iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
 ·Comcast
 ·Qwest.net
 ·magicjack.com
 ·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: ISPs would carry costs and won't be happy Okay, let's see here...
If the software does things right then you can select a share ratio, where above a certain pint your connection cuts off. Most BitTorrent clients will only "seed" (upload only) until the person downloading the torrent has "paid for" the data they've used, plus 50 to 100%.
Now take into account that the software culd be set up (hint: live streaming) so that only people who are actually watching stuff will download it (no content hording) your download count is equal to your viewer count and thus, unless there are a lot of people just shutting off their connections or having them shut off, you'll end up with a share ratio of around 100%.
This means that if a person downloads an hour of HD content (which can be hit into 700 MB if we're just talking high quality, but throw-away, media) they'll "cost" the ISP only 1.4 GB of data, 700 down, 700 up. 1.5 if you have hashfails or suchlike.
So if the P2P stuff is governed by software that is intelligent about bandwidth and such, the internet won't break (you scurvy pay-by-byte scoundrals out there pushin' yer agendas), it'll just become less centralized, more resilient and, with such stuff as the P4P initiative, better able to take advantage of ultra-high-speed connections like FiOS offers. This in turn provides customers a reason to upgrade to higher data tiers (fast downloads of multimedia or such) and the ISP gets more money. How can that be bad?
Also, what's this BS about uplink capacity being more congested than downlink? Granted, it's on a small scale, but if you look at some of these small ISPs that publish traffic reports they tend to have a more constant flow of upload data, yes, but it's generally 30-50% of the download amounts. This is with the ISP website hosted on the ISP's own infrastructure.
Besides, the highly asymmetric nature of consumer broadband makes sure, to an extent, that uploads won't overwhelm the network, or so it seems. Remember, once you get beyond the CMTS or the DSLAM, ISP backbone connections are almost always symmetric, so unless they're hosting crap with that extra b\w it's available to consumers, especially if they're doing legal stuff.
Heck, Revision3 uses BitTorrent as an alternate distribution method for their media. If the content is really good and such, only as many people will download it as will watch it at some point. Those same people add a little bit to the "swarm" speed for download to other users. The central server chips in now and then to ensure an optimal download experience.
Ya see, BitTorrent was created as a content distribution network replacement, but not as a replacement for a system that has one centralized server where content is always available. It would alleviate the massive burden of centralized serving of video events that would otherwise only be viewable in broadcast form, by equally stressing more of the "tubes". This would allow, say, ten thousand people to simulteneously watch a one-megabit stream that ten thousand other people ha started watching, or had downloaded, earlier. The same action would require a large fram of centralized servers and a port to the internet larger than some providers' national backbones.
That's the beauty of distributed computing and distributed content delivery via BitTorrent. That's what the tech was made for, and if there's a problem with that then ISPs need to upgrade their networks to cope. Maybe give the $40k 10GE people (Cogent) some new customers in the process, but any way you look at it improve the internet's capacity and accentuating the traits that have made the internet the unstoppable force that it is today. |
