently incentivizing ISPs to optimize their network for speed, rather than for other factors.
This is a detrimental outcome for users, because we don’t really have quite the need for speed we think we do.
How can we do better?
An alternative approach is possible. With advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it is now becoming possible to analyse network traffic streams to assess users’ experience in an application-aware manner.
For example, AI engines trained on the pattern of video “chunk” fetches ofon-demand streamssuch as Netflix, andlive streamssuch as Twitch, can infer whether they are playing at the best available resolution and without freeze.
Similarly, AI engines cananalyze trafficthroughout the various stages of games such asCounter Strike,Call of DutyorDota2to track issues such as lag spikes. And they can detect videoconferencing stutters and dropouts by analyzing traffic on Zoom, Teams, and other platforms.
Australia has made significant public investment into a national broadband infrastructure that is now well equipped to provide more-than-adequate speed to citizens, as long as it runs as efficiently as possible.
This article byVijay Sivaraman, Professor of Telecommunications and Internet Technologies,UNSW, is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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