Comments on: An Open Letter to Comcast and Every cable/Telco on P2P

Mark Cuban wants the peer-to-peer traffic blocked.

[grendelthing]

You didn't really think this through.

So if I am downloading high bandwidth content from a media provider like iTunes, Amazon Unbox, PS Network, On Demand, or some other "commercial" enterprise, should my ISP block that as well. I'm assuming you mean business to business content or educational content delivery. But of course you weren't specific so we are forced to assume you mean all commercial endevours. Very poor writing indeed.

And for my strictly personal opinion. You must have absolutetly no taste in music. Some of the best stuff out there cannot be had from the major online retailers. Unless you live in a larger city with stores carrying a good stock of imports and obscure music, you're out of luck. I wont get into the legalities of it, bet there are tons of people who legally buy most of their music and only resort to P2P for stuff that can't be found anywhere else.

[GrumpyGuy74]

While you're at it

Ban people from sending pictures. I mean, look at how much space a 12MP digital picture takes up. Think of how many pictures of other peoples children, pets and inane vacations we might be spared. Think of the electrons, the bytes, man! Don't stop there. There's certainly some reduction that could be achieved in forcing everyone to use abbreviations. Limit the number of characters that can be sent per email and the number of emails per person per day. Every bit counts. (pun intended) After all, we know the internet isn't here for everyone. It's just here for you. Oh, wait... Hmmm.

In all seriousness, this is why some service providers have download caps on connectivity packages. If the market won't bear the burden, it'll self correct... There's an analog to be found in vehicles... If I were to drive an SUV, I pay more in fuel costs than someone with a smaller vehicle. However, you also reap the benefits from the economy of scale. If you're comparing one home user to another and assuming one is a P2P sharer and the other a simple web browser, I would agree with the other commenter in that there are any number of legitimate (?) uses of this bandwidth beyond P2P. (YouTube, anyone?)

[mikemanuel57]

What is 'Commercial Traffic'?

Mark, internet connections will only get faster and cheaper. Some areas already have fiber connections directly to homes. Most ISPs limit upload bandwidth and you do have to pay a premium price to get more bandwidth. So what if and ISP customer pays for a static IP address and extra bandwidth? Shouldn't he/she be able to decide what to use it for? (within legal limits of course). What if a legitimate company decides to use P2P (or hypothetically artists like Radiohead) to distribute content? If you want to speed up your internet connection, get a dedicated DS3.

[badsponge]

Great idea!

It's SUCH a great idea, let's expand this principle to the real world! The government should ban people for driving on the freeway unless it's for a really good reason. L.A. traffic sucks, so the only obvious solution is removing vehicles from the road, not upgrading the infrastructure.

[halamadrid]

Yes, only as long as it doesn't affect me...

First they shut down P2P, but I didn't say anything because I don't use P2P, then they shut down Amazon Unbox downloads, but I didn't say anything because I don't download from Amazon, then they shut down Google searches....

[mypalmike]

About face... Forward, march!

Grokster seemed to be worth defending not too long ago. Now it's death to the P2P freeloaders?

[portorikan]

The Internet's Idiot

The internet will get faster when ISPs remove limits on uploads and download
speeds for me and for the average consumer.

[Mr. Pirate]

Pirates Don't Use P2P Anymore

**** You stupid moron! Have fun with your Cable, lowlife!

[kasaghn]

Okay lets make the world simple for you slow folks out there. I was an engineer who designed the software and network grid designs for Bellsouth yes the New ATT bought us out and I left but thats another story.

The internet works like this you pay for a set amount of acess to the "web" for example basic cable internet where i am from will cost you about 40 plus fees every month. You are buying about 200-500 Mbps (megabytes per second) of transfer speed usually limited to 2/3 full speed down and 1/3 up so at max run you wont exceed you bandwidth.

If you pay the 178 dollars a month I pay for fibernet you can get up to 3Gbps (Gigabytes persecond) of transfer. Yes this rocks for gaming cause not server is using the kind of bandwidth I have. I pay a premium for a service that honestly I never use to its full potential but I like it. The problem is it will probably be 5 to 10 years before everyone else starts to catch up and go beyond th middle ground of 700Mbps to 1.3Gbps (where most high end servers run).

What does all this mean well just that p2p does not use "your" bandwidth it uses "theirs" in a most stupid way but none the less "theirs". You want more speed buy more speed don't believe me call your local providers and dont just call one call all listed in your phone book cause there will be more than you think available to you.