Harnessing the power of P2P

(continued from previous page)

Regardless of whether their infrastructure can support P2P traffic, the floodgates are now open and are not likely to close.

This is especially true as more video comes online. Because P2P leverages "peers" in the network to host pieces of content, media companies and video distribution services don't need to spend millions of dollars building out their own server farms and high-speed infrastructure.

"P2P allows you to deliver content that otherwise would be too expensive to deliver over the Internet, like high-definition video," said Doug Pasko, who represents Verizon and is co-chair of the P4P working group. "And not to sound too Internet altruistic, but keeping the cost down using P2P also helps level the playing field a bit, so if a guy in a garage wants to produce and distribute his own movies, he can do it the same way a big studio can."

Making use of P2P
The cost-effective nature of P2P is why large media companies, such as News Corp., the BBC, and NBC Universal are using P2P to distribute their video content. And because it greatly improves the economics of distributing video, the technology also enables a slew of new companies like Joost and Vuze an opportunity to enter the market.

P2P also offers some potential cost savings for Internet service providers.

"P2P follows similar economics to building a broadcast network," said Marty Lafferty, CEO of the DCIA. "In a broadcast model, the same money is spent to deliver video if there is one viewer or 20 million viewers. But on the Internet, each stream costs the network operator money. P2P allows the file to be downloaded once and shared many times. In fact, distribution actually gets more efficient the more people who want the file."

It is this promise of using the network more efficiently that initially sparked the interest of engineers at Verizon. The company is even considering using P2P on its set-top boxes to more efficiently distribute movies on demand, Verizon's Pasko said.

Even though P2P in its current form offers some benefits to service providers, Pasko said the protocol could be refined to offer even more efficiency.

Today P2P traffic often travels along unnecessarily long routes to its destination. For example, someone downloading an episode of The Office in New York may get part of the file from a peer in Singapore even though there are several peers with the same file just down the street or across the river in New Jersey. The P4P solution adds network intelligence to the peering process, so that the P2P applications can make smarter decisions about where they get content.

"If a P2P service can understand how the network is configured to request the file at the closest peers rather than arbitrarily getting it from a peer across the country or around the globe, it could save a lot of network resources," Pasko said. "Every link that a bit passes through costs something. So if I can get the same bits from a Fios customer locally rather than from someone in Singapore or Taiwan, I don't have to use those network resources across the country and under the Pacific."

What's more, Pasko said, using peers that are closer also helps files download faster, making it a win for the video provider as well as the customers.

But to make this intelligent peering scenario work, companies using P2P to distribute content will have to work with network operators around the globe. Historically, ISPs and other network operators have been leery of sharing network information with each other--let alone third parties.

But Pasko said it only takes sharing general information about the network topology and its customers to see some benefit. And because the information shared is not detailed enough to identify individual subscribers, consumers shouldn't fear that their privacy is being violated.

Pasko said he hopes further real world tests will help convince even more carriers to support the working group. Currently, four major cable operators in the U.S.--Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, and Cablevision--have become observers of the working group. And once the group gets enough support, it will begin trying to standardize what and how information will be shared.

"The carriers we've talked to about our results have been very interested," Pasko said. "I think the perception before was that no one really wanted to talk to anyone about solving the P2P issues. But that isn't really the case."

[gwilliamp]

Traffic shaping

Wat are the implications of the ever increasing trend of ISPs implementing traffic shaping (anti P2P) to reduce the load on their backhaul? Do they specifically allow these sites but not piratebay etc?

[QMT]

reseed plz

It seems the guys at Yale forgot the fatal flaw of P2P, particularly bittorrent - the usual end user simply gets the file then immediately disconnects from the swarm.

[Imalittleteapot]

Yup

Also, the ISP's just need to deliver more bandwidth. Build whatever they have to build, hook up whatever they have to hook up. They're just trying to charge as much as possible for what's already there.

Downloading video's doesn't take up too much bandwidth because it isn't for anyone to decide what too much bandwidth is. If customers want more just give it to them. If they don't wanna pay turn it off.

But these videos are just a warning that the ISP's need to do something. Do they think video's will take up less bandwidth next year? I don't think so. High-def anyone? They should have been building new infrastructure years ago. Bandwidth has always sucked, and it always fell just short of the requirements of new technologies. It's finally time to get a move on.

[jtea84]

Other Peer-2-Peer

I have a Playstation 3 game (NASCAR '08) that requires Peer-2-Peer.

[contentcreator--2008]

A Riot, with Looting

Sure, P2P is a great technology and may someday be capable of great things. But until people get the idea that efficient distribution is not the same as free, we should refer to P2P by its real-world version --- a riot, with looting. Don't forget the tear gas.

[afaet]

P2P copyright infringement.

You are right lets forbid guns they kill people. Sarcasm
P2P is not the same as copyright infringement. It is only a tool.

[Dalkorian]

what trash

ContentCreator posted this nonsense:

"But until people get the idea that efficient distribution is not
the same as free, we should refer to P2P by its real-world
version --- a riot, with looting."

I guess the MAPP/RIAA have done a great job of selling stupid
people the idea that P2P = "stealing".

Problem 1: How can anything be stolen if it's still right where it
was before you came along? In other words, if I steal your car
you won't have it anymore, so logically if I steal music it
shouldn't be there anymore either. This isn't the case. Copyright
infringement, yes. Theft, no.

Problem 2: This still makes the faulty assumption that the only
point behind P2P is to get music or movies for free. It totally
ignores the real point behind P2P, which is to move large files
efficiently. Case in point, I updated my Ubuntu machine the
other night from 0704 to 0710. Guess how it got that update
file.

I could continue, but what's the point? The MPAA/RIAA mafia has
more money to brainwash stupid people than I have to educate
them. Besides, stupid people are ... well, stupid!

[afaet]

Pay for bandwidth...

How Time Warner dares to say. ??If a few customers are using an inordinate amount of bandwidth they should pay for it." They already bill you for the bandwidth, in the past they simply increased the bandwidth because it was the easiest way to fight the competition and very few people used what was available. Now that more people really use what they offer they want to increase the price and their profit.

[Imalittleteapot]

I agree

I agree. It isn't for Time Warner to decide what an "inordinate amount of bandwidth" is. That's a subjective decision. They should only decide how much bandwidth they are willing to sell.

Supply and demand dictates that if customers want more. They should try to offer more. The oil companies don't say well everyone is using too much oil so we're going to stop them from driving. They just make more gas and up the price. They smile the whole time waiting for that money to roll in.

ISPs should do the same. They should just say, well if people want more then we'll give em more. That's a what a business is suppose to do.

If they can't give their customers more. Well that's what competition is for. If they can?t handle it then move out of the way and let someone else handle it. Every time an ISP offers more bandwidth for around the same price I switch. Make them compete for me I say. I?m about to switch again.

Do some people use too much compared to others? Well yeah sure, but we have the same situation for oil. Nobody can tell me that I'm not paying a premium on gasoline for my compact car because everybody driving their gas sucking SUV?s is driving up the price for everyone. Is that fair? No it isn?t, but for right now that is how the economy works.

Unless they're planning on changing the basic economic principles of supply and demand they should just shut their holes.

[Leria]

You hit the nail on the head

The real problem that Time Warner has is that more people are actually using their service to the fullest capacity that they can.... personally, I download about 10-500GB's a month (yes, it is that variable, but 10 is about the least I ever do) and I don't think that I am really 'using a lot' considering that 3 other people in the same trailer park where I live have no problems downloading stuff when I am downloading things.

[Bill_I]

P2P

Talk about peer-to-peer, it seems the P4P Working Group (P4PWG) is just that, P2P! Let's hope they arrive at a unified standard which makes efficient use of current and future bandwidth.

[ethana2]

The future comes.

P2P is the key to more than most people think.

http://www.digg.com/software/The_Death_of_the_Digg_Effect

That's right. torrents must supplant even our beloved http. Best be getting used to it now.

[Qwelrift]

P2P: the imaginary villian

There are many perspective ways to look at P2P. Here is one: P2P is like carpooling in California. Sure, you can go out and buy your own car and join the further congested highways. However, if you choose to find someone who will let you ride with them, you will utilize 1 car to take multiple people to multiple destinations. That is efficiency.
Car companies could get angry that people are carpooling and not buying more cars from them to handle their travel needs, but there are always other factors involved: gas, maintenance, and availability.
Gas companies could get angry that people are carpooling as well and not buying individual cars to get their own ration of gas, but then again there are so many cars on the road that the impact of not having more people use gas is relatively negligible because 1 car is now travelling more highways, using more gas.
Less people would carpool if: 1) cars were cheaper, 2) gas were cheaper, 3) maintenance of cars was less expensive, 4) maintenance of roads was better, and 5) there were more roads that travelled to where people needed to go. (There?s always more reasons, but I will sum it up there).
The viewpoint of P2P from the ?big boys? is: If you can?t control it (P2P), make it (P2P) look like the bad guy. A car is a ?neutral? object. Give a car to a thief and it?s used for evil. Give a car to a person feeding the poor and it?s used for good. The car is not evil or good, the intents of the user are what determine what is right or wrong.
What honestly seems to be the problem is creating a structure in which all parties involve make lucrative amounts of money from this ?neutral? process called P2P. If you would take the time, money, and creative thought improve the areas that need improving: 1) increase bandwidth on both ends (create more highway), 2) make it reasonable and affordable to have the increased bandwidth (make the price fair for the increase in bandwidth? DON?T BE GREEDY. People will pay for good diversity of content if you make it affordable [http://iTunes, Netflix, Blockbuster, etc., etc.|http://iTunes, Netflix, Blockbuster, etc., etc.]), and 3) maintain the quality you start (self-explanatory). There is a lot more things that can be done, but this is a start.

[heimangil]

Don't forget Collanos!

I feel it would have been only fair to add the p2p free team workspace provider Collanos which has done an amazing job of mastering peer to peer to make a very robust professional tool for active team players seeking unified communications and team workspace solution. Now they even have VoIP integrated!
I've been using for a while now and it is a great example of P2P for small businesses and free!
www.collanos.com

[Scott.Walker]

That's why bittorrent has data chunks!

Sure, a lot of people disconnect from the swarm as soon as they've grabbed the file, just as many stay connected until their app decides to stop seeding (150% return by default on most apps), and fewer still continue to seed for much greater times.
However, the way the protocol works is that as chunks are downloaded, they are then made available for others to leech. (In the case of a 700MB movie, normally about 1400 or 2800 chunks make up the 700M file 256 or 512 kB/chunk). This means that while I've only grabbed 50% of the file I remain connected to the swarm, since I want to download the entire file before I disconnect. At this point of my download, I'm sharing potentially 50% of the chunks that I've already downloaded. with others that don't have those pieces of the complete file.

As such, I don't actually think that they've overlooked anything, especially since, as the file grows in size (assuming the maximum downlink bandwidth is never reached), the time to download the whole file also goes up, leading to more chunks becoming available since people are connected for longer. This then means that download speed increases, since there are more peers out there with chunks of the file I still don't have, which ends up leading to a steady balance between the speeding up/slowing down of transfers. This essentially makes the 'hit-and-run' torrent leeching effect negligible.

[arkonis]

I think today good alternative for p2p is <a href="http://www.rapidshare.com">http://www.rapidshare.com</a>, you can search files hosted on rapidshare using google or one of this rapidshare search engines:

<a href="http://www.filestube.com">http://www.filestube.com</a>
<a href="http://www.rapidor.com">http://www.rapidor.com</a>
<a href="http://www.rapidshareabc.com">http://www.rapidshareabc.com</a>
<a href="http://www.rapidsharefast.com">http://www.rapidsharefast.com</a>


Good luck

[arkonis]

Sorry, somethink wrong with previous comment.

I think today good alternative for p2p is http://www.rapidshare.com, you can search files hosted on rapidshare using google or one of this rapidshare search engines:

http://www.filestube.com
http://www.rapidor.com
http://www.rapidshareabc.com
http://www.rapidsharefast.com


Good luck