I just wanted to throw this in to the community for discussion. I operate a WISP in Spain who's client base consist of a large proportion of expats who use illegal UK IPTV services. We find ourselves having to pay for very expensive bandwidth,  that is not normally required, to keep these services running.  In a Nutshell we are funding the Pirates. The Pirates make good money on the back of our services and pay us nothing for the pleasure. Is this fair?  is there anything that can be done about it?  Should we report the Pirates? or should we just except it.  Many questions.   What are you opinions on this.   

I think there are net neutrality laws in the EU, so you are not allowed to block/prioritize certain traffic.

You could report them, but then your customers might want to find another provider...

Is it fair, maybe not for you, but it secures the rights of the consumer.

imho.

Exactly. Are they paying you for the bandwidth? If no, cut them off. If yes, give them what they are paying for to you.
You set up the price list, don't you? Therefore you cannot say that your prices are not fair to you.

Found a description of the EU rule https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-mar ... neutrality

I'm with jarda there.

Their contract should include bandwidth / traffic / volume / speed etc ... if they go over what's specified, bill them for it. If it's not specified then that's your fault for not including it.

If you base your whole business on oversubscribing your links massively and planning that your customers won't use all they're allowed to, that's just poor planning on your part.

I just wanted to throw this in to the community for discussion. I operate a WISP in Spain who's client base consist of a large proportion of expats who use illegal UK IPTV services. We find ourselves having to pay for very expensive bandwidth,  that is not normally required, to keep these services running.  In a Nutshell we are funding the Pirates. The Pirates make good money on the back of our services and pay us nothing for the pleasure. Is this fair?  is there anything that can be done about it?  Should we report the Pirates? or should we just except it.  Many questions.   What are you opinions on this.   

If you were my provider and you called me a 'pirate' just because I use the bandwidth WHICH I PAY FOR I would go to another provider in an instant! Maybe throw in a campaign to let the rest of your clients now your opinion about them.
You are an ISP. Not police. wtf?!

Second, why do you care what services they use? It's none of your business. If they downloaded linux ISOs all day what you would do? 'Report' them to the 'internet police'? Pff..

You say that you pay for the 'pirates' and they pay nothing. Unless you provide your services for free, that's just silly. Obviously they do pay you to provide them with an internet connection. If the fees you charge are not enough then increase them. If your business model is to charge low in the hopes that the majority of your clients will use a small percentage of their traffic, then that's your problem, not your clients' now isn't it?

yeah yeah yeah I get all that.  I am not saying that I cannot supply the service, we can, and we do.  Guess your all using illegal  STB's  then  lol.

Not at all.

yeah yeah yeah I get all that.  I am not saying that I cannot supply the service, we can, and we do.  Guess your all using illegal  STB's  then  lol.

It doesn't matter what your clients use.

It's NONE of your business.

Should ISP's  be taking some responsibility.  Some of the bigger players out there already do by banning certain known piracy sites, child porn sites  etc.  If its illegal and harming someone should it be allowed?  should IPS's just turn a blind eye and let it happen?

double standards I think chaos. You would stop certain activity it was harming you.

I think there are net neutrality laws in the EU, so you are not allowed to block/prioritize certain traffic.

You could report them, but then your customers might want to find another provider...

Is it fair, maybe not for you, but it secures the rights of the consumer.

imho.

Sensible answer LaRP.  interesting point I take this one on board

Should ISP's  be taking some responsibility.  Some of the bigger players out there already do by banning certain known piracy sites, child porn sites  etc.  If its illegal and harming someone should it be allowed?  should IPS's just turn a blind eye and let it happen?

It's law-court who decides what should or should not be blocked in such cases, not ISPs. ISP may be ordered to block something, but it should never be ISP's own decision.

double standards I think chaos. You would stop certain activity it was harming you.

Are you refering to your double standards?

You provide internet access but only to the services you deem moral or legal?
Do you consider your self an Internet Service Provider or an Internet Service Police?

Is it illegal in Spain for internet users to watch UK TV? Probably not.
Should you care about what your users are doing? NO. Despite the mega-corporations trying to shift that responsibility to the ISPs, you should resist. That's your moral obligation to your clients. They pay you to provide them a service. Not to police their habits.

If anyone should care about any illegal use of UK's TV services, it's the UK channels. They are being ripped off, not you.

Let me put it another way. Would you want the telephone company to monitor your calls and block them/report them if you are calling sex/hot lines just because they believe them to be immoral or illegal?
Or would you want the Postal Office to check your parcels for immoral/illegal items you may have purchased?

Privacy on these services has been established for decades. I know it's tempting to use Tools > Torch to 'spy' on your users, but as you may find immoral/illegal their activities, so are yours (at least by my country's laws and by common sense).

Should ISP's  be taking some responsibility.  Some of the bigger players out there already do by banning certain known piracy sites, child porn sites  etc.  If its illegal and harming someone should it be allowed?  should IPS's just turn a blind eye and let it happen?

It's law-court who decides what should or should not be blocked in such cases, not ISPs. ISP may be ordered to block something, but it should never be ISP's own decision.

I abolutely agree.  

You have your views Chaos, and I respect that,  but you are being a bit naive to think that your every move is not already being spied on.  As it happens the STB's are the next big target for the piracy police so I dont think it is something we will have worry about much longer.  I just wanted to know if others felt the same as I do that we appear to be funding the pirates activities.  By pirates I mean the guys peddling the service not the clients of ISP's.

Staying with chaos. Privacy and neutrality are the values that none should trade off. Once we accept the sniffing the traffic and reading the content, we like human beings are lost.

And how do you know if they are stealing? Maybe client paid for that IPTV services, and just streaming it over your network.

You have your views Chaos, and I respect that,  but you are being a bit naive to think that your every move is not already being spied on.

Indeed, my views on the subject are strong. I don't mean to offend you or anything. It's just that not everyday an ISP (even WISP) asks for our opinion on such an important matter. And my posts are just that. My humble opinion.

I understand that there is mass surveillance on an unprecedented level. That does not mean that we shouldn't fight back.
If we, that we understand how the internet works don't do anything about it who will? The sold out politicians who don't even now what an IP address is?
ISPs are in a unique position to resist this situation (and they do for the most part). End users cannot do much unfortunately, apart from using some VPN or something.

From your words I take it that you prefer an Internet owned by corporations and copyright trolls rather than an open and equal network for everyone to use.

 As it happens the STB's are the next big target for the piracy police

There is no such thing as 'piracy police'. There are private companies acting on behalf of copyright owners which more than often entrap and blackmail internet users to pay whatever fines they deem appropriate on each occasion.

so I dont think it is something we will have worry about much longer.

You are right, with ISPs that think like you, sooner or later the internet as we know it will be a thing of the past. In the future the older generations (us) will talk about it as the epitome of Democracy and freedom of speech when it was at its infancy and then the epitome of 'dictatorship' (or more likely corporation-ship) and surveillance as we weren't vigilant enough to protect it from copyright trolls and transnational corporations.
George Orwell would be terrified of what we have done! 1984 was not an instruction manual!

I just wanted to know if others felt the same as I do that we appear to be funding the pirates activities.  By pirates I mean the guys peddling the service not the clients of ISP's.

At least you don't refer to your clients as 'pirates' any more

If UK TV stations dont want their services streamed into Spain, they would block them. Implementing distribution based on location is actually trivial. Since they don't, they are OK with it.
Second, if your customers privately steam some tv programme from the UK, it's either FTA or subscribed on the UK side. So again, it could be absolutely legal.
Actually, in my view, the only in the gray zone here is the ISP sniffing traffic without a warrant from a judge.

I don't see it as a case of you funding the pirates. You're not paying the pirates any money.

You may be able to argue that the pirates are costing you money in a sense by using your service to deliver content to your customers, but that's a weak argument because your customers are already paying you for bandwidth. How they use it is not your concern insofar as it conforms to the service agreement. The legality of the content is not your concern. UPS cannot legally inspect the contents of packages, so they're not liable/culpable for shipping contraband. In fact, if the ISPs are forced to police their users, then that will result in MORE costs to the ISPs and more responsibility, and legal risk - what if your policing is found to be inadequate and you're fined for your non-compliance, or issued a shut-down order until such time as your policing is inspected and found to be compliant?

That's a pandora's box that should never be opened.

1) You sold bandwidth to your clients.
2) Your clients used the bandwidth You sold them.

And You complain? Really? What about Netflix? Would You complain too, if 80% of your subscribers paid and used this service? Maybe we should block YouTube too. You know, too much bandwidth. Come to think of it, Facebook is a data hog. Let's shut it down too.

I vote to only allow pure text email, pure text NNTP and IRC. DNS too, as I'm in a good mood.

There. Nice and clean Internet, that doesn't eat all your WISP bandwidth.

If they are paying you for the bandwidth - then they should be able to use that bandwidth any way and to anywhere they want - sustained.

However - If a customer has a maximum data limit (maximum bytes transferred in a month - similar to a cell phone data plan), then when they hit that limit - it should be OK to change extra for the overages in data usage.

However - it is never OK to limit what and where a customer may go or what they can do with the Internet - as long as the traffic is legal.

Blocking or hindering where or what somebody does - with legal traffic could result in you getting a very bad reputation and possibly a law suit.

North Idaho Tom Jones

You have your views Chaos, and I respect that,  but you are being a bit naive to think that your every move is not already being spied on.  As it happens the STB's are the next big target for the piracy police so I dont think it is something we will have worry about much longer.

The only thing you will have to worry about is that the piracy police will be sending you lots of requests for subscriber information on traffic that has been signaled as coming from your space.
So you better be prepared and be able to hand such information when requested by an authorized party.
Many pop-and-mom wireless ISPs that operate small NAT routers (such as MikroTik) do not have the accounting to be able to do that.
That could put your business in danger as appropriate carrier-grade NAT boxes that can do it are much more expensive.
One way out would be to introduce IPv6 to your network quickly.   It is stunning how little priority that has for WISPs.

If UK TV stations dont want their services streamed into Spain, they would block them.

Well they do (block them), but then there are the "pirate services" he is discussing to work around that blocking e.g. by proxying via a server located in the UK.

You have your views Chaos, and I respect that,  but you are being a bit naive to think that your every move is not already being spied on.  As it happens the STB's are the next big target for the piracy police so I dont think it is something we will have worry about much longer.

The only thing you will have to worry about is that the piracy police will be sending you lots of requests for subscriber information on traffic that has been signaled as coming from your space.
So you better be prepared and be able to hand such information when requested by an authorized party.
Many pop-and-mom wireless ISPs that operate small NAT routers (such as MikroTik) do not have the accounting to be able to do that.
That could put your business in danger as appropriate carrier-grade NAT boxes that can do it are much more expensive.
One way out would be to introduce IPv6 to your network quickly.   It is stunning how little priority that has for WISPs.

Archiving customer records may not be legal, depending on country.

Archiving customer records may not be legal, depending on country.

In some countries it is not legal, in other countries it is mandatory.
Here it is mandatory to archive the IP address that a certain customer had over each interval of time he was connected.
This is difficult to do when all your customers are behind NAT.   Solutions exist, of course.

Archiving customer records may not be legal, depending on country.

In some countries it is not legal, in other countries it is mandatory.
Here it is mandatory to archive the IP address that a certain customer had over each interval of time he was connected.
This is difficult to do when all your customers are behind NAT.   Solutions exist, of course.

Re:  This is difficult to do when all your customers are behind NAT
Difficult - but not impossible.
To do so, you need to record the NAT translations in real-time.  This is a syslog resource consuming process.
It might almost be easier to consider what is required to break down an IPV4 address to many IPV6 addresses and then have your clients only use IPV6 addresses.
Re IPV4 to IPV6, I have never done this - but I know I will soon need to learn how to do this myself.
North Idaho Tom Jones

Re:  This is difficult to do when all your customers are behind NAT
Difficult - but not impossible.

NetFlow v9 reports all the required information and collecting it is not difficult at all.

Just remembered another way to log
Force your client connections to use a Squid caching proxy server - with full logging enabled.

It works and can help speed up a bogged down over-saturated network.
20+ years ago, I used one at home when I had a 56k frame-relay connection to my house.  If anybody had recently pulled up something, the next person often would get it at 100 meg throughput from the cache in my Squid caching proxy server.
It is simple to build & configure - you just need lots of disk space.

I would think that with today's faster servers, a person could easily shave off the redundant repeating web Internet traffic by using a Squid server - which may help radically improve the throughput on a saturated Internet connection.


North Idaho Tom Jones

I would think that with today's faster servers, a person could easily shave off the redundant repeating web Internet traffic by using a Squid server - which may help radically improve the throughput on a saturated Internet connection.

I strongly disagree. In today's world of dynamic web and wide HTTPS expansion caching web proxies became mostly useless...

I would think that with today's faster servers, a person could easily shave off the redundant repeating web Internet traffic by using a Squid server - which may help radically improve the throughput on a saturated Internet connection.

I strongly disagree. In today's world of dynamic web and wide HTTPS expansion caching web proxies became mostly useless...

It's been decades for me since I used Squid last - but I thought that squid performed a header (file check) to test if the file requested matched what was in cache.  Then if it was not an exact match, then it would go direct.
And yea - I do know that sites can also have a no-cache option - but many sites do not use it.

I would think that with today's faster servers, a person could easily shave off the redundant repeating web Internet traffic by using a Squid server - which may help radically improve the throughput on a saturated Internet connection.

I strongly disagree. In today's world of dynamic web and wide HTTPS expansion caching web proxies became mostly useless...

Correct, with many CDN/Akamai/Google nodes, it is cheaper and less complicated to peer with them than maintaining a caching box.

I just wanted to throw this in to the community for discussion. I operate a WISP in Spain who's client base consist of a large proportion of expats who use illegal UK IPTV services. We find ourselves having to pay for very expensive bandwidth,  that is not normally required, to keep these services running.  In a Nutshell we are funding the Pirates. The Pirates make good money on the back of our services and pay us nothing for the pleasure. Is this fair?  is there anything that can be done about it?  Should we report the Pirates? or should we just except it.  Many questions.   What are you opinions on this.   

If you were my provider and you called me a 'pirate' just because I use the bandwidth WHICH I PAY FOR I would go to another provider in an instant! Maybe throw in a campaign to let the rest of your clients now your opinion about them.
You are an ISP. Not police. wtf?!

Second, why do you care what services they use? It's none of your business. If they downloaded linux ISOs all day what you would do? 'Report' them to the 'internet police'? Pff..

You say that you pay for the 'pirates' and they pay nothing. Unless you provide your services for free, that's just silly. Obviously they do pay you to provide them with an internet connection. If the fees you charge are not enough then increase them. If your business model is to charge low in the hopes that the majority of your clients will use a small percentage of their traffic, then that's your problem, not your clients' now isn't it?

Well its a complicated topic, purely because there is plenty of subject to discuss.. basically ISP are not reponsible with what their clients do with the internet, if their clients decice to use the internet for ilegal content such as ilegal iptv streaming.
Nevertheless, the ISP could also be responsible for conniving with that said if the monitoring on the network detects high volume of traffic for such ilegal service, they are responsible to report to the correct authorities, otherwise they could also be called responsible.

I do know for a fact that certain ISPs.. struggle with alot of other technical issues, sucha as international route gateways, and lausy peer connections, and some clients might complaint about the internet service not working for certain ilegal IPTV servers which normally are located in servers outside the local regulations which forbidden this kind os services, and sometimes the poor quality of the service of the ilegal iptv streaming, make clients complain and call the ISP provider .

So in the end its a tuff decision.. cancel and cut off the client for usign the internet for ilegal content? or just make a blind eye for it?

Hi there, I agree, you should absolutely block any Real Madrid Games or channels.
You have to decide what you want.
a. small customer base who agree to either BW limiting, rate control or both and are content with wifi access on their smartphones, and some computer work and browsing.
b. larger customer base with insatiable appetite (including gamers and streamers). Dont the expats drink most of the time anyway.....................

Its your business!!

What I would do is find a quality streaming service that is legit and point them in that direction.
If you want further info on this send me an email. (I use it myself and its worldwide and it covers any Brit channel they could possibly want access too (and nothing to do with kodi or torrenting or any nonsense like that).

What I find interesting in this conversation is how people are equating services such as Netflix or Amazon (real, legal streaming services) with non-legitimate IPTV services. As an example, I'm from the USA but now live in Canada. All my streaming services such as Netflix, etc are USA based accounts, however, I ended up having to cancel certain things like Hulu or others because they do not allow IPs from _outside the US_ to connect to them. If you use a VPN/proxy they detect it. Same with things like Netflix, on a proxy no connection. Connect to Netflix without the VPN, I have the Canadian library of what I can watch. Also, all USA based networks do stream their shows on their sites, however it's the same thing. No USA based IP, blocked. Proxy/VPN, blocked.

Now how do I get to watch all those awesome TV shows and channels from my home country? I either download them from torrent sites or I use my IPTV service (yup, I got one) and I get to stream live or have a DVR feature so I can go back and watch shows. Just keep in mind now, I'm on a provider that either doesn't care that much or the service I'm using hasn't been flagged yet. There are providers in Canada, MAJOR providers, that will block known IPTV services and people then have to get around that with a VPN.

So here is the thing while I fully admit I use IPTV services to reach TV stations that I normally can't get or I normally can't access because of rules in place by using an IPTV or a VPN to get around those blocks/rules *I* am actively violating their ToS. It doesn't matter if I use IPTV or a VPN or another method, I am still willfully bypassing the security measures for their network. Therefore I am technically using my ISP connection for illegal activity. As the ISP the laws and regulations I have to follow about that type of activity doesn't really have a "Hack the Planet" clause in them.

I mainly do voice services but I block a whole slew of /8's and other IPs from around the world because those locations are known for fraud and trying to use systems to make free calls. Because the concept is still the same "Why should I pay for it, it's the Internet it should be free" so should I be upset that those users are basically complaining about the same thing? No, I'm not because I'm still responsible for the usage and traffic that goes over _my network_. Now these guys are dropping VMs into the USA so they can get around country based and VPN blocks so that they can try to get to those same servers and networks. As the guy who has to maintain that network they are all trying to get into, it is a pain in my ass. The concept is the same for IPTV services and such, they are most likely dropping VMs or other things in countries to stream to those services and then send them back out to their IPTV network.

Honestly, I can't count how many times I've seen channels on my IPTV station go out because the streamer just stopped working. Or in some cases I can tell they have satellite service because the screen starts showing the realignment warnings because they are streaming straight from their service out to the IPTV network so that people like my can watch that channel. So to sit around and think that the BBC or other UK stations are just allowing IPTV services to just stream their content is naive.

Samot, I am watching all those channels legitimately by a licensed provider in Canada. So I do have the answer you are looking for.
Get yourself an appleTV streaming box the 4K 64gig model (only $20 bucks more than the 32gig model) is the right choice. The applebox has nice interfaces for netflix, amazon prime, cravetv etc........
Download a specific App. Set yourself up an account with the provider and you are off to the races.
Furthermore you can download the iphone version or ipad version to your device and you can watch your channels anywhere in the world (obviously not both at the same time).

Do bandwidth limit.

You can't limit less than what you have sold.
Also a 1080p IPTV channel takes ~5mbps in my case. So what is he complaining about? If a provider can't offer 5mbps/client (but it is selling more) I'm sure is in the wrong business.
Also those UK "streamers" are in fact in Spain, the sellers only use ebay.co.uk and maybe vps in uk.
They are just resellers, like me.

A very interesting topic and as a WISP in our opinion with customers using more and more bandwidth while streaming, the service packages will move away from "Unlimited Data" to monthly data allowance and then two options (1) customer has additional charge for the extra data used (which some will dispute that the data was used ?) or (2) service is stopped ?

Its pretty hard to believe that ISPs who sells 1Gbps subscriptions will be affected by 5mbps of constant data usage.
I have 1Gbps for my company at 30$/mo and 500mbps at home for 15$/mo.

ISPs who sell 1Gbps subscriptions expect that most customers will on average use much much less than that, that's the secret behind it. If it's two different ISPs, you can test how long you can run a constant bandwidth test between your company and your home, before ISP starts to object.

1TB/day in my case...

Nice. Important is, if it works for ISP in the end, i.e. money from customers cover costs and leave enough profit. Although I can understand that they may not be very excited about someone who's requirements are way above average, they would be better off without such customers. It could be handled using data limits, but it's not good advertisement, even if it would be something high from regular users' perspective. "Unlimited" always sounds better.

they may not be very excited about someone who's requirements are way above average

Unfortunately customer "average" data usage per month is increasing at a high pace?

"Unlimited" always sounds better.

The advertising wording can be misleading when "Unlimited Data" is used but on the agreement form it states "all packages subject to a fair usage policy"

To me as WISP unlimited means a customers can be downloading 24/7/365 not unlimited+fair usage

they may not be very excited about someone who's requirements are way above average

Unfortunately customer "average" data usage per month is increasing at a high pace?

"Unlimited" always sounds better.

The advertising wording can be misleading when "Unlimited Data" is used but on the agreement form it states "all packages subject to a fair usage policy"

To me as WISP unlimited means a customers can be downloading 24/7/365 not unlimited+fair usage

Depends, if its residential use/personal vice business.

Unfortunately customer "average" data usage per month is increasing at a high pace?

That's difficult. People got used to stream everything in FullHD, soon they will insist on 4k, etc. And each family member separately on their own device at the same time. As someone who started with analog modem and had great fun even with monthly data consumption in megabytes, I can't help myself to not find current times somewhat decadent (I'm not really complaining and wouldn't want to go back). But that's how it is, traffic in terabytes is now a norm. WISPs can only hope that new hardware will be able to keep up.