Nepal moves to block Facebook, X, YouTube and others

> switch your DNS, and you're good to go

Except you might get a visit from the FCC equivalent.

as long as my ISP doesn't snitch on me, I'm fine. ISPs also have a stake in this ban because the last time a block was implemented (on TikTok), people flocked to VPNs, which drove up bandwidth costs for them. so, I think while ISPs in Nepal are technically complying with the law by blocking these services, they're doing it in a way that’s intentionally easy to bypass. Now that TikTok is unbanned, the news of DNS switching is spreading quickly in Nepal through it

> I think while ISPs in Nepal are technically complying with the law by blocking these services, they're doing it in a way that’s intentionally easy to bypass

If you reframe the issue from "Nepal wants to punish the users" to "Nepal wants to punish the companies", implementing an easy DNS block makes a lot more sense. As long as most users are unable to access the platforms, the companies will get hurt by it, I think the idea is at least.

Does no one have the political power to ban tiktok? Even the American president couldn’t. It’s just too politically fraught because people get angry without their tiktok.

Does using a VPN increase traffic for your ISP? I would think it's roughly the same amount of traffic, just encrypted from the ISPs perspective. Things take a longer route to get to your final destination and back, but it's not the traffic on the ISP that is increased. Unless encrypted data is much larger than unencrypted data.

Some ISPs make it difficult. In the USA, Comcast blocks DNS other than to their own resolvers you're using their gateway/router device. I believe you can still do it using your own router but then they cap your data.

~10% overhead, is that significant for the ISP? Don't know.

It does, but mostly in an indirect way.

See, companies that deal with a lot of traffic on static data have geographically distributed caches.

Let's say Steam has a major game release, and gets slammed with the DL traffic of 5 million gamers all around the world trying to get their hands at that new game all at once. However, Steam has an instruction manual that allows any ISP to set up their own cache servers. So an ISP that has a cache set up can convert a lot of that global traffic to local traffic, saving them money, and offering users a better experience.

(One small ISP I knew had it set up so that all traffic to their local Steam cache was fully exempt from client rate limiting, reportedly because the ISP's admins were avid gamers.)

Other services like major CDNs, YouTube or Netflix may have deals with ISPs to locate their caching hardware on ISP premises, or may buy their own caching servers in specific datacenters. Same idea applies - it's cheaper for both ISPs and web services when the users hit local caches than when they "cache miss" and generate global traffic.

VPN use is a "forced cache miss", so it's a loss-loss for both ISPs and web services.

It's changes the data flow. Transit connections are magnitudes expensive than local exchanges, and you can even connect to neighborhood country exchanges on lower prices than serve all TikTok through Ams/Fra. Since VPN is encrypted you can't reroute its content by your rules.

Also mentioned here, larger corps have local caches which unloads transit significantly. Google does this for YouTube everywhere.

I'm on Comcast Xfinity and I use my own router with custom DNS settings. I'm not aware of any difference wrt data caps.

They cap your bandwidth, according to my friend in SF who uses an Xfinity router in bridge mode behind his own firewall.

Not really an L for web services, since the caches would just end up near the VPN locations (and sometimes inside the same DC).

Disclaimer: Former YT Engineer.

Those are the old plans. In the last few months they have rolled nationwide a new set of 4 plans: 300 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps, and 2 Gbps. Upload speeds vary I think depending on whether your area has received the mid split upgrade they have been rolling out for a while. The mid split upgrade allocates more channels for uploads.

These plans all include unlimited data and an Xfinity gateway.

You aren't required to use their gateway, although they will still ship one to you unless you ask them not to. There is no discount for not using it. Unlimited is tied to the account, not the modem or gateway so you still get unlimited if you use your own modem. Same if you use their gateway but put it in bridge mode and supply your own router.

For new customers each of the new plans can be gotten at an introductory discount. The discount price is guaranteed for 1 year or 5 years (your choice, with 1 year generally giving a steeper discount). These are all month to month plans so you aren't locked into a contract.

Existing customers can switch to the new plans. There is no discount but they do get the 1 year or 5 year price guarantee.