ISPs prepare for video revolution

Video may have killed the radio star, but it doesn't have to kill the Internet.

That is if Internet service providers can figure out how to keep up with the video-driven bandwidth demand on their networks. Peer-to-peer technology provider BitTorrent says it can help.

Video consumes more network resources than any other media distributed on the Web. Even poor-quality video from YouTube eats up more bandwidth than e-mail, music downloading, and voice over IP services. And when you throw full-length high-definition video into the mix, you're talking about even more bandwidth. Depending on the compression used, a single HD video stream can eat up 20 megabits per second worth of bandwidth.

And as consumers subscribe to faster and faster broadband connections at home and sites like YouTube and Hulu come online offering all kinds of video choices, more people are watching video on the Web. According to ComScore Video Metrix, Americans are currently watching upward of 10 billion videos online a month. By the end of 2007, online viewers averaged more than one video a day.

This is just the beginning. ABI research forecasts the number of viewers who access video via the Web will nearly quadruple in the next few years, reaching at least 1 billion in 2013.

This summer's Olympic Games in Beijing marks the first real test of online video as NBC embarks upon the most ambitious online video project ever. NBC plans to offer 3,600 hours of live programming from Beijing, which translates to about 212 live hours for each of the 17 days of the Olympics. The majority of this viewing will be delivered online.

All this video is great for viewers, who are able to pick and choose what they watch and when. But for Internet service providers like the phone companies and the cable operators, it represents a massive challenge. Some providers, such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, are testing out new ways to deal with "bandwidth hogs" or individual users who use an inordinate amount of bandwidth.

Last month, Comcast began testing a new system that will throttle back or slow down traffic during times of congestion for heavy bandwidth users. The new system was developed after Comcast faced stark criticism for singling out and slowing down peer-to-peer traffic.

Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable, which says it faces the same capacity headaches, also began testing a new billing system that charges customers who exceed their limit for uploading and downloading material.

P2P as a solution, rather than a problem
Eric Klinker, chief technology officer for BitTorrent, which has commercialized the peer-to-peer technology, says that what the cable operators are doing is a good start. But more can be done to help operators deal with the onslaught of video.

"I think what Comcast and Time Warner Cable are doing is a great first step. It gets ISPs out of the business of deciding which applications are important and which aren't. But there are enhancements to the peer-to-peer protocol, in particular, that can make it easier on all ISPs."

--Eric Klinker, CTO, BitTorrent,

For one, peer-to-peer protocols, such as BitTorrent, which are often cited as major headaches for network operators because of the big file transfers they enable, need to be utilized rather than singled out as a source of the problem, he said.

"I think what Comcast and Time Warner Cable are doing is a great first step," Klinker said. "It gets ISPs out of the business of deciding which applications are important and which aren't. But there are enhancements to the peer-to-peer protocol, in particular, that can make it easier on all ISPs."

Peer-to-peer technology has gotten a bad rap for years. Since the days of file-sharing networks like Napster, which allowed people to exchange songs on their computer hard drives with others on the Internet, peer-to-peer technology has been demonized in the press. But the truth is that peer-to-peer technology actually allows large files like videos to be distributed more efficiently. And as more video makes it way onto the Web, it's increasingly being used. In fact, peer-to-peer traffic accounts for about 43 percent of all traffic on the Internet, according to a recent study by the network management company Sandvine.

The way peer-to-peer works is that when a user requests a video, the peer-to-peer network queries other users in the network and takes pieces of the file from different peers and sends it to the user requesting the file. This distributed architecture means that content owners don't have to assemble large and expensive data centers. It also means that a content distributor doesn't have to pay for expensive high-speed links to serve up an entire file from a single server farm.

That said, peer-to-peer protocols in the wild can eat up lots of bandwidth because peers on the network can silently and continuously upload pieces of files from their computers all day and all night, seeding dozens or hundreds of file requests. And because upload capacities are generally much slower than downloads, it can create bottlenecks and capacity crunches on the last mile of service providers' networks. For network operators that are already capacity-constrained, this phenomenon can dramatically affect performance for all users.

The enhanced version of peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer companies, such as BitTorrent and Pando Networks, have recognized this problem and have been working with service providers, such as Verizon Communications, Comcast, and others to come up with solutions. Verizon and Pando Networks have been working on a project called P4P, which advocates ISPs share information about their network topography and use an enhanced version of peer-to-peer to locate peers in close proximity to the file request. Getting files locally can help reduce the expense associated with carrying peer-to-peer files over long distances.

BitTorrent, whose founder created one of the most popular peer-to-peer protocols used today, has also been working on a solution. The company has developed its own enhancement to the peer-to-peer protocol that tells peer-to-peer applications to stop seeding the network with content when the network is congested.

For example, if a teenager starts playing an online video game at the same time his mother makes a voice over IP phone call and his little sister is downloading music from iTunes, the protocol will tell the peer-to-peer movie application that is running in the background on their family computer to stop uploading bits of the Spider-Man movie that had been ordered from an online movie rental service and is now stored on a hard drive in their home. Instead, the network will search for the content on another peer that is on a network that is less congested.

"If there is contention in the network, my application will back off," Klinker said. "And it will automatically and seamlessly find someone else in the network to complete uploading that content. The video quality is never disrupted, and the user never knows where the content is coming from."

BitTorrent has already tested the enhancement with more than 10 million users and it's currently working with the Internet standards body, the Internet Engineering Task Force, to standardize the technology so that other peer-to-peer companies can embed it in their software client.

Klinker said that new technologies, such as the one developed by his company, as well as efforts on the P4P enhancements will help ISPs manage and control their networks so that even more video can make it to the Web without crippling the infrastructure delivering it.

And once service providers learn how to harness peer-to-peer, they will be able to develop business models that reap the benefits of the technology. For example, Comcast, Verizon, or any other TV provider could add peer-to-peer software to the set-top boxes sitting in their customers' living rooms to create a distributed peer-to-peer movie network. Instead of serving up on-demand movies from their own servers sitting in expensive-to-run data centers, these TV providers could leverage the content already stored on their customers' set-top hard drives.

"The cable and phone companies are already spending capital to put set-tops in everyone's home," Klinker said. "They could use that same hardware as part of their content distribution model. Then the user pays the electrical bill. And they pay for the bandwidth. It's just much more efficient."

Klinker said a solution, such as this one, requires a slightly different business model from BitTorrent's current business model. But he said that it's something the company is investigating.

"It's interesting enough that we're in discussions and testing some scenarios with ISPs," he said. "In general, service providers move slowly. So nothing will happen overnight. But I think we'll see some interesting changes within the next three years."

[McPlot]

Now, if you take all the people using P2P for illeagle reasons and arrest them. The people using P2P for legal use, would not even be noticed.

Cry all you want, but you know that 95% of P2P users are using it to steal copy righted material. Until that changes, I do not feel bad for P2P users not getting a good connection.

[Lerianis]

Yeah, keep on spouting that lie, McPlot (i.e. Recording and Movie company shill). The fact is that most people using Bittorrent are using it to download legal or 'grey area' material (foreign shows like One Piece and Naruto: Shippuuden).
You need to stop trying to parrot the Recording and Movie company line that 'most people using p2p are using it to get illegal material'. I am sorry, but that is not true, and furthermore, has been PROVEN to not be true.

Even if it was true, if a lot of people are trading things 'illegally'...... guess what? Our Founding Fathers put it into the laws that if a majority of the people or significant minority of the people ignore a law, that law is NULL AND VOID.

That would mean that since 99% of the people ignore the DMCA...... it's null and void. Since 80% or more of people say that copyright law is too strict in this country..... that law is null and void. Etc. Etc. Etc.

[McPlot]

ha! You ADMIT to stealing copyrighted programs, and you don't even know you are stealing them, LOL.

[sanenazok]

Oh come on- just because someone disagrees with you suddenly they're a shill and for the worst companies ever, too. Well, in that case you're a shill for Opec, the tobacco industry, or whatever. Sure I don't know anything about you, but since I disagree with you I must attack you personally.

[i_am_still_wade]

As good as an idea as this is, it will be a long time before it goes anywhere. First, the big ISP's are trying to figure out a way to raise rates while technically not raising rates. Their bandwidth cap would quickly affect many many users who aren't doing anything illegal. Second, the RIAA and MPAA and their outmoded way of thinking and their inability to adapt have grouped all P2P as evil. Since the RIAA and MPAA can't think rationally, they assume P2P is always wrong. These organizations have deep pockets and they will fight this just because it can be used for the illegal activities.

[jscott418]

I really don't see the need to dispute weather the majority of bit torrent content is illegal or not.
The fact remains that their is only so much bandwidth available and expanding this bandwidth appears to be slowing down. But my two cents on the content with bit torrent is that I personally believe much of bit torrents are illegal copyrighted material being distributed. After all the only non copyrighted material would be personal youtube like video produced by individuals. Most of what I see is TV shows, movies and software. All of which no matter what country they come from are copyrighted. But for me, the ISP's only concern should be to provide equal service to all of its customers and those that excessively download content and upload content should be paying more for it.

[NProszkow]

... And we do. I PAY for 20 MBit down and 5 MBit up. That is what I pay for and that is what I use. That is why all ISP's have different pay structures for consumers.

[Drubinson]

Have you been sleeping ? TOMORROW in Hokkaido, the USA is leading the other G-8 countries to pass the draconian and reprehensible ACTA- Anti Counterfeit Trade Agreement. This will make P2P ILLEGAL, criminalize BitTorrent and others, and create a global ENFORCEMENT agency to enforce it. More- it will implement drastic border checks of all memory devices- including ipods, cell phones, PDAs, and all computer hard drives. Your immediate attention is required to fight this. Thanks, DR

[Penguinisto]

Err, given the time-zone shift, it is "tomorrow" in Japan as of a few minutes ago (relative to PDT).

[anthony f wood]

Bit late I know but I was just checking out the ICC address to G8 and found it a tad disturbing,have a look at--iccwbo.org/uploadedFiles/ICC%20G8%20Hokkaido%20Toyako%20Summit.pdf -

[private-internet]

The problem is the ISP?s business model ? are they a common carrier or not. As a subscriber, I should be able to do what I like with my connection ? whether I am viewing a video or sharing with my friends. After all, it is still my Internet connection?

[Penguinisto]

No, they do not enjoy classic Common Carrier protections. OTOH: They do have DMCA Safe Harbor protections, and as long as they do not alter any user traffic based on content, they are regarded as safe from civil lawsuits involving a user's actions. ISP's do not want Common Carrier, because if they were, they would then have to be regulated entities. They OTOH do not want to be without any type of protection, hence the DMCA Safe Harbor and similar loopholes.

[jamalystic]

P2P will continue to pose a major dilemma for ISPs and whethet they will be able to circumvent this dilemma remains to be seen. Acouple of years back, P2P filtrs were making the rounds, touting their ability to solve this dilemma but als, as the report find out,it's all a money making business with no solution to offer: Peer-to-Peer Filters: Ready for Internet Prime Time?(http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=148803&F_src=flftwo)

[cohaver]

MCPLOT need to understand the need as a developer i use P2P to transfer my work and research via P2P. Also Torrent type exchanges verify each set of Data for errors and builds it back in the correct way. OSI stack does the same thing in HTML but is limited to standard Data types it cant verify Video correctly. Spam and malware makers understand this
Total understanding of Formats exchange services is needed by ISP's and RIAA . If the Data blocks at the foundation readers are poor trying to lock them out is stupid a new format or correction protocol can be made to unlock ISP controls. So work with and build a foundation group of protocols with all parties is needed. And as far as stealing copy righted material in house Hollywood is to blame 99% of all good copies of movies and music was posted by Hollywood RIAA members or their maids or others people who have access to post dated material . The manufacturing Factories Security.
Sometimes the Big Fish mite be in your own company next time you kick that mail boy in your office for a damage letter or Maid didn't clean good it only takes few seconds to copy data with right stuff.

[streamOG]

Nobody in their right mind is going to use a company to deliver their content who knowingly contributes to Global Piracy on a daily basis.

BitTorrent the company is a complete Scam. They have spent millions and millions of their investor's dollars trying to brand themselves as a content delivery company and have failed miserably.

There is more than enough network capacity to deliver video on the Internent using conventional CDN's and that is not going to change.

Akamai bought RedSwoosh and to date have not deployed it for a single customer.

Same thing with INTERNAP using Pando. Nobody wants P2P delivery because it sucks, it's not secure and conventional CDN is more reliable and affordable.

[BrettGlass]

Contrary to what BitTorrent falsely claims, P2P is not more efficient than conventional delivery methods. In fact, it's many times LESS efficient because it uses many connections, and many servers all over the net, to deliver the content. What's more, those servers are farther from the Internet backbone, and so have higher latencies and higher bandwidth costs. ISPs are right to fight against P2P as a method for video delivery, because the combination of large amounts of data (inevitable for video) and the huge inefficiencies of P2P mean a huge and unnecessary waste of network resources.

It's a simple and indisputable fact that P2P was originally invented for the purpose of making illegal, pirated copies of media, and -- contrary to a few claims above -- that really is what it is mostly used for, even now. (I know; I'm an ISP and we gather statistics. While we can't recognize everything that's illegal, the P2P traffic that we CAN recognize as indisputably illegal is already at least 80%. ) However, a new use of P2P is raising even greater concerns among ISPs: cost shifting by content providers, especially providers of high bandwidth content such as video.

It's important for users to understand this, because when costs are shifted to ISPs, the ISPs must ultimately pass them on to users. (They can't afford not to.)

When a P2P content provider (such as Vuze or even the BBC) gives a user "player" software, that software surreptitiously turns that user's machine into the content provider's server. (There's usually some mention that this is done in the fine print of the software "license," but who ever reads or understands those cryptic, endless documents? All that most users know is that they had to download the player to get the content.) The user's machine is slowed down as it sends out hundreds or even thousands of copies of the file that was received -- all without any payment to the user for the use of his machine or the user's ISP for the use of its network and bandwidth. And that bandwidth costs money! Unlike bandwidth in the "center" of the network, bandwidth at the "edges" -- at users' homes and businesses -- can easily cost hundreds of dollars per megabit per second per month.

The content providers really should be paying their freight and buying the bandwidth they need openly, rather than taking it from ISPs via a technique that's not much different than what spammers do when they set up "spambots." But the only way they'll do this is if the ISPs clamp down on P2P. That's what Comcast and other ISPs are doing.

"P4P" and other schemes which supposedly reduce the impact of P2P on ISPs are ultimately doomed to failure. Why? Because they still have all of the most important inefficiencies of P2P -- including high connection overhead -- and still shift costs to ISPs. Until the content providers pay for the resources they're using, there's no solution to the P2P problem.

As for video in general: remember, the Internet was never designed to carry video. In fact, it's the most inefficient medium imaginable for video, because a unique copy must be sent to every user (unlike broadcast media, where millions can receive the same signal at the same time). What's more, the Internet was never designed to be a "real time" medium. We'd all do much better to point dishes at a satellite which repeatedly broadcasts copies of media we might want to see.

The quality of current Internet video could be helped tremendously if players buffered content ahead (most, for some reason, don't, leading to a halting display) and if content was compressed more efficiently. A few minutes of preprocessing to squash the video just a little tighter could save terabits when it was distributed! Alas, none of this is being done, contributing to the current mess.

[ipollesion]

You tease me, Ithought the picture was a vide. I tried to steam it by pressing play.
How dare you. ;)

[Mike Acker]

ain't never gonna happen. the big boys are going to hear "let us supply your content to users from computers that are all over the place" and this is equivalent to legitimatizine the mess that is p2p out there now

i think there are good uses for p2p but this one ain't never gonna fly

[Mike Acker]

the most important capability of p2p is to provide us with the ability to publish openly material that would otherwise be censored by government for political reasons

p2p thus assumes the role of the old dial-up bbs: anyone can create one but you haqve to search the alleys and darkened saloons of cyberspace to find directions to the one you are interested in