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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Can P2P applications learn to play fair on networks?
Surely one ISP out there has to have investigated ways that p2p could co-exist with their network.. Some ideas from one small ISP. First, fileshare networks drive the need for bandwidth, and since an ISP sells bandwidth that should be viewed as good for business because you aren't going to sell many 6mb dsl lines to home users if they just want to do email and browse. Second, the more people on your network running fileshare network software and sharing, the less backbone bandwidth your users are going to use when downloading from a fileshare network because those on your network are going to supply full bandwidth to them. This means that while your internal network may see the traffic your expensive backbone connections won't (at least for the download). Blocking the uploading is a stupid idea because now all downloading has to come across your backbone connection. Uploads from your users are good, this is the traffic that everyone looks for when looking for peering partners. Ok now all that said, the users are going to do what they are going to do. If it takes them 20 minutes or 3 days to download a file they are still going to download that file. So it's like the way people thought back in the old dialup days when everyone said you can't build megabit pipes on the last mile because the network won't support it. People download what they want then the bandwidth sits idle. Nothing you do is going to stop them from using the internet as they see fit so either they get it fast or they get it slow but the bandwidth usage is still going to be there and as an ISP your job is to make sure supply meets demand. If you expect them to pay for 6mb pipes, they better see it run faster than it does on a 1.5mb pipe or they are going to head to your competition. Geo. George Roettger Netlink Services
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