North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Can P2P applications learn to play fair on networks?

  • From: Marshall Eubanks
  • Date: Thu Oct 25 12:44:54 2007


On Oct 25, 2007, at 12:24 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:


Rep. Boucher's solution: more capacity, even though it has
been demonstrated many times more capacity doesn't actually
solve this particular problem.


Where has it been proven that adding capacity won't solve the P2P
bandwidth problem?

I don't think it has.

I'm aware that some studies have shown that P2P
demand increases when capacity is added, but I am not aware that anyone
has attempted to see if there is an upper limit for that appetite.

I have raised this issue with P2P promoters, and they all feel that the
limit will be about at the limit of what people can watch (i.e., full
rate video for whatever duration they want to watch such, at somewhere between 1
and 10 Mbps). From that regard, it's not too different from the limit _without_ P2P, which
is, after all, a transport mechanism, not a promotional one.

Regards
Marshall



In any case, politicians can often be convinced that a different action
is better (or at least good enough) if they can see action being taken.

Packet switch networks are darn cheap because you share
capacity with lots of other uses; Circuit switch networks are
more expensive because you get dedicated capacity for your sole use.

That leaves us with the technology of sharing, and as others have
pointed out, use of DSCP bits to deploy a Scavenger service would
resolve the P2P bandwidth crunch, if operators work together with P2P
software authors. Since BitTorrent is open source, and written in Python
which is generally quite easy to figure out, how soon before an operator
runs a trial with a customized version of BitTorrent on their network?

--Michael Dillon