NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Costing P2P and other ISP data streams
Hmmm. Did Brett really supplement his usual categorical "All P2P traffic is thievery and has no right to exist!" argument with a "well... if it's *slow* enough it might be OK" appendix? But do we believe there's a function that will accurately graph morality vs. bps? --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator - - - > At 08:30 AM 3/24/2008, Neil Davies wrote: > > >From the neutrality standpoint lets not call this P2P traffic - that is too emotive about its content. Let's call this scavenger traffic - it is bulk trans > fer traffic that the end user has no particular time constraints over getting transmitted (it might be backup traffic, it could be microsoft patch traffic, e > tc). The important property is that it should get there sometime, the movement of the traffic should have no effect on the end-user's other network traffic ( > i.e VoIP still works, the normal web browsing continues smoothly). It is a background, non-intrusive, data movement service. > > Neil: > > Unfortunately, BitTorrent and similar P2P programs do not operate as "scavengers." Rather than working slowly in the background, these programs attempt to ho > g the foreground. (See George Ou's excellent article at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=1078.) And P2P users protest the slightest attempt to throttle their con > nections; hence the complaints when Comcast engaged in MILD tactics to mitigate bandwidth hogging by BitTorrent. > > If it really were a background service, we could find a way to work it in at a reasonable price, as you mention. But since BitTorrent, Vuze, and similar comp > anies are greedy and will not "settle" for this, I do not think that anything will be practical other than blocking their attempts to take our bandwidth. > > --Brett Glass >