‘There’s no such thing as net neutrality’
p2pnet news view P2P:- In the last decade I owned and managed various ISP’s and Co-Lo businesses. I used to get a buzz out of sitting in front of the monitors and watching the MRTG graphs never peaking.
Peaking was bad. Peaking meant customers weren’t getting what they were paying for, Internet access. Or at best, some customers were receiving a reduced level of service.
Not peaking was good. Not peaking meant every customer was a happy customer because they received their content with no packet loss (fast).
But in my day, we didn’t have it as bad as ISPs do today. In the late nineties most clients were connected via dial-up with only corporations connected via bonded dial-up, ISDN, bonded ISDN or frame relay.
Ten years ago you could put 100% of your traffic through a squid cache and no one knew any better.
In fact in 1997 with Andrew Chris, Stephen, Adrian and Rex, we built the world’s first Terabyte Squid Cache. We called it the Fridge. Then we hung an entire country wide IX off the fridge and everyone told us we had a kick-ass network.
Of course today with P2P, VoIP, demand built PHP database pages, we wouldn’t get away with caching everything. (Which is why I feel sorry for Optus. Their Satellite batteries don’t get much of a charge during the winter months so users in the bush get a raw deal after about 10:00 pm. In fact, just like batteries in cars need swapping out every few years, so do batteries in satellites.)
We may be getting a brand new NBN in a few years but before that, unless someone at NASA feels like doing a grease and oil (battery exchange) on three Geo Satellites over Australia, the people in the Bush will be left with no connectivity.
However, I digress. We were discussing me watching MRTG charts.
There’s something about owning/running a network you built every step of the way the Telcos/RBOCs will never quite grok. You know every point of failure, potential failure, chewing gum and shoelace repair location in the whole network. It’s yours. You created it. Therefore, when some little kid comes along with Napster and tries to take it down by filling up all the MRTG graphs, you start a battle of wits.
It’s you versus the kid. He wants to rape your entire bandwidth and you have another 25,000 customers don’t really want him too.
So you watch graphs, you reconfigure routers; you purchase expensive $24,000 Alteon smart switches so you can traffic shape the little kid.
However, he gets his mates in on the Napster thing.
Suddenly there’s not just one leak in the dam; the whole network in multiple locations around the country is holier than a set of fishnet stockings.
You’re left with no choice: all the Napster traffic has to be routed via an alternative source. You buy a satellite feed and divert all the P2P traffic straight out the dish on top of the roof to Pas-8.
Hah! fixed his wagon and his little mates. They’re now Sprint’s problem. The other customers click on blissfully unaware you just single-handedly fought off the invading Mongol hordes to ensure the MRTG graph didn’t blip over 90 %
What’s all this about?
There’s no such thing as net neutrality.
Anybody who thinks there’s should with 19 other people squeeze into one 9 metre square washroom with a single toilet bowl and tell them this is the only opportunity they’ll have for 72 hours to go to the toilet and they only have two minutes (for all 20) in which to do it in.
Can’t be done.
P2P is killing the networks in their current format.
It’s killing the networks because the content industry insists on flooding the net with fake files and DoS packets.
They consider by making it harder for a P2P’er to obtain a file, he/she will give up and go and buy the music/video. Ummm, no!
All happens is a quantum addition to the amount of CRC packet retries occurs as various p2p clients reject the corrupted data and re-ask for the part file again.
Sometimes the file (usually the wmv files boys and girls try not to download those ones they’re usually the fakes .) arrives and requires connection to obtain a license usually a virus do not bother just download the next file in the list and if necessary the next one.
The harder the content industry makes it the more determined the individuals attempt at getting the file is. I know I can see the repeat IP numbers going after similar named files.
How to Get a Record to Number One.
But then again, this is not news to the content industry. They learnt years ago the way to make a record number one in the physical vinyl world was to not print enough copies and let the record stores sell out. This would cause would be purchaser to do the pub-crawl of the record stores to obtain the desired item. Record stores would be inundated with requests from individuals for the record and consequently order up big. The following week, with lots of stock, the sale people would be encouraged by the management to push the well stocked labels.
So whilst I’m not saying the Record Companies are devious enough to repeat modus operandi in the digital world, their actions do make think.
Therefore, the problem is the Internet is being filled up with junk, denial of service attacks, virus masquerading as legitimate content and thousands of little content industry bots invading your home networks peeking and probing your service ports (which of course goes towards your monthly bandwidth total without your permission some would call illegal trespass and theft).
The result of course is the net is slowed down for everyone.
Your computer is slowed down (by answering all the bot queries) and the entire world looses billions (daily) in loss of productivity and ecommerce.
I blogged the other day someone should sue the industry for the Denial of Service attacks on networks outside of the USA.
However, I also think ISP’s should penalize P2P and video/music streaming users on a pro-rata basis. i.e.: During peak load periods, the heaviest down-loaders should pay the highest fees. Just like in the Electricity and Gas, demand marketplace.
There you have it. I’m a proponent of P2P, but also a pragmatist when it comes to ensuring Service Level Quality for all users.
Sort of like the Smoking on the bus example, I gave a few weeks ago. One smoker can ruin it for everyone.
Does mean I think P2P should be outlawed?
Hell no. I think P2P is the only chance the Internet has of becoming very self-healing and independent of all negative growth regulatory interference.
However, I do believe some regulation has to be inserted into the equation somewhere and if the ISP’s do not implement the regulatory environment, they probably will not like the alternatives I see coming over the horizon.
Basically, I believe Internet users want to be able to get what they want, when they want it and I believe there should be a methodology developed for eventuality to be possible without becoming a criminal.
I believe if the world could obtain content without having to loose their anonymity or having to take out a second mortgage on the family home, then the whole illegal file sharing debacle would disappear.
Therefore, I propose a voluntary set of P2P Commandments.
I’m not a deity, so this is just a very rough beginning draft .
1. Thou shalt honour the Net, only use P2P in a responsible manner, and only file share for two hours per day.
2. Thou shalt not use non-P2P video or music streaming services.
3. Thou shalt pay for at least one item you download into the P2P conscience fund* daily. Thou shalt pay what you can afford.
4. Thou shalt immediately report illegal content to the authorities as soon as you’re aware of it. Dial 1-800-Dob-in-a-Pedo
It’s a short list. However, I’m sure readers could suggest additional commandments.
*No there’s no conscience fund, which I’m aware of but someone should start one.
Tom Koltai - p2pnet
[Koltai is an economist in Sydney Australia. He's says he's been online for 26 years, has run several ISPs and, "lobbied governments in four countries to prevent Internet restrictive usage legislation from being enacted". He says he's a strong believer in P2P, "as being a technological requirement to fully exploit the convergence of telephony with computers and remove the last barriers to human communication and interaction".]
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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July 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am
while I agree mostly with your assessment Tom, I beg to differ. File sharing is not going away, and with the constant barrage of interference by the MAFIAA they are only pushing file sharing farther and farther underground. Port forwarding, encryption, VPN, IP spoofing, regardless of the ‘shaping’ it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
As for paying for content, well, we already do, in a round-about sort of way. Someone has to first purchase the HD-DVD of any given content and then digitize it before making it available on the internet. A 40USD BluRay is about 35USD overpriced, therefore a purchased copy is distributed to an additional 7 people, sometimes more
My point is, when was the last time you saw bandwidth usage go down? It’s like real estate, it will only go up, regardless of the economy. So tighten up Tom, it only gets worse from here.
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:44 am
” As for paying for content, well, we already do, in a round-about sort of way. Someone has to first purchase the HD-DVD of any given content and then digitize it before making it available on the internet. A 40USD BluRay is about 35USD overpriced, ”
Not only that, but something that also gets ignored is that many downloaders do in fact make a purchase if they
like what they hear. So the honor pot is actually up and running and working well, since it has already been proven that
filesharing doesn’t hurt sales. Some , instead of purchase the CD, will pay for concert tickets in the belief that more of
the proceeds go directly to the artist, and not the middleman.
There is a conscience fund, but no one will ever pay for a turd sandwich as long as they get to see and smell it
first, which is one of the real reasons major labels hate p2p.
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:58 am
‘There is a conscience fund, but no one will ever pay for a turd sandwich as long as they get to see and smell it
first, which is one of the real reasons major labels hate p2p.’
LMFAO !!
‘turd sandwich’, can I use that in the future? or is it copyrighted!
outstanding 8)
stw
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I’d like to know how these file sharers manage to tie up all the bandwidth. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a speed faster than 300K/s on public BitTorrent sites (usually, it’s under 50K/s) and right now, there are four files downloading from the eD2K network at a combined speed of 20K/s.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
@RW
“here are four files downloading from the eD2K network at a combined speed of 20K/s”
BitTorrent, from what I have read and scene, is not quite the same as Limewire or Kazaa. What you see on your connection is not what the ISP sees.
By its very nature, BitTorrent reduces your traffic but, correct me if am wrong Surfer, increases the overall traffic.
So, you have 20k and under the Limewire/Kazaa you were connected to 5 computers all at 20k/s, that’s 100k/s total bandwidth for that one file. With BitTorrent, again from what I understand, there’s a lot more than 5 connections, say 5000 connections at 20k/s, then the picture looks a lot heavier for ISP.
However, I think my logic is wrong though, because I’ve read what says “we use bitTorrent because it reduces ISP bandwidth” but I suspect it is your bandwidth and not total ISP bandwidth. Why else would they throttle bitTorrent with Rogers if it reduced the overall bandwidth? You still have to transfer data.
So, assuming I am at least partly correct, 20k/s * 5000 is 100 000k/s for your ISP to manage, assuming your torrent buds are all on the same ISP.
Perhaps that is what Tom means.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
you are correct Robert. bittorrent protocol is a ‘swarm’, a distribution of the overall bandwidth. 5 downloads x 20k = 100k. Because not all the in/out bandwidth travels directly thru the ISP provider. (your connection outbound hits ‘the last mile’ (from your connection to the first major router) from the provider and then hops out, without utilizing all the routers owned by the provider.) so instead of getting 100k from Road Runner, you get 20k distributed across several providers. bittorrent usage actually HELP network congestion by distributing the load.
including the protocol itself, bittorrent, which allows ‘seeding’. meaning someone could be downloading pieces of what you are downloading while you are downloading it, confusing… but accurate.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
“…when some little kid comes along with Napster and tries to take it down…”
Shortsightedness (or lack of foresight) always seems to be followed by transfer of blame.
There are very obvious reasons providers would even have to think of traffic management.
1) They didn’t anticipate the growth rate, so SUFFICIENT RESOURCES weren’t built in;
2) They continued to OVERSELL what they already couldn’t provide, by an astronomical factor;
3) They began operating an array of THEIR OWN CONTENT services, and needed to steal back some of the resources they didn’t have.
In any other business, you need to keep up with demand, or get out of that business.
When other business models experience “demand overload”, they ADAPT THEIR SUPPLY to satisfy that demand. At the very least they ADAPT THEIR ADVERTISING to more honestly reflect what they CAN offer. Why should any service provider be any different??
Providers continue to charge their premium rates, and have never offered refunds to their subscribers for the reduced service they seem to be meting out as a standard practice now. Indeed! They have never felt the need to even view the situation from that angle at all – as if WE have somehow created the problem for them (which Tom seemed to have implied), and need to be punished for our indiscretions!
The fact is, the Internet was formed by a cooperation between privately-operated systems. Providers came into the picture professing themselves to be “dumb pipes” with no interest in controlling what passes through them, and we’ve been PAYING THEM ever since, as well as paying a levy on blank media, on top of opting for any number of other additives/memberships/3rd-party services.
Before providers got into the CONTENT business, we pretty much HAD Net Neutrality…by DEFAULT! Back then, it was almost an exercise in futility to even get your ISP to track a persistent spammer, until they realized that spam had the potential to “ruin it for everybody” (as they later said about P2P). But even as they began fighting spam at the network level, they made damned sure they didn’t have the capabilities to manipulate content, as they stated again and again they would NOT put themselves in the position of being SUED.
How things change!
Just like the Entertainment Industry decided its customers were simply “collateral damage” in some delusional mission to save themselves from their lack of foresight, the providers (another example of “middle men”) have decided to follow suit.
Sorry, Tom…
I don’t agree with any of what you’ve put on this page, as it completely disregards the actual roles played by the providers (BUSINESS) and their subscribers (CUSTOMERS), and the way the relationship between the two is supposed to work. The provider SELLS a service by promoting its capabilities and putting a price on it, which a subscriber has accepted – a very common business model, with some very common requirements.
By consistently accepting the same money, the provider is obliged to consistently provide what was sold to the customer. This is where providers fail to live up a simple business agreement, and are guilty of trying to condition everyone to accept a very key, but forgetten reality.
I’m sick and tired of providers selling a service they’re unable or unwilling to provide, while labelling its customers as “abusers” for simply trying to use what they paid for. The subscribers shouldn’t be having to adopt any form of “responsible usership rules” – they’re not doing anything “irresponsible” in the first place! That whole idea is simply disingenuous to the “paying customer”.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Most p2p apps do not attempt to use the network topology. Even if they used traceroutes, that would be better.
Because if the file has chunks A, B, C and D, and someone from my ISP got chunks A and B, others from the same ISP should get A and B from the peers at the same ISP.
Also, it is very unfortunate that multicasting is not there. Because if it were, then there would be less need to replicate the same stream more than once for scheduled streaming sites.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
A big problem, that was pointed above, is ISPs overselling their capacity to customers, then labeling their customers “abusers” when customers started to actually use the bandwidth they were sold.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
” turd sandwichâ, can I use that in the future? or is it copyrighted!
outstanding
stw ”
Creative commons
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I gotta admit, “turd sandwich” was a good one.
But, can we clarify?…
Is the turd in the middle (of the sandwich), or is someone/something else being sandwiched by turd?
: )
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
You people are so coarse. Jeez. You lower the tone of the whole site! (Flounces off in disgust.)
Cheers!
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
hahahah, i gotta admit, the turd cross-talk is off-topic.
and to clarify, I have a visual of two pieces of bread with a turd inside, no mayo, no lettuce. with a sprig of parsley on the side.
8)
stw
/tries to ignore future turd references…. giggle…
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
“/tries to ignore future turd references…”
Yeah, Dredd!
Stop talking “shit”, eh?!
: )
[considers changing handle to "Mr. Hankie"]
8 P
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I totally agree with devils advocates post.
Thats the objective way of seeing it
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
“Thats the objective way of seeing it”
It might be “an objective way” to view it, but to me, it’s also the RIGHT way to view it.
Propaganda has a unique way of burying truth, logic and reality.
Propaganda distracts everyone and keeps them busy arguing about non-essential points, while the “powers that be” work in the background to have “troublesome” obstacles (your rights) removed by some false “mass acceptance” that actually never took place.
In other words, they keep you busy “justifying P2P” by spreading BS all over the place about how “the technology is destroying the network” and how “P2P users are selfish pricks that take everyone else’s bandwidth in their 24/7/365 quest for copyrighted materials to steal” – all the while, sneaking in meetings with IP lobby groups and our governments on how they’re going to help “fix the problem” (which they created) with “network management tools” (think “DPI, throttling, etc.”) and “cooperate with law enforcement” to keep the “abusers” from running amok!
If they succeed, the providers will have the spying equipment they’ve been drooling over, and the ability to control the flow of information to their advantage wherever desired, all at the blessing of our elected government, and the Big Corporate Machine will be a major step closer to actually “owning” the Internet.
This is all because, truthfully, people are too absorbed in their own personal shit and can’t pay attention, collectively, to what’s being taken away from them daily, bit by bit, by the very companies they’ve contracted for things. After a “busy day”, they’re more apt to take in the propaganda from these companies through the Mainstream News, and not realize how much it conflicts with basic logic. By the time they understand the deception and how important it is to deflect it, they’ve already lost something to it.
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I agree with Devils Advocate as well. When you get right down to it, a business only has two choices. They can either adapt and grow or stagnate and die. If choosing the former, be aware that you’ve chosen to navigate the minefield ahead of you and there may only be one or two safe paths. All others lead to your demise with greed being the surest way to get blown up. What’s happening between customers and the entertainment industry is proof of that.
It’s very true that providers underestimated demand and oversold what they didn’t have enough of. Expanding and adapting is costly so why bother when it is easier to simply punish your users? It is their fault after all, right? The thing is it’s not. Customers are only trying to use what they’re paying for every month. At some point providers decided to quietly redefine the term “unlimited” to mean something other than what the dictionary says it means, then follow that up by inspecting our packets so they could employ bandwidth limiting techniques and charging us overage charges for going over and above what they’ve decided unlimited really means. To top things off, some providers are starting to manipulate their users into using ISP approved services and blocking or limiting access to anything they see as competition. Hmm, I wonder why customers are becoming increasingly irate and the term “net neutrality” comes up more and more often.
Smoker on a bus? Create a second bus so that you have one for smokers and another for non-smokers. Gas and electricity aren’t very good examples. Both are limited by resources and expansion cannot change the fact that there is an ultimate limit to those resources. Most electricity comes from coal fire plants. Coal and natural gas are fossil fuels that comes from the ground. Once those two resources are gone, their gone for good. Internet bandwidth on the other hand has no limit so long as technology keeps advancing. Unlike coal and natural gas, bandwidth is a resource that CAN be increased. The industry responsible for it’s creation need to stop underestimating how much is needed or will be needed in the future. As long as the human population keeps growing out of control, so will it’s need for bandwidth. Planning for the future isn’t exactly rocket science folks. I swear, if anything it is like trying to teach a child the concept of saving up their allowance instead of spending it all the moment they get it. Providers seem more eager to pocket any profits they make right now rather than reinvest it in order to make even more in the future, which would ultimately be a win win for all. Sadly selfishness and greed are what rule these days, rewarded even, and I fear humanity will be doomed because of it.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Winter in space…?
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:32 pm
ignorance follows the path of least resistance. making insignificant adjustments to its’ course with a one track mind. $$$
the RIAA fucked itself when it filed the first lawsuit against Napster, there are many things within your control, but one of them is not, the internet. the MAFIAA will implore more insidious activities like MediaDefender (because its’ shit already ‘flew’ in court.) like ACS Law and Davenport & Lyons.
ders money in dem dar hills – every shit lawyer that exists
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:54 pm
(surfer’s still “shit-stormin’ “!)
: )
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:46 pm
@Tom: I’ll consider spending less time downloading when Bell stops throttling all unrecognized traffic on my GAS-tariffed link down to 30KB/s combined for half the day.
@James: Winter = Reduced sunlight intensity at a given latitude = Reduced battery charging rate via solar cells
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:09 am
Wow – I get 9 hours sleep and you guys flood me with comments.
@Devil’s Advocate Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
ââ¦when some little kid comes along with Napster and tries to take it downâ¦â
Shortsightedness (or lack of foresight) always seems to be followed by transfer of blame.
There are very obvious reasons providers would even have to think of traffic management.
1) They didnât anticipate the growth rate, so SUFFICIENT RESOURCES werenât built in;
2) They continued to OVERSELL what they already couldnât provide, by an astronomical factor;
3) They began operating an array of THEIR OWN CONTENT services, and needed to steal back some of the resources they didnât have.
@RW – you forgot the fourth thing.
4) Bandwidth to the USA for countries not in the USA costs a bloody fortune. In fact to be precise, 1n 1994 I was paying $88,000 for a 2 Megabyte link (that’s one DSL connection worth of bandwidth) from Sydney to Coos Bay Oregon.
So don’t try to tell me that I wasnt warranted in trying to stop little Johnny. I was.
The arrogance of Americans and Canadians in regards to the amount of bandwidth available and what it shoud cost is amazing.
The orignal Internet was USA concentric – that is no longer necessarily the case – yet it is cheaper often to buy a link from singapore to America than from singapore to Malaysia (just across the harbour).
Outside of the USA ISP’s have to backhaul 10,000 miles in some instances just to connect. To have that backhaul used up by just 2 or 5 or 10 users is bullshit. That is reality.
There are 6 billion people in this world of those only 335 million live on the American Northern Continent. Why is it that the American minority see fit to instill their standards, expectations and consumer waste habits on the rest of the world ?
/Angry Rant Mode /off
@ Robert – Yep – P2P is great from the ISP point of view if it community based. This rtequires every ISP to install a Torrent Seeder and an ED2K server. However, I can’t recomend this superior technology solution at this time for obvious legal reasons.
@surfer and @dresdnik – Yes we do already pay for content. ut not in the $35,00 blueray example. We pay for content in that the cvontent uses up part of out monthly allowance – ISP capacity (preventing other activities from occurring that might benefit the GDP) and of course in Disk storage, hardware expendioture at the local, ISP and RBOC levels. So actually, a 90 minute movie if you download it using P2P actually costs $1.05 in the USA, about $1.65 in Canada. I blogged about this in January this year An International Analysis of the Real Value of a Digital DVD Movie here –>http://www.perceptric.com/blog/_archives/2009/1/10/4051203.html
@ Readers Write – Smoker on a bus ? Yep in my original article I stated the smoker has two choices – smoke and upset everyone or get off the bus and catch the next one. – Unfortunately we really do only have one Internet Bus. So like Mommy says – play nicely and the toys will last a lot longer.
@Reader’s Write – Solar Cell Battery Recharge Time – You have a point but as an Economist I have to retort – it’s a rather selfish one. Your Battery recharge time don’t affect the GDP of the entire country – just yours.
And on the subject of Turd Sandwich – there is a saying, you cant polish a turd.
Unfortunately the Mythbusters proved that one wrong –> http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-polishing-a-turd.html
P2P does affect the GDP of the entire country – and not just the content industry – I have tried to make suggestions to them, thry doet really want to listen – I am referring to every E-Commerce page on the IOnternet is harder to to get to BECASUE of P2P traffic – both genuine downloader traffic AND industry spoling attempts.
Does that mean you should stop using P2P software ?
NO! But just maybe, we could all conserve it a little bit – sort of like letting the old lady cross on the pediastrian crossing when you dont have too.
Just an idea, no-one has to give up their selfish P2P practices (This statement excludes the old folks home IT dude – you keep on downloading at full speed) – I’m just suggesting that during the fianncial crisis it is a bit unfair for all of us to continue as before and put our heads in the sand…. “I’m not hurting anyone, I’m just downloading a couple of files that have already been ripped.” – Great download them – but just like turning off the light switch to conserve power – possibly we could all utilise P2P in a more eco concsious manner. (Eco towards other Internet users).
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:11 am
Um – the last comment that says Readers Write – was actually from yours truly……
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
@Thomas:
Sorry about our ignorance to how the ‘Net is wired up for the rest of the world. I should have suspected the US stranglehold on their fav technology. Amazingly ARPANet was discussed back in ’67, I’ve seen the files. Incredible concept, brought about as a means of communicating information for military purposes should different communication points be taken out by nuclear attack.
And now we share information and movies and music.
Even the ALOHA network was first invented in a “US” state, Hawaii. And how many people who visit Hawaii actually know about it or try to see how it worked?
So you’ll have to pardon the ignorance, we take a lot for granted.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
There’s nothing ignorant (or “arrogant”) about any of the criticism coming from North American internet customers.
They live in either Canada or the US, and are complaining about the providers in Canada or the US. It’s the North American providers that have sold them a service they’re either unable or unwilling to fulfill, while continuing to take more liberties for themselves all the time.
Why should these customers give a monkey shit about how service may be wired outside of the boundaries of their own problems? Malasia’s economy has nothing to do with ComCast’s ability to honour their contracts.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Hey Robert, I remember aloha.net. Australia hung off aloha.net for about 2 years at a whopping 1200 bps and then 2400 bps before we moved to 56 kpbs.
I actually connected the first slip connection from Darwin to Berkley in 1983 via 150 bps acoustic modem and achieved a whopping 54 bps.
Devils Advocate, you are correct in a non-p2p world – but if any of the peers you are exchanging files are in places like San Paolo or Ho Chi Minh city or Dar es Salaam – And I’m willing to be that they are then your isp is filling up at some exchange meet-me point and throttling so that crc’s are not repeated umpteen times (that tends to destroy any network). If for example – you limited your peers to a “friends list” of local IP numbers only – I’m willing to bet that throttling would disappear. If you truly want to understand who you are peering with – get a tool called Geo-Spider (http://www.oreware.com/viewprogram.php?prog=22) its shareware but works free for a while and track all your connected IP’s geographically (You have to click the little spider under the word File). Then maybe you will get some “clue” as to why ALL isp’s have to throttle at some point of their network.
Wake up guys – A hose pipe is a hose pipe – it can only accept x volume. You can buy a bigger hosepipe but that takes time to turn up and configure. You need to revisit peering agreements with other players. The internet is a constantly evolving network.
There is not a single ISP that sells P2P bandwidth anywhere in the world – they sell HTTP bandwidth.
If everyone used only browsers (not Opera in p2p mode) and everyone adhered to a code of conduct – I will only download from my local peers =- suddenly speeds would increase enormously and no-one would complain about throttling because it wouldnt be necessary.
ISP’s are not just a group of folks that charge for a free ARPA.net hand-me-down – they add value by managing the traffic for the benefit of all their customers.
It is unfortunate for ISP’s that 87% of their customers now utilise some form of file sharing software.
Emule is possible the worst offender. It requires connectivity 24/7 to be a viable tool. But that connectivity could be scheduled at lower data rates – rather than flat out all the time.
To all those that dont understand – obtain one gallon can – fill up with two gallons. When you have done so – please write the secret of your method in here.
OR better yet – submit it for publication to elsevier – it will be the most purchased academic paper in the world.
July 4th, 2009 at 3:01 am
Koltai:
What part of “completely missing the point” is so hard for you to understand?
All of your apologetics for the poor widdle ISPs ignores the critical fact that (at least stateside) one of their biggest selling-points is bullshit about “super-fast downloads”, etc. And all your gas-cans and hose-pipes and suchlike amount to exactly ONE thing: the fact that ISP’s lied about what their infrstructure can actually do. (Of course, we’re all used to corporate weasels “over-hyping” their product.
So if their “only selling browser bandwidth”, then they should goddamn well admit that fact, stop lying to their user-base about superfast pipes and suchlike, and — here’s an idea — actually DEPLOY WHAT THEY ***CAIM*** TO ALREADY BE SELLING US.
If I buy a tuxedo that’s advertised to be a certain size, and lo and behold, when I get home and put it on I find out that it’s three sizes too small, they’ve ripped me off, and are guilty either of negligence, false advertising, or both, and no amount of hand-wringing is going to change that.
What’s doubly ironic — and downright troubling, from my point of view — is that you come out with this bullshit while claiming to be a “p2p advocate”. Businesses should actually give their customers at least *some* idea of what they’re buying, but that’s evidently hard for you to understand (which is downright odd, seeing as your an economist and all).
You’re a fan of pithy analogies, so here’s one for ya:
Dog-food + label advertising “fillet mignon” = scam.
But hey, it’s nice to know that some people will always find a way to apologize for just about anything.
July 4th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Thomas Koltai Says: “Wake up guys – A hose pipe is a hose pipe – it can only accept x volume. You can buy a bigger hosepipe but that takes time to turn up and configure. You need to revisit peering agreements with other players. The internet is a constantly evolving network.”
If buying a bigger hosepipe is what it takes to meet your promises, then that is what you do. You don’t waste time, energy and money looking for ways around that fact either. Sadly, admitting ones mistakes and accepting responsibility for them is a rare thing in this day and age no matter who you are. That is especially true of businesses whom tend to care more about their public image and profit than anything else.
Thomas Koltai Says: “To all those that dont understand – obtain one gallon can – fill up with two gallons. When you have done so – please write the secret of your method in here.”
Ok, so I went out and purchased a one gallon can. When I got home I excitedly tried to fill it up, but to my immense dismay I discovered it was defective and could only hold about one third of a gallon. I tried to return it but couldn’t. The fine print on the receipt said ‘No refunds!’.
Henry Emrich Says: “But hey, itâs nice to know that some people will always find a way to apologize for just about anything.”
They’ll also find ways to rationalize just about any act, no matter how heinous. As humans, our ability for self delusion knows no bounds. It’s why people are able to convince themselves to believe their own lies. All it takes is saying it enough times to become true in their minds.
July 4th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
“…then your isp is filling up at some exchange meet-me point…”
8 (
Oh, Tom…
Since none of the providers that have claimed to have congestion problems have actually bothered to produce the proof, the claim itself has no merit, and therefore, reducing someone’s transfer to a 10th of its possible speed for 40% of the day, without offering any rebate or discounting of the customer’s bill cannot be construed as anything else but extortion.
This has nothing to do with the condition of Malaysia’s internet, or whether a Marxist government is involved, or how low the Dow-Jones dipped that morning. If I have a possible total transfer of 500KB/s, based on my own connection, and a strong number of seeds totalling over 1GB/s, it would be my provider that is choosing to dumb me down to only 30KB/s. That’s only one part of the beef.
Additionally, if congestion was an actual problem, then why throttle for prolonged periods of time? For every user being reduced to a 10th of their capabilities, that’s a file taking 10 TIMES AS LONG to transfer, and the user waiting for it is not clearing the line. And, since the throttling is being done relentlessly for 8-11 hours in succession, none of these delayed users get to reclaim any of that lost capacity (and get out of the way) when the supposed congestion has subsided. Add those users who haven’t cleared their transfers to the additional users that come into it during that time, and then add all the retransmitted packets to replace the ones thrown away in the process, and all the throttling has succeeded in doing is delaying information transfers for nothing! It actually appears to cause more trouble than it’s supposed to solve.
As to the hose analogy, that one also ignores the very basic “supply/demand/pricing” argument you keep side-stepping. It’s “HORSE, then CART”, and not the other way around.