Comcast, Verizon troubles illustrate peer-to-peer software opportunity

It's long been an open secret that many major telecommunications companies, including Internet service providers (ISPs) and cellular data providers, impose specific limits on the volume and type of bandwidth consumed by their customers.

"Open" in the sense that these companies almost universally reserve the right to impose such limits, and occasionally make public statements defending their right to do so. "Secret" because the companies rarely reveal their specific limits, and because it seems like these limits are constantly being rediscovered by people who ought to know better.

It reminds me of people who claim to be shocked by new evidence of pork-barrel politics even though the practice has been common throughout history (though some politicians do refrain).

Two such shocking cases are before us in the news this week.

First, Comcast admitted it uses traffic shaping to reduce the bandwidth demands of peer-to-peer file-sharing applications such as BitTorrent.

Next, Verizon Wireless settled a dispute with the Attorney General of New York state stemming from its use of the word "unlimited" to describe its wireless Internet plans, which were very definitely limited by secret company policies to a total of five gigabytes per month.

In both cases, the primary issue is fairness...and the contradictory definitions of fairness held by customers and their service providers.

For ordinary customers, fairness means being able to use all the bandwidth they're paying for, continuously, forever, with whatever software they like. Providers apparently want to define fairness as satisfying the maximum number of customers while still making a profit.

I have to take the customer's side on the definition, but you can't argue with the business goal. Without profit, there's no business. Some ISPs don't care about profit, of course--chiefly the ones in foreign countries where the Internet has been subsidized by government for political reasons. But here in the US, Internet services have to make a profit, and that means bandwidth supply can never meet bandwidth demand.

On one hand, ISPs could build out their networks to provide the maximum rated bandwidth to all subscribers at once...but that would be extraordinarily expensive, and wasteful because that kind of load would never be seen in the real world. On the other hand, they could promise the lower throughput they truly can guarantee, then deliver more when possible...but that would look terrible as a marketing campaign. Verizon's 5GB limit, for example, works out to about 2 kilobits per second. Can you imagine advertising "2-kilobit high-speed Internet!"? Nope. Supply and demand isn't just a good idea--it's the law.

So ISPs use what's called "statistical multiplexing"--sharing bandwidth among multiple users on the theory that they won't all use it at once. A cable-modem service such as Comcast's might share some 30 megabits/s of bandwidth among dozens to hundreds of subscribers in a single neighborhood.

Although a mere half-dozen users could overload this shared channel, in practice, the natural load-sharing behavior of Internet protocols provides a reasonable experience for all the users online at any given moment.

Except when it doesn't. An active BitTorrent user might have dozens or hundreds of transfers in progress--multiple files, each with multiple partial downloads in progress. Each transfer competes for a share of the channel's total bandwidth, so a handful of BitTorrent users on one cable-modem service could consume the vast majority of the available bandwidth.

This gives us a third definition of fairness, the BitTorrent definition: fairness is being able to take everything you can get without regard to other customers on the same service.

So is it more unfair for Comcast to cut back on BitTorrent traffic, or for BitTorrent users to exploit the Internet's load-sharing behavior? I have to take Comcast's side on this one.

I was writing a reply to a badly-written article and subsequent ignorant comments about the Comcast situation over on Engadget earlier today when I realized this situation creates a market opportunity for some software company. So I figured I'd write this instead of posting the reply there.

To summarize: although I suspect most BitTorrent traffic consists of pirated software, music, TV shows, and movies, there's also some important, legitimate content on BitTorrent--Linux distributions, collections of classic e-books in the public domain, Linux distributions...wait, I mentioned that already. Actually, there probably isn't that much legitimate BitTorrent activity. But however much there is, it deserves to pass unmolested on Comcast and other Internet services.

It's unfortunate that these files are being subjected to Comcast's traffic shaping, but that's what happens when people put legitimate content into a distribution channel designed and optimized to facilitate piracy.

So clearly we need a separate public-access peer-to-peer system. How would it differ from BitTorrent? Well, the content would have to be legitimate, and probably so. That means a central authority and a master list of authorized content.

Of course, this is basically the Joost business plan. Joost is a peer-to-peer file-sharing service for video. It seems to me that either Joost ought to expand the concept to include other kinds of content, or someone else ought to get into the business. It'll have to be ad-supported, I think, because if anyone has to pay for the service they'll probably just keep using BitTorrent instead.

Such a service should also get support from ISPs since it would actually reduce their overall bandwidth load for legitimate file sharing. Peer-to-peer distribution is very efficient--that's why Joost uses it--so the providers could leave this new service unfiltered while BitTorrent gets quite legitimately squeezed out of operation.

No doubt such a plan would be highly unpopular with active BitTorrent users, but if that's the price of keeping ISPs profitable--and honest in their marketing policies-- I think it's a reasonable price to pay.

[hawkeyeaz1]

Two items of note

"This gives us a third definition of fairness, the BitTorrent definition: fairness is being able to take everything you can get without regard to other customers on the same service."

This definition misses half the point of BitTorrent--sharing. It means you download, you (should) share a portion back. This was the load doesn't all go to one or two (or what not) servers or individuals and it does not depends on uptime. Not sharing on BitTorrent as ComCast is forcing is rude at best. So it is really a catch-22. If you share you are rude to someone, if you don't share you are rude to someone else. But when neither is being rude by doing anything inherently wrong or improper--i.e. sharing on BitTorrent is not stealing or dishonest, and not using your bandwidth is likewise, then sharing on BitTorrent is your paid for right (you pay, thus it is not a privledge).

"It's unfortunate that these files are being subjected to Comcast's traffic shaping, but that's what happens when people put legitimate content into a distribution channel designed and optimized to facilitate piracy."

Proof BitTorrent was designed and optimized for piracy? That very model is used in RAID arrays and distributed computing systems--which is not (normally) related to piracy in any way. It is a way to optimize transfer speeds, as even a dedicated webserver doesn't usually reach your bandwidth's full potential.

If I pay for it, I should be able to utilize it within the bounds of applicable law and reason. If the service provider is promising more than they can or should be able to provide, then they are the one(s) being dishonest, and this does not justify their further covering their dishonesty. Bandwidth really isn't that expensive, it's the infrastructure, much of which is paid for already.

[zanzzz]

You Got It Wrong!

"On one hand, ISPs could build out their networks to provide the maximum rated bandwidth to all subscribers at once...but that would be extraordinarily expensive, and wasteful because that kind of load would never be seen in the real world."
If you build it they will come. US broadband is slow compared to Japan and Korea. In the US the ISP's are shocked that customers are using the bandwidth they have purchased. So Comcast has resorted to IP spoofing as a means to discourage upload sharing. This is in addition to its already paltry upload speeds as part of their heavily asymmetric broadband packages. If broadband bandwidth remains anemic then how can innovative products be developed that would depend on greater throughput?
"It's unfortunate that these files are being subjected to Comcast's traffic shaping, but that's what happens when people put legitimate content into a distribution channel designed and optimized to facilitate piracy."
BitTorent is as much the solution to bandwidth constraints as it is the problem. Moralizing as to what the intent for such programs was and justifying the abusive response serves no purpose in defending the exposed inadequacy of an ISP's network. If 90% of all email was illegal spam and Comcast started interfering with the flow of all email you would use this same lame justification? What will your excuse be when the bandwidth pressure is clearly of a legitimate nature?
"So clearly we need a separate public-access peer-to-peer system. How would it differ from BitTorrent? Well, the content would have to be legitimate, and probably so. That means a central authority and a master list of authorized content."
How absurd! Now that you propose a P2P ghetto with master lists where will the needed throughput magically come from? Over the same creaky oversold ISP network but now with heavy traffic shaping to make it slow to a crawl? Brilliant! This is essentially what the ISP's wish for, degrading traffic they dislike to favor their own content and more profitable streams.
ISP's complain that a small percentage of their customers use an inordinately large amount of bandwidth that degrades everyone's service. Somehow this problem vanishes when said customer pays for business level bandwidth. What Comcast is reacting to is the increasing use of bandwidth by the average customer. They have resorted to underhanded hacks that may in fact be illegal in at least a few states. With the disconnect between how broadband is marketed and the realities of how it is delivered along with the murky, overly broad terms of service contracts it is high time that net neutrality legislation should be enacted.

[hawkeyeaz1]

More comments

Bandwidth needs are only going to grow. So, if you pay for certain bandwidth, you should be able to expect to get that. If Comcast can't provide that, then the issue is not the custome's issue--it's not one of 'hogging bandwidth'. Comcast is just either trying to cheat the customers, or trying to make their obviously incapable system 'work' for a long as possible, which is still cheating the customers. Perhaps they dno't want to support 'compettition', or perhaps they just want money, but the customer who uses the bandwidth they pay for to share with others fairly for the download they have done is prefectly fair and to be expected. Comcast is in the wrong.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

That isn't what you're paying for

You're not paying for a sustained 6 megabits/s or whatever the advertised speed is. You're paying for that much instantaneous bandwidth, with a further-- unadvertised-- limitation based on statistical multiplexing.

It's wrong for an ISP to advertise one limit but not the other. But it's also wrong for you to expect the impossible.

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