On a recent JetBlue flight I wondered how much of the precious satellite bandwidth was being wasted by devices engaged in automatic tasks, e.g., uploading recently taken photos, downloading updates to software that could certainly wait for another few hours, etc.
Why not have a standard interface to connect a device to “limited WiFi”? When on a WiFi networked marked “limited,” a phone would use the same settings as for mobile data. Operating systems such as Windows and Unix (including MacOS), would need to be augmented to recognize that, for example, the next huge update to Windows 10 can wait.
It is true that the operator of a limited network can block services one by one. But what if the operator is you? Suppose that you hook up your laptop to a phone tether and discover that the laptop has downloaded a multi-gigabyte update to Windows 10?
This idea can’t be new. Why don’t we have it already, at least for the phone tether situation?
Even Ubuntu (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/command-not-found/+bug/1055766) doesn’t download updates automatically.
The problem is Windows 10.
For the tether situation, perhaps the phone should allow easier monitoring of data usage… oh wait, the phone companies have no incentive to make this happen!
Windows already does this: check out http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/metered-internet-connections-frequently-asked-questions. It’s to your advantage to mark your in-flight wifi connection as metered so that Windows won’t use it for updates etc; Gogo will throttle your connection if they feel like you’re being greedy. See http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/metered-internet-connections-frequently-asked-questions
It’s possible to set up personal limits in iOS.
But then you’ll have to abandon claiming that Windows/Android are just as good.
There is a standard called ANQP, Access Network Query Protocol, that allows the wifi access point to let the client know about access restrictions / bandwidth capability / roaming and user access requirements.
The thinking being that the client can make better decisions on what networks to connect to given a choice, and you could be automatically switched from cellular to wifi if your carrier has a roaming agreement and the wifi network meets certain requirements.
It is built into IOS 7+ and recent Android builds, not sure about Windows though. You’ll see this advertised as Hotspot 2.0 or Passpoint from the carriers.
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Makes sense.
Some of what you are looking for might be satisfied by being able to identify a WiFi SSID as your “home” network and then adding an option to do “heavy” transfers only on your home network.
Android does this, you can mark wifi networks as metered under data usage. This will restrict some network traffic, though I believe the application needs to be aware of metered connections and restrict what they do. Photos for example can be set to only upload on unmetered connections. I use this when my tablet is tethered to my phone via wifi so it doesn’t start downloading app updates automatically.
I want my OS to limit app resources in all sorts of ways — limit memory, disc space, access, internet bandwidth, etc. I sometimes find that an open web page is doing a huge amount of video caching that sucks all my bandwidth.
I am not sure that any of these mechanisms (except for ANQP) are what I was suggesting. On an Airbus packed with 180 people, how many would know about these settings or bother to adjust them? I am suggesting something automatic and resulting from negotiations between the wifi base station and the various devices.
A quick read of the ANQP spec makes it sound like it will fill the bill. It’s implemented in Windows 10; I don’t know about OS X, Linux, or Android. The existing Win8+ “metered network” system requires apps either to query the connection (as Outlook does) or use BITS (which queries for you) so it’s not quite as automatic as ANQP would be.
Does anyone in the chain have an incentive to limit data usage aside from you? In the tether situation, you’re the one paying for it. In the plane situation, the airline likely has a fixed pipe size and little incentive to improve quality of service – you’ve already paid the fixed price up-front cost.
https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=anqp%2C%20netflix&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B5
The fact that you want this to be automatic and taken care of for you is ironic. That’s the same desire that leads to all these background processes running away with data usage in the first place.
In the grand scheme of things, isn’t this the sort of thing that the concept of QoS was supposed to be able to solve?
(this presumes that someone, either at the application level, would be tagging background updates and syncs as a low QoS, and/or that a network switch on the aircraft would be looking at traffic and/or QoS settings and prioritizing things. None of which is true or likely to become true anytime soon in any meaningful way to solve this problem).