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Comcast 'P4P' Tests Boost P2P By 80%
Though there's still more questions than answers about Pando's 'new P2P'

The P4P Research Group (pdf), a coalition of most major ISPs, researchers and Pando networks, is working on a more efficient P2P protocol that saves transit time by only serving file parts from local peers to reduce hops. Pando and the new coalition believe they can speed up P2P transfers by as much as 235% across US cable networks and up to 898% across international broadband networks. In Verizon tests, Pando increased the percentage of data routed internally across their networks from 2.2% to 43.4%, which they claim reduced inter-ISP data transfers by an average of 34% (up to 43.8 % in the US and 75.1% internationally).

Now, Ars Technica points to new data from Comcast that suggests the system can provide an 80% speed boost for P2P (oops, sorry, P4P) downloads, while making P2P transfers more efficient between ISPs implementing the technology. According to a Comcast filing with the IETF, their tests involved a 21MB media file and "iTracker" servers, tasked with keeping traffic within the ISP's network when possible. From Ars:
quote:
The test used a 21MB video file (which was "licensed," in case you were worried), and measured the results of using the P2P client in order to see how the use of iTrackers affected uploads and downloads. Results were hugely positive. Compared to a random swarm, the use of any iTracker provided substantial speed boosts to Comcast network users, ranging from 57 to 85 percent above default behavior.
What Ars doesn't touch on are the number of questions this system raises if implemented. Would ISP partners (AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are involved in testing) charge customers more for prioritized P2P? Will the client source code be published? Will the system come with anti-piracy provisions and filters? if so, will that create an ISP gatekeeper situation to wall off "non-ISP-sanctioned" P2P content? The study says not yet:
quote:
Should such a mechanism be standardized, the use of ISP-provided iTrackers should probably be an opt-in feature for P2P users, or at least a feature of which they are explicitly aware of and which has been enabled by default in a particular P2P client. In this way, P2P users could choose to opt-in either explicitly or by their choice of P2P client in order to choose to use the iTracker to improve performance, which benefits both the user and the ISP at the same time. Importantly in terms of privacy, the iTracker makes available only network topology information, and would not in its current form enable an ISP, via the iTracker, to determine what P2P clients were downloading what content.
Of course these are engineers talking about the technology "in its current form." It's likely that were ISP executives to implement such P2P acceleration technology, they'd be eager to use it to generate additional revenue and protect TV fortunes by restricting non-sanctioned content. The initial findings look promising, but you have to imagine that at some point, higher-level management at any major ISP that deployed this would find a way to screw things up.
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BabyBear
Keep wise ...with Nite-Owl
join:2007-01-11

BabyBear

Member

I have candy!

Why does this seem like the digital equivalent to a creepy guy in a van offering candy to kids on the street?

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One

MVM

Re: I have candy!

said by BabyBear:

Why does this seem like the digital equivalent to a creepy guy in a van offering candy to kids on the street?
Hmmm.....technology to speed up transfers, spearheaded by the same company that spearheaded the transition to metered billing for your bandwidth. Yeah, I'd have to agree with the creepy guy with candy analogy.
jimbo21503
join:2004-05-10
Euclid, OH

jimbo21503

Member

Re: I have candy!

This article says they used trackers on their own servers... so does that mean that it will only work for torrents that are tracked by X ISP's servers??? Sounds like a scam or a bait/switch plan to me.

funchords
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join:2001-03-11
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funchords

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Re: I have candy!

said by jimbo21503:

This article says they used trackers on their own servers... so does that mean that it will only work for torrents that are tracked by X ISP's servers??? Sounds like a scam or a bait/switch plan to me.
The details are still not worked out, but it doesn't have to be that restricted to work, and if it was that restricted, then nobody would use it and the idea would be dead on arrival.

For BitTorrent, a tracker only tracks hashes and IP addresses, so it would be somewhat blind to what was being shared but doing a search-engine search for most BitTorrent infohashes usually yields in clues as to what the content is. It won't be private enough for some.

It would certainly work for folks that trade in the old, rare, free, and other stuff that studios and publishers don't care anything about.
Samwoo
join:2002-02-15
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

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Samwoo

Member

Re: I have candy!

I think the P4P technology on the ISP side only tracks IP addresses and not hashes (derived from this statement "the iTracker makes available only network topology information").
You would still need to contact the 3rd party tracker to get hashes and IPs for clients with the files, but then, with the P4P tech you can compare the P2P tracker lists with the P4P tracker lists to see if there are any intersections of the IP addresses.
Basically intersect the list of who has the file with the list of who is located near you. If there are hits, then you use those IP addresses first. If not then broaden your P4P list to people who are slightly farther away.

If you implement it this way, by using a file tracker and a topology tracker, ISP's can optomise P2P traffic without having to worry about being liable as a file tracker. They aren't tracking files, just topology. The client would use the topology information to optimize their connection choices, but not be reliant on the ISP to find other P2P clients.

funchords
Hello
MVM
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funchords

MVM

Re: I have candy!

That's possibly the way that the P4P WG has skinned that cat -- thanks for clearing it up.

NOZIREV
join:2008-07-10
New Bedford, MA

NOZIREV

Member

sounds promising

by the initial findings this sounds like this could be a good thing for p2p users.
nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD

nasadude

Member

Re: sounds promising

said by NOZIREV:

by the initial findings this sounds like this could be a good thing for p2p users.
based on past history, I'm guessing having incumbent ISPs (basically the incumbent telcos and cablecos) be involved with this means nothing good will come of it for customers.

please remember the incumbents aren't interested in keeping their customers happy, they are just interested in keeping them:

* That means bundles to confuse people and make it harder to compare services and prices

* it means speed tiers that are different from competitors (if there is a competitor), again making it harder to compare prices and services

* it means "P4P" to make customers think they are doing something "good" for them, when in reality it's likely just another scheme to further monetize the connection you're already paying them well for.

I refuse to believe that incumbent involvement in anything like this means anything other than another chance for them to make money by making customers pay more

clickwir
join:2001-06-21
Dickson City, PA

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to NOZIREV
Nope, it's a bait and switch. They are baiting you saying it's going to make things faster. All they are doing is switching where your traffic is going. This is bad.
axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC

axus

Member

Great idea

Get people to stop using P2P by making them think "I'm not giving up my bandwidth to host someone elses files!"

QuakeFrag
Premium Member
join:2003-06-13
NH

QuakeFrag

Premium Member

Faster...

Currently I can download torrents maxing out my download speed. Why would I care about p4p? I'm not going to be downloading any faster than the speed I pay for. And a potential, additional charge for customers to attain this services of "prioritized p2p"... ridiculous. My speeds are fast enough, let alone paying for some shenanigans just so traffic stays in Comcast's network. Sounds like a win-win for the ISP here, get paid and use less inter-isp data.

Will this take off in the real world? Applied to torrenting? Or is it going to use proprietary software (ads infested too?)? Don't get me wrong, this idea is wonderful. It just has to sell to the public, who are already happy with torrents. #1 reason why it might fail... no 'illegal' content. Majority of p2p is illegal, so there won't be much left for P4P. Can this new technology really stand up and become a player in today's world?

NOZIREV
join:2008-07-10
New Bedford, MA

NOZIREV

Member

Re: Faster...

i wonder if you dont use this new p4p if you will be throttled ???

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

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said by QuakeFrag:

Currently I can download torrents maxing out my download speed. Why would I care about p4p? I'm not going to be downloading any faster than the speed I pay for. And a potential, additional charge for customers to attain this services of "prioritized p2p"... ridiculous. My speeds are fast enough, let alone paying for some shenanigans just so traffic stays in Comcast's network. Sounds like a win-win for the ISP here, get paid and use less inter-isp data.

Will this take off in the real world? Applied to torrenting? Or is it going to use proprietary software (ads infested too?)? Don't get me wrong, this idea is wonderful. It just has to sell to the public, who are already happy with torrents. #1 reason why it might fail... no 'illegal' content. Majority of p2p is illegal, so there won't be much left for P4P. Can this new technology really stand up and become a player in today's world?
No one at Comcast has suggested charging for this -- only Karl has done so here.

As this work moves into the IETF, you might expect that a standardized iTracker function was available with a well known name on a well known port, for any application to access on an open basis. As noted in the draft, the more clients making use of it, the better. So ISPs actually have a motivation to maximize use of the tracker rather than to constrain it via pricing mechanisms, proprietary APIs, etc.

funchords
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join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA

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funchords

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Re: Faster...

said by jlivingood:

No one at Comcast has suggested charging for this -- only Karl has done some here.
Karl got it right, he merely failed to recognize that Pando already paid for this by providing Comcast with political cover during the FCC investigation. Thanks to Pando, Comcast was able to cast the impression that it was working with the P2P community. Pando wanted something, too. Trying to woo the NBC Direct deal, Pando's CEO hoped that their P4P deal with Comcast would ensure success.

Said Saul Hansell in the New York Times, "Robert Levitan, the chief executive of Pando, had told me that he hoped Comcast might program its network to give preference to applications like the one his company makes."

It was a pretty bogus deal at the time, but it did lead to some actual outreach and eventually I hope it will yield fruit down the road. I don't know the quote, something like "it has to get bad before it gets good." I think that's true and maybe that's what we were seeing back then.

dnoyeB
Ferrous Phallus
join:2000-10-09
Southfield, MI

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I couldn't agree more. I was under the impression that p2p like bittorrent will already try to use the faster peers over the slower ones. Naturally, this means you will be using in-network peers over out-of-network peers. So its already doing this.

What Comcast proposes is to prioritize in-network peers even if they are not faster. That is the only difference I can see. But I can't see any reason why they would not be faster already!?

On the legality front I have to disagree with you. There is plenty of legal content on p2p. I p2p 1 illegal song years ago when it[p2p] first came out because the song is not available due to disputes. Since then I have p2p 1000s of gigabytes of legal content.

funchords
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MVM
join:2001-03-11
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funchords

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Re: Faster...

said by dnoyeB:

I couldn't agree more. I was under the impression that p2p like bittorrent will already try to use the faster peers over the slower ones. Naturally, this means you will be using in-network peers over out-of-network peers. So its already doing this.
Right, and the P4P guys at Pando and Verizon recognize this. However, finding those faster peers takes about 15-20 minutes. The difference that P4P might make is ultimately going to be in those first 15-20 minutes.

RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY

RARPSL

Member

Re: Faster...

said by funchords:

said by dnoyeB:

I couldn't agree more. I was under the impression that p2p like bittorrent will already try to use the faster peers over the slower ones. Naturally, this means you will be using in-network peers over out-of-network peers. So its already doing this.
Right, and the P4P guys at Pando and Verizon recognize this. However, finding those faster peers takes about 15-20 minutes.
WRONG. It takes only a few seconds. You look up YOUR IPN (at whois.arin.net) and that tells you all the others who are serviced by your IPN Block. You then look up what other IPN Blocks your ISP has. In my case, I am in block NETBLK-OOL-4BLK and altering that 4 to 1-9 shows the other blocks (only blocks 3-6 exist).

At that point, you can prefer those peers who are being serviced by your ISP without any need for any special P4P server. All that is needed is to update the BitTorrent software to acquire this NETBLOCK info and use it. As the clients are updated, their efficiency goes up. Also this information allows the client who is looking for peers to connect with to first try the "local" peers before needing to go through a backbone to connect to the peer.

funchords
Hello
MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA

funchords

MVM

Re: Faster...

said by RARPSL:
said by funchords:
said by dnoyeB:bittorrent will already try to use the faster peers over the slower ones. ... this means you will be using in-network peers ... So its already doing this.
Right, and the P4P guys at Pando and Verizon recognize this. However, finding those faster peers takes about 15-20 minutes.
WRONG. It takes only a few seconds. You look up YOUR IPN (at whois.arin.net) and that tells you all the others who are serviced by your IPN Block.
Easy on the caps, chief. I'm happy to be wrong, just don't punish me for it.

There are a few technical issues with your explanation (around organization and server load), but you're not far from the stuff that we're talking about. Please look at the IETF p2pi and tana lists, catch up, and jump in if you can lend a hand. P2P experts are really welcome and needed.

But the point is that the P2P networks aren't doing this already. So it does take the 15-30 minutes that I mentioned.

Along side the P4P services ideas mentioned, there is an Azureus plug-in called Ono that leverages CDN locations.

Finally, we don't want to lose any rare sources or files, nor do we want to screen out remote peers, so any method used has to have a bias toward closer peers while not adversely impacting the performance for anyone. It may be that only P2P content that is very popular should use this at all.

RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY

1 edit

RARPSL

Member

Re: Faster...

said by funchords:

Easy on the caps, chief. I'm happy to be wrong, just don't punish me for it.

There are a few technical issues with your explanation (around organization and server load), but you're not far from the stuff that we're talking about. Please look at the IETF p2pi and tana lists, catch up, and jump in if you can lend a hand. P2P experts are really welcome and needed.

But the point is that the P2P networks aren't doing this already. So it does take the 15-30 minutes that I mentioned.

Along side the P4P services ideas mentioned, there is an Azureus plug-in called Ono that leverages CDN locations.

Finally, we don't want to lose any rare sources or files, nor do we want to screen out remote peers, so any method used has to have a bias toward closer peers while not adversely impacting the performance for anyone. It may be that only P2P content that is very popular should use this at all.
OOPS. Sorry about the use of capital letters (Only the Netblocks should have been in caps - I should have used bold/underline/italic for the others).

I know that it is not being done now but I was just pointing out that it can be done in the future by adding support to the client. My method puts the support into the client without needing any help from an outside P4P server (only the standard Netblock WhoIs lookup).

Now to the technical details. At the current time, the clients have a user designated number of session slots devoted to handling a torrent and a list of peers to who can supply pieces of the torrent. There are routines to select which of these peers gets assigned one of the session slots. What method is used to make this selection is not part of the P2P Protocol and thus is probably different in different clients. Being "Greedy" by selecting Seeding (have 100% of the pieces) peers as opposed to Leaches (only have some of the pieces) gets you the torrent faster (assuming that the Seed and the Leach feed you at the same rate) since you do not need to devote time/effort to sending pieces. If are talking to a Leach who does not have any pieces you need and does not need any you have then the selection routine might drop the session to reuse the slot to select a Leach with pieces you need or even better a Seed. The selection routine might look for and contact Leaches that have needed pieces in the absence of Seeds (which always will have the pieces). There are a number of strategies that can be implemented. My suggestion just adds to the mix by favoring those peers in my Netblock followed by those in other Netblocks belonging to my ISP before going to peers in Netblocks that belong to other ISPs. This way I am playing "Nice Guy" by keeping my traffic local (ie: On my ISP's Network).

As to your "... rare sources or files, nor do we want to screen out remote peers ..." issue, if I have not filled my session limit with peers on my ISP's network, those rare and remote peers will still get selected to fill the quota (and the local peers will be rejected in exchange for remotes once the locals have no more pieces that are needed but remotes still do). In fact there can be special case code that allocates a portion of the slots to going after rare pieces by including those peers that have them. There is already such code for when you are already talking to a peer (you choose which piece you ask a peer to send you and thus can get the rarest pieces as soon as they become available).

Laird Popkin
@lodgenet.net

Laird Popkin to RARPSL

Anon

to RARPSL
"You look up YOUR IPN (at whois.arin.net) and that tells you all the others who are serviced by your IPN Block. You then look up what other IPN Blocks your ISP has. In my case, I am in block NETBLK-OOL-4BLK and altering that 4 to 1-9 shows the other blocks (only blocks 3-6 exist). ..."

This is doable, but it's not as good as getting a network map from the ISP for a number of reasons.
- Mapping IP's to ISPs (i.e. ASNs) using public sources is only approximate (like your example of looking at similar netblock names). If the ISP provides a precise map of their IP prefixes, it is more accurate. And if it's easily queries through a standardized service (assuming that ISPs support it, etc.), it's easier to implement.
- The ISP knows their internal structure and resources/costs, so P4P guidance can optimize internal data flow. For example, knowing who is where inside Comcast's network allowed us to move a lot of traffic not only within Comcast but within the same hub or metro area, avoiding consuming long distance links.
- The ISP knows their available external links. For example, P4P allows an ISP to drive traffic to adjacent ISPs (e.g. those with direct/peering links) avoiding general internet traffic (which is generally slower and costs more).

There is also a subtle limitation to the "p2p like bittorrent will already try to use the faster peers over the slower ones" is that it only does so within the population of peers that are known to the peer and have sent the specific peer data. Early in a swarm's life a given peer only knows about a very small subset of the swarm, and has only tested actual throughput with those peers for an even smaller subset. So if you want to find the "best" peer out of a swarm of 100,000 peers, it could take a very long time to even get the complete list (from tracker announces, peer exchange, etc.). Then from that list, you would need to actually exchange data with one randomly selected peer a second (the generic BitTorrent 'optimistic unchoke' approach), it would take 100,000 seconds to have a 50% chance of finding the "best" peer. So, for very large files in large, the time to find the optimal peer would be much longer than the total download time.

themessiah404
@comcast.net

1 recommendation

themessiah404

Anon

Comcast as the new GOOD ISP? WHAT IS GOING ON?

COMCAST ACTUALLY WORKING FOR P2P? Why just 6 months ago I was having all my torrents crippled. Six months ago Comcast was bad for having caps and nowadays it seems to the be the one with the best caps.

What is going on? Did I go into another dimension where Comcast is actually the second best ISP in the nation? Why just 3 yrs ago it was the worst one. WHAT IS GOING ON? SOMEONE ANSWER ME.

NOZIREV
join:2008-07-10
New Bedford, MA

NOZIREV

Member

Re: Comcast as the new GOOD ISP? WHAT IS GOING ON?

Comcast has always been #1 in my eyes for products and service and this p4p is proving that they are trying to work with there customers and make the customer experience better.

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

1 recommendation

jlivingood to themessiah404

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to themessiah404
said by themessiah404 :

COMCAST ACTUALLY WORKING FOR P2P? Why just 6 months ago I was having all my torrents crippled. Six months ago Comcast was bad for having caps and nowadays it seems to the be the one with the best caps.

What is going on? Did I go into another dimension where Comcast is actually the second best ISP in the nation? Why just 3 yrs ago it was the worst one. WHAT IS GOING ON? SOMEONE ANSWER ME.
Crazy huh?
Kearnstd
Space Elf
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Mullica Hill, NJ

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to themessiah404
Altering P2P to try and look inside the ISP cloud first would be a great idea imo. would improve downloads for users and cost pretty much nothing for the ISP since traffic in their cloud is on their network.

beerbum
Premium Member
join:2000-05-06
behind you..
Motorola MB8600
ARRIS TG862
Asus RT-AC5300

beerbum

Premium Member

Re: Comcast as the new GOOD ISP? WHAT IS GOING ON?

said by Kearnstd:

Altering P2P to try and look inside the ISP cloud first would be a great idea imo. would improve downloads for users and cost pretty much nothing for the ISP since traffic in their cloud is on their network.
I wonder if Comcast and the others would change their traffic management to _not count_ traffic entirely inside their network against whatever monthly caps they set..
Kearnstd
Space Elf
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join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd

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Re: Comcast as the new GOOD ISP? WHAT IS GOING ON?

said by beerbum:
said by Kearnstd:

Altering P2P to try and look inside the ISP cloud first would be a great idea imo. would improve downloads for users and cost pretty much nothing for the ISP since traffic in their cloud is on their network.
I wonder if Comcast and the others would change their traffic management to _not count_ traffic entirely inside their network against whatever monthly caps they set..
well that opens a new can of marketing worms, think of what could happen if Comcast say worked with Valve to get steam servers with in the comcast cluster, and the deal is steam purchases would no longer go against your cap(and maybe network traffic permitting, stay at powerboost speeds for much longer).

clickwir
join:2001-06-21
Dickson City, PA

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Don't be fooled. This is not good for P2P. This is simply traffic detection and redirection. If your client requests one thing, comcast is giving you something else. It's bull shit.

funchords
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funchords

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Re: Comcast as the new GOOD ISP? WHAT IS GOING ON?

said by clickwir:

Don't be fooled. This is not good for P2P. This is simply traffic detection and redirection. If your client requests one thing, comcast is giving you something else. It's bull shit.
Hi Clickwir (and fellow Ubuntu traveller),

AFAICT, It is not traffic detection. It's a new, optional service.

I have an assurance that from P4P's two principle's (Pando and Verizon) that it won't do anything your P2P client doesn't ask for and know about and, in the end, it will be open sourced.

If you don't want to use it, then don't use an application that is programmed to use it (or turn off those features in your application).

This isn't detection and redirection that changes the way your P2P network would otherwise operate -- that would be very objectionable.

pspcrazy
Anime Freak
join:2008-02-06
San Diego, CA

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No your just going crazy. They still suck, and are the worst isp in my eyes just due to having caps. F them if they think they can trick people by waving fake candy in front of their eyes.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

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FFH5

Premium Member

Some comments

»Comcast 'P4P' Tests Boost P2P By 80% [47] comments
you have to imagine that at some point, higher-level management at any major ISP that deployed this would find a way to screw things up.
1 - If by "screw things up" you mean that they will attempt the blocking of illegal content and/or copyrighted content, then yes that will probably happen. And why shouldn't it? They aren't in the business to aid and assist criminals &/or pirates.

2 - This doesn't remove concerns over upstream bandwidth constraints of the network at the local node. So those users using P4P must still consider whether their sharing of content(legal though it may be) will push them thru the caps their provider has implemented.

3 - P4P is designed to minimize the impact of sharing content on the provider's networks and improve user experience while trading legal content from legitimate content providers. It isn't meant to help The Pirate Bay work better.

funchords
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funchords

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Re: Some comments

said by FFH5:

1 - If by "screw things up" you mean that they will attempt the blocking of illegal content and/or copyrighted content, then yes that will probably happen. And why shouldn't it? They aren't in the business to aid and assist criminals &/or pirates.
TK,

All traffic is copyrighted. Therefore, it's a question of permissions and rights and exclusions. We don't want a network that tries to navigate that mess or that trades our wire-line privacy in order to do it.

That said, the Internet is a public square as well. In so much as users reveal themselves through their public activities, the ISPs should not be an anonymization service. If I'm a rights-holder and I see 123.234.234.123 exercising one of my exclusive rights, I ought to be able to find out who that is.

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

1 recommendation

jlivingood

Premium Member

Privacy

Karl asked: "Will the system come with anti-piracy provisions and filters?"

Here's what is in the draft, which is quoted in the article above:

Should such a mechanism be standardized, the use of ISP-provided iTrackers should probably be an opt-in feature for P2P users, or at least a feature of which they are explicitly aware of and which has been enabled by default in a particular P2P client. In this way, P2P users could choose to opt-in either explicitly or by their choice of P2P client in order to choose to use the iTracker to improve performance, which benefits both the user and the ISP at the same time. Importantly in terms of privacy, the iTracker makes available only network topology information, and would not in its current form enable an ISP, via the iTracker, to determine what P2P clients were downloading what content.
watice
join:2008-11-01
New York, NY

watice

Member

Re: Privacy

I understand that you have to be very broad when you make statements about something that hasn't happened yet, but does this mean that you're not tracking who is downloading what, but still keeping a list of "what" is? Speed gains alone isn't enough of an incentive to switch to p4p if it's limited to "approved content only".

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

jlivingood

Premium Member

Re: Privacy

said by watice:

I understand that you have to be very broad when you make statements about something that hasn't happened yet, but does this mean that you're not tracking who is downloading what, but still keeping a list of "what" is? Speed gains alone isn't enough of an incentive to switch to p4p if it's limited to "approved content only".
The iTracker server that an ISP would operate can only see what P2P networks query it for the iTracker. This info is added to a pTracker by a P2P network. The iTracker server cannot at this time (nor is it contemplated to) be capable of reaching into the P2P network to see (1) who is uploading or downloading or (2) what content is being transferred. Certainly the P2P networks may know this information, but not the ISP.

For purposes of the trial however, we had a known piece of content so everyone knew what was being transferred. We also collectively looked at the IP addresses that transferred data (collected from the P2P network) since that is the only way possible to track the effects of localization.

Anyway, as currently contemplated in production, the ISP would not have this data from the iTracker server.

JL
jlivingood

1 recommendation

jlivingood

Premium Member

Source-Code / Openness

Karl asks in the article: "Will the client source code be published?"

The client is a P2P client - but we're talking about a query interface between the P2P client and a tracker in some form.

As this is being pursued now in the IETF, what we'd hope happens is one or more RFCs released on this. That would likely specify in full how such a query interface would work and how the tracker files are configured and stored. As a result, much like SMTP or DNS for example, you may expect many software developers to create compliant software to these open specs. But we'll see - we are a long way from that point and more investigation & technical discussion is still ahead of us.

Jason

•••
Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO

Skippy25

Member

Cache Servers

I think they would be better served using Cache servers on the head end.

You can do this with virtually no liability as to what resides on the cache server and thus they do not need to be concerned with the files that get cached.

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

jlivingood

Premium Member

Re: Cache Servers

said by Skippy25:

I think they would be better served using Cache servers on the head end.

You can do this with virtually no liability as to what resides on the cache server and thus they do not need to be concerned with the files that get cached.
One of the challenges with a cache is that you'd expect that an ISP would get DMCA take down notices (related to 'safe harbor' provisions).

funchords
Hello
MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA

funchords

MVM

Re: Cache Servers

said by jlivingood:

One of the challenges with a cache is that you'd expect that an ISP would get DMCA take down notices (related to 'safe harbor' provisions).
They come either way.

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

jlivingood

Premium Member

Related Report

FWIW, this part of activities flowing from the IETF's Peer to Peer Infrastructure (P2Pi) Workshop that occurred on May 22, 2008, at MIT. For folks interested in learning more, Alissa Cooper from the CDT just reminded one of the IETF lists that this is out there:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-p2pi-cooper-workshop-report-00.txt
33358088 (banned)
join:2008-09-23

2 edits

33358088 (banned)

Member

Why THIS WILL FAIL

Why this will fail, once they got you hooked on it, all they have to do is cap you more, and throttle you more.

Think about it. It places control of the p2p network into the local isp who then gets harassed by Hollywood or is already opened by Hollywood and then poof your all done.

as too speed ya really think 500 people with 25Kbytes/sec will server another 100 local people faster then say 5 100MB lines? They are dreaming up and wasting money on tech that is foolish, unless they increase local upload speeds NONE OF THIS TECH IMPROVES.

in fact there's your solution right there, increase capacity 20% and give that to bandwidth up speeds, OMG suddenly everyone gets stuff faster and the network isn't having undue load on it for ten hours a dvdr at 80Kbytes or 100Kbytes up speed. a 100MB line has more then 100TIMES that up speed
so in effect ONE so called seedbox could seed up 20- 5 megabit people. and if you have the box and are seeding what you get via ftp, then you get to serve back at 100 times the speed you get at home, htus increasing what you can get via say a localized ftp client to the 100MB seedbox.

I know there is a bit a money to be made doing this sort a thing, and guess what neither the USA nor Canada you can do it because of idiot Hollywood. We are missing on economics of it all.

Too bad Hollywood now wants us all so poor we can't afford computers so they can survive and give us vinyl again.
pewey

jlivingood
Premium Member
join:2007-10-28
Philadelphia, PA

jlivingood

Premium Member

Little Noticed But Interesting Datapoint...

From http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=450&doc_id=167137:

Comcast was one of four ISPs to participate in the trial, which took place in early-to-mid July and was conducted in conjunction with Yale University and P2P technology firm Pando Networks Inc. While Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), and BCE Inc. (Bell Canada) (NYSE/Toronto: BCE) also took part, it was the cable company that showed the most dramatic improvement in network usage and download speeds...

...Surprisingly enough, Comcast's network outperformed other ISPs that took place in the trial. Compared with Comcast's control speed of 254 kbit/s, the average download speed of other participants started at about 144 kbit/s.

aaronwt
Premium Member
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA
Asus RT-AX89

aaronwt

Premium Member

Re: Little Noticed But Interesting Datapoint...

said by jlivingood:

From http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=450&doc_id=167137:

Comcast was one of four ISPs to participate in the trial, which took place in early-to-mid July and was conducted in conjunction with Yale University and P2P technology firm Pando Networks Inc. While Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), and BCE Inc. (Bell Canada) (NYSE/Toronto: BCE) also took part, it was the cable company that showed the most dramatic improvement in network usage and download speeds...

...Surprisingly enough, Comcast's network outperformed other ISPs that took place in the trial. Compared with Comcast's control speed of 254 kbit/s, the average download speed of other participants started at about 144 kbit/s.
144kbs sounds very slow.
Underplay
join:2003-10-19
Tacoma, WA

Underplay

Member

Its a trap

I wouldn't trust comcast to provide me with any service except for internet. Obviously this is just a scam to filter traffic but in a reversed way, instead of slowing one service down they are speeding up one, which is the same exact thing, just because its p2p people think that its ok, its not. May'be im wrong, doubt it.

SHARPSHARK
join:2002-05-10

SHARPSHARK

Member

Multicasting?

Why don't they allow a form of multicasting to eliminate redundancy for Torrent so the sharing will go SO faster?