Have you ever observed that your connection becomes flawless while you have a video call, but downloading a big file slows down at the very same time in the evenings? There is no chance that it happens by accident.
In order to provide millions of people with a flawless connection without crashing their network entirely, Internet Service Providers and network administrators use certain data management approaches that are hidden from the public eye.
One such approach is called traffic shaping and is a technique aimed at regulating the speed of transmission of specific kinds of information over the Internet.
In order to get acquainted with this topic, it is necessary to know that every action we perform online is split into small units of information referred to as packets. Whether we watch a film, surf the Internet, or play a game, thousands of packets move through the network.
However, if there are too many packets moving around simultaneously, traffic jams appear, leading to lags and disconnection problems. Instead of leaving packets to move chaotically and create numerous peaks of traffic, network administrators use special software settings to control the packets.
On a technical level, traffic shaping is nothing but a delay tactic.
The network looks at the type of data and categorizes it depending on the applications being used. It then differentiates between important and less urgent data.
Non-urgent packets are queued up or delayed temporarily. The delay takes place at a steady pace while high-priority packets get through instantly.
Internet service providers and corporate networking depend largely on bandwidth control in order to get maximum benefit from the current infrastructure without spending money on buying costly new cables.
In peak times, an internet service provider can use ISP throttling on heavy bandwidth processes such as peer-to-peer file transfer or huge software downloads. By doing so, ISPs will preserve those resources to allow neighbors to watch TV shows or work online uninterrupted.
Service subscription providers often apply shaping to enforce plan-specific limits. Users who subscribe to premium packages receive priority queuing, whereas basic plans have lower speed restrictions.
In summary, there is always a limited space available on the internet at any particular point in time. Through traffic shaping, it becomes possible to handle high loads effectively while protecting the system from being overloaded with traffic, in addition to ensuring that critical applications function flawlessly.
