I'm feeling very discouraged about the state of the internet today.
- Everyone's doing cloud this or phone that. They don't control their data or communications.
- My ISP's policies apparently forbid "servers", whatever that means. Could fly under the radar, but might get disco'd from the net at any time. (They already block inbound 80.)
- I'm not even sure how many people would bother using servers I host. Some of my techy friends, but not the everyday crowd. And this limits *my* options too.
I just poked around the site of the cool point-to-point radio ISP in the area and *they* apparently forbid servers as well. I did send them an inquiry as to how that jibes with their claim that they don't block any specific applications; how can you say you don't block specific stuff if you're blocking a whole class of specific things?
(I did make the case that that policy is particularly bad for their target market.)
@varx so in their defense ISPs often forbid servers by policy because most residential internet distribution technologies (ADSL, DOCSIS, PON FTTP, etc.) both heavily oversubscribe as well as prioritize downstream over upstream. Small servers are usually ok, but anything that could be considered production runs the risk of causing congestion for other clients.
@packetcharmer Yeah, I totally support the use of caps and other fair service technologies! It's not how they phrase their policies, though.
Some of it is probably them trying to make sure they can get small businesses to go with their Business Service Plans, which have static IP and servers permitted, in the case of RCN.
@varx I’ve seen some business plans also ban hosting servers (I know Comcast does this) mostly because of the upstream limits of DOCSIS
@packetcharmer It occurs to me it's also possible these policies were in place well before video chat was a big thing.
@varx so the technologies have improved somewhat, but incumbent ISPs seem to want to do the bare minimum to upgrade their networks (which I think is their biggest sin)
@packetcharmer Whoa, that stinks! Also doesn't quite make sense—I have a hard time imagining a small business' website outweighing video chat on the upload side, especially 'cause the latter is burstier.