Kuwait ISPs Capping Bandwidth

Updated1: Tuesday 7th, 8:44 PM

Update2: Wednesday 8th, 8:17 PM

ISPs in Kuwait have decided to gang up on residential consumers rather than step up to the Ministry of Communication's abuse. After all, it's easier (and cheaper) for multi-million companies to bully users rather than file a lawsuit against a ministry.

ISPs have setup what they call Fair Usage Policy, where they claim they have generously defined daily bandwidth cap/limits on users, to ensure that everyone has a pleasant experience. They have enforced this policy, WITHOUT NOTIFYING USERS!

Fair Usage Policies: QualityNet, KEMS, FastTelco and GulfNet. As you can see, some have blatantly put up the caps and others are doing it subtly without mentioning what the caps are.

According to them, "some" bandwidth abusers are the cause of this, as such, everyone must suffer!
It is not enough that they have increased their prices by at least 70% this year (February 2011), the increment was approved by the Ministry of Communications, and now the ministry is saying it'll fight the price increments!!! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE FOOLING?

In addition to the high prices and bad service, consumers were never compensated during the days of degraded service when there were regional cable cuts, which lasted for about 3 weeks.

If ISPs are saying that a few abusers have caused this, then why provide them with bandwidth if the ISPs can't handle it? Don't provide 24Mbps if you don't expect users to download at 24Mbps!!!

Speed (Mbps)	Max Downloadable/Day (GigaBytes)	New Cap Limit/Day (GigaBytes)
1	10.54	1.7
1.5	15.82	1.9
2	21.1	2.9
3	31.64	3.8
4	42	4.7
5	52.73	5.4
6	63.3	6
7	73.83	6.8
8	84.4	7.9

The formula is: Daily maximum downloadable content = (Speed in Mbps/(8*1024))*3600*24

As you can see, we're getting barely 15% of what we paid for! And that's FAIR! Take a look at this nice table for more info.

Consumers are enraged and are forming an alliance to file lawsuits against the ISPs to fight for their rights. It doesn't matter if the contract mentioned Fair Usage or not, it doesn't matter if the contracts says it can be updated without prior notice or not, you cannot rip us off like that.

We have games to play online, buy & download games online (via Steam), rent movies online (iTunes, YouTube, NetFlix and Hulu) and watch many kitty-infused videos on youtube, in HIGH DEFINITION.

ISPs do NOT get the right to define what the Internet is.

Update1: We're using the hash tag #q8cap on Twitter to rant and disclose information about the topic.

Update2: @justjimmar provided a chat log with KEMS on Facebook. Ridiculous reasons for the cap! (original link to chat log)

Ubuntu Mirror By QualityNet

The awesome guys 3baid, Bojacob and N. at QualityNet have done a great deal and created a mirror for Ubuntu.

I've been using it for the past few days and let me tell you, no more crappy bandwidth!!! Click the mirror link for details on how to add it.

Currently the mirror is an official mirror but not yet a mirror for Kuwait. They're working on that.

Kudos to you guys for the great work.

P.S.: The names are in alphabetical order.

A Request to ISPs: Consider The Users when Going Fiber

Since Kuwait is moving to the Fiber connectivity infrastructure (hopefully within 2 years...), I wish that local ISPs can do the following:

When users subscribe for an Internet connection, the ISP would provide a standard link capacity of 5-10Mbps, but cap the Internet bandwidth to the subscribed value.

This would allow us, users, to reach local websites quite fast (newspapers, stock market, online banking, e-government) and would also allow us to form online games locally in Kuwait and enjoy the low lag & fast connectivity.

Heck, we can help ISPs reduce the total Internet bandwidth coming from the Internet by running local torrent trackers and serve the weekly common things like TV shows' episodes, anime and whatnot.

QualityNet DNS Servers

We've had an semi-full outage of Internet in the company. After some investigation it turned out to be that QualityNet is having problems with their DNS servers along with some routing issues.

They have advised us to change the DNS servers to new ones.

Old DNS Servers:
195.226.224.72
195.226.224.74

New DNS Servers:
195.226.228.72
195.226.228.74

These changes are permanent.

Mesh Networks and Traffic Jams: A Double-Edged Solution

Intro
Being stuck in traffic jam is horrible. Being stuck in traffic jam with only a radio & nothing to listen to but rap music, is terrifying!

What if you could see traffic flow in real-time, before you leave and while driving? Sounds great, right? But what if you could see traffic flow AND be able to surf the Internet using the same inexpensive solution? THAT'S FREAKIN' AWESOME!

Background
Let's get realistic: In the United States, it's possible to get traffic reports using GPS units. This is done by attaching an antenna to receive radio transmissions from the respective service provider (either for free or by subscription).

This solution has been debated to not provide information security, as the FM radio transmissions can be spoofed and forged, producing false reports. There's also the monthly fee you have to pay to the service provider.

Proposed Solution
What I propose here, is creating a distributed mesh network, which can be tracked in real-time and provides Internet access at the same time. Each node is a mini-router that is configured to search for similar nodes of the same network, forming a bond and a redundant, anonymous, decentralized network.

Real-Life Application
Deploy a mini-router from Open-Mesh.com in each car and let it be pre-configured to join a network of the name "adrenalin" -- And let there be edge nodes (houses/flats/shops) with also a mini-router, but connected to the Internet.

Assume you're driving on an empty road and no one is in sight. Your router will not be able to connect with any node since none exist, and thus your path is free and there exist no traffic jam! (And unfortunately no Internet :( )

If you're driving in the city, there will be both cars and edge-nodes, hence your router will connect to one of these and you'll be able to see a topology representing the scatter of cars around, and you can determine congested routes and steer away from it, while at the same time, you gain the ability to access the Internet, thanks to the edge-nodes.

And guess what, the more jammed the traffic is, the more bandwidth is available for you to surf the Internet!

Open-Mesh.com provides a web-interface to see and manage all these nodes, and there exist projects to further enhance the application of these networks.
Go to the Network Status page and enter the Network Name as "test" (without double quotes). Leave the password field empty, and click sign in.

All mobile nodes (cars) are anonymous, and the edge-nodes can choose to be anonymous as well, protecting the privacy of people.

Solution Feasibility: Technicalities
* Each router has 2 interfaces: A public one and a private one. This means while your router is hooked to other routers, you connect to your own only, using a laptop or a PDA. The router has built-in firewall and encryption.

* The router runs on 5 volts only, and any car battery can handle it easily.

* If you have a computer in your car (carputer), you can hook it through LAN.

* The antenna is detachable, so it's easy to upgrade or relocate it.

Solution Feasibility: Mass Deployment
Let's assume this is a government sponsored project. When buying a new car, the person pays a subsidized sum to implement the mini-router along with the license plate fees.

According to open-mesh.com, a pack of 20 routers cost $799; that's $39.95 per mini-router (almost 11KD). The government could sell it for 4KD, and 1KD fee for the license plate, so the total is 5KD!

Local ISPs can join the party by offering free edge-nodes that allow Internet access. They make profit by displaying advertisements in a frame at top of the page. The profit made can be split with the government, to make up for the cost of the devices.

Youtube not reachable, temporarily

Youtube stopped opening around 23:19, February 24^th.

At first I thought QualityNet has blocked Youtube, but they have no reason to. Further investigation showed that we got affected due to Pakistan blocking Youtube, and since we go through Pakistan, we got blocked as well.

Here's a traceroute of whole thing from QualityNet:

mj@mj-evil-station:~$ traceroute youtube.com
traceroute: Warning: youtube.com has multiple addresses; using 208.65.153.238
traceroute to youtube.com (208.65.153.238), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  dsldevice.lan (192.168.1.254)  81.140 ms  89.402 ms  100.769 ms
 2  62.150.109.1 (62.150.109.1)  199.651 ms  206.459 ms  261.711 ms
 3  rb02-internet.qualitynet.net (62.150.93.233)  371.742 ms  317.482 ms  353.407 ms
 4  jun-skb.qualitynet.net (62.150.200.5)  320.456 ms  225.162 ms  248.510 ms
 5  195.229.27.29 (195.229.27.29)  188.310 ms  298.991 ms  432.766 ms
 6  auh-emix-rb.emix.net.ae (195.229.31.3)  469.257 ms  299.604 ms  362.735 ms
 7  dxb-r2-ether-1-0-0.emix.net.ae (195.229.0.98)  406.317 ms 195.229.0.126 (195.229.0.126)  196.553 ms dxb-r2-ether-1-0-0.emix.net.ae (195.229.0.98)  269.163 ms
 8  195.229.0.181 (195.229.0.181)  355.469 ms  225.016 ms  226.647 ms
 9  pos2-0.ar01.hkg04.pccwbtn.net (63.218.61.137)  582.209 ms  514.871 ms pos2-1
.ar01.hkg04.pccwbtn.net (63.218.61.141)  550.151 ms
10  pos1-0.cr02.hkg04.pccwbtn.net (63.218.114.66)  392.507 ms  417.320 ms  373.513 ms
11  * * *
12  * * *
13  * * *
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  * * *
17  * * *
18  * * *
19  * * *
20  * * *
21  * * *
22  * * *
23  * * *
24  * * *
25  youtube.com.hk (208.65.153.238)  520.823 ms  418.294 ms  431.483 ms

mj@mj-evil-station:~$ traceroute 208.65.153.238
traceroute to 208.65.153.238 (208.65.153.238), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  dsldevice.lan (192.168.1.254)  45.403 ms  95.449 ms  99.379 ms
 2  62.150.109.1 (62.150.109.1)  179.348 ms  368.496 ms  342.110 ms
 3  rb02-internet.qualitynet.net (62.150.93.233)  369.112 ms  348.417 ms  253.605 ms
 4  jun-skb.qualitynet.net (62.150.200.5)  163.947 ms  367.323 ms  245.216 ms
 5  if-8-4.bb1.RSD-Riyad.teleglobe.net (66.198.126.45)  155.793 ms  41.123 ms  42.489 ms
 6  if-6-0.bb1.JSD-Jeddah.teleglobe.net (195.219.153.25)  48.791 ms  50.982 ms  103.248 ms
 7  if-11-0.mcore3.NJY-Newark.teleglobe.net (216.6.57.49)  430.598 ms  528.746 ms  583.103 ms
 8  if-2-0.core1.NTO-NewYork.teleglobe.net (216.6.57.66)  448.712 ms  545.164 ms 423.040 ms
 9  14.icore1.NTO-NewYork.teleglobe.net (216.6.82.2)  377.902 ms  403.390 ms  472.671 ms
10  209.58.26.30 (209.58.26.30)  575.457 ms  331.368 ms  379.346 ms
11  YOUTUBE-LLC.po1.401.ar2.SJC2.gblx.net (64.212.108.162)  645.748 ms  437.855 ms  420.526 ms
12  youtube.com.hk (208.65.153.238)  697.133 ms  447.682 ms  590.483 ms

From the above, you can see that the first attempt had a lot of unreachable hops, but they passed through the second time. This happened because I was attempting traceroute the first time while the routes to youtube were being cut/changed. The time between the 2 attempts was less than 10 minutes.

While writing this post, youtube seemed to work again. Some say it's not loading fully or some functions are not working.

Just checked from a FastTelco user, who was unable to view youtube at all. Here's a traceroute:

Tracing route to youtube.com [208.65.153.251]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2   724 ms   724 ms   716 ms  89.203.7.254
  3   670 ms   682 ms   786 ms  tec-core-so32.fasttelco.net [62.215.0.94]
  4   696 ms   752 ms   971 ms  62.215.0.57
  5   997 ms   748 ms   422 ms  78.159.161.9
  6   463 ms   192 ms   125 ms  195.229.29.133
  7   143 ms    73 ms   132 ms  dxb-emix-ra.ge1302.emix.ae [195.229.31.67]
  8   117 ms   100 ms    77 ms  195.229.0.181
  9   245 ms   246 ms   386 ms  t2a6-p5-3.uk-lon2.eu.bt.net [166.49.160.161]
 10   281 ms   267 ms   250 ms  t2c1-ge7-0.uk-lon2.eu.bt.net [166.49.176.43]
 11   374 ms   321 ms   249 ms  t2c1-p3-0.uk-glo.eu.bt.net [166.49.208.98]
 12   250 ms   250 ms   244 ms  t2c1-p9-1.uk-eal.eu.bt.net [166.49.208.125]
 13   275 ms   271 ms   265 ms  t2c1-p5-0-0.us-ash.eu.bt.net [166.49.164.65]
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *      292 ms   260 ms  10.33.112.70
 16   300 ms   272 ms   317 ms  10.33.254.141
 17   379 ms   399 ms   378 ms  10.33.254.117
 18   503 ms   388 ms   510 ms  10.33.176.114
 19   383 ms   337 ms   330 ms  youtube.com.hk [208.65.153.251]

More details on the ban from ZDNet.

GMail Acting Up

A couple of friends have told me that when they sign in to their gmail account, they get other people's inbox! Hitting refresh, shows yet another inbox.

The good news is that whenever clicking on an email message, or a label, or a directory, the session expires and you get logged off.

The bad news is that people can see emails in your inbox and can see the emails of those who sent you the emails.

I searched around and so far, no one has reported this!

K.The Kuwaiti had reported this issue here.

The problem seems to be facing those using FastTelco ISP connection, both home & businesses. Seems like they're using transparent proxies & caching data.
I confirmed it with those who told me about these symptoms, and they were using FT connections.

As for the post at 248AM blog, I don't agree with the suggestions in that post and have posted a correction.

Here's my my take at the issue:

"Tor was abused and embassy information was stolen through it. The same goes for proxies. They're simply someone else's machine.

By the way, even when an ISP is using a cache or a transparent proxy, it should NOT cache SSL (encrypted) pages. It can't. Simply because the session exists between the user (you) and the server (gmail, for example) and the cache server has nothing to see.

Try accessing GMail using this link: https://mail.google.com instead of using gmail.com -- This will work because gmail.com will only use SSL to authenticate then redirect you to your inbox using HTTP, where if you use https://mail.google.com, it will keep the SSL session and log you to your inbox with an encrypted channel.

The same applies for banking sites using SSL."

Update: Tuesday, Feb 19^th: According to those who were facing the problems, they have stopped now.