U.S. pandemic options include crippling home modems

[Are_grits_groceries]

The U.S. has a dark box of options for keeping Internet traffic flowing during a pandemic, including restricting the bandwidth capability of home modems.

The feds have already shown their willingness to impose their power on carriers because of national security, something that happened after 9/11 with the Patriot Act. If a pandemic keeps large numbers of the workforce at home and causes network congestion, the U.S. government will likely act again.

Most businesses and government agencies have diverse routing and pay carriers handsomely for bandwidth rich connections. But if a pandemic keeps 30% or more of the population at home, the so-called low bandwidth "last mile" to homes will be critical but in trouble as legions of at-home employees attempt work along with those playing networked games and streaming video.

<snip>
One "technically feasible alternative," wrote the GAO, is to temporarily cripple home user modems:

Although providers cannot identify users at the computer level to manage traffic from that point, two providers stated that if the residential Internet access network in a particular neighborhood was experiencing congestion, a provider could attempt to reduce congestion by reducing the amount of traffic that each user could send to and receive from his or her network. Such a reduction would require adjusting the configuration file within each customer's modem to temporarily reduce the maximum transmission speed that that modem was capable of performing-for example, by reducing its incoming capability from 7 Mbps to 1 Mbps.

That action would violate service level of agreement and likely require a government directive, according to the GAO
<snip>
Another option would be shut down those Internet sites that account for most the traffic volume, or ask the carriers to block access to those sites, which may be similar to what China does now and what Iran tried to do.

Shutting down such sites without affecting pertinent information would be a challenge for providers and could create more Internet congestion as users would repeatedly try to access these sites.

This issue will weigh on policy makers and they may take a lesson from Katrina. If the U.S. waits too long to prepare with either voluntary or involuntary actions, then it may be responding well after the traffic torrent has interrupted critical services.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/15011/u_s_pandemic_options_include_crippling_home_modems

Oy!

[Statistical]

1. One point of the article is wrong, most account (residential) have no service level agreement.

Most non commercial ISP specifically exclude a service level agreement either expressed or implied. When you buy a 5mbps connection it is nothing more than an "up to 5mbps" you are neither guaranteed 5mbps nor do you have any recourse if you don't receive it.

So this would make any throttling system easier to implement for non-commercial accounts.

Now commercial accounts routinely have SLA that specifically set minimum bandwidth, max latency and downtime.

[Robb]

2. Yep. More likely a government directive would be needed

...so commercial accounts wouldn't be able to sue the ISP for down time.

[TheMadMonk]

3. Who is noticing this little frightening gem?

"Such a reduction would require adjusting the configuration file within each customer's modem to temporarily reduce the maximum transmission speed that that modem was capable of performing-for example, by reducing its incoming capability from 7 Mbps to 1 Mbps."

I've read more than one article which tells of ISP supplied modems coming with a number of times saving (for tech support) "features". Remote hard reset to factory defaults (including passwords) and built in backdoors to allow remote modification of the configuration being two of the nastiest.

The above quote would suggest that the practice is pretty much standard, right across the industry. So not only do ISPs supply as standard, MODEMs with insecure default configurations, but also a hidden backdoor which is difficult or impossible to close without detailed technical knowledge, and which is only as secure as their tech support's fault resolution script.

[Statistical]

4. They aren't hidden.

DOCSIS is an international standard.

Part of the initialization script is the modem pulls down configuration settings from the headend. It is how DOCSIS works.

So when you turn on your modem the modem contacts headend finds out what frequency it should operate, supplies the MAC address of the modem. The ISP looks up your account and supplies the correct configuration script (aka 5mbps down 1 mbps up).

I think you are confusing a MODEM with a ROUTER. Stay away from single box units that have MODEM & ROUTER combined.