Senator Diane Feinstein Wants to know about the Benefits of P2P

Mon Aug 30 20:02:24 UTC 2004

I think you just tripped across the difference between a user and an SP. 
SPs don't generally have 28 KBPS dial links between them and their 
upstream, and folks that have 28 KBPS dial uplinks don't generally host 
Akamai servers. Assuming that just because you have effectively-infinite 
bandwidth and effectively-zero delay everyone perforce must enjoy that is a 
bit of a leap...

This kind of a "you're different and therefore wrong" mismatch has made 
complete hash out of quite a variety of discussions concerning user 
experience and user requirements on the Internet. Please listen carefully 
when someone talks about having limited rate access. The assumptions that 
are obviously true in your (SP) world are completely irrelevant in theirs. 
If you want their opinions - and this opinion was explicitly requested - 
you have to respect them when they are offered, not just bash them as 
different from your experience.

At 01:21 PM 08/30/04 -0600, Byron L. Hicks wrote:
>Not true.  For those of us who host Akamai servers, we could download SP2 
>with no problems.  We did not need P2P, or MSDN.  In fact, I would be very 
>reluctant to trust a Windows update downloaded via P2P.
>
>--
>Byron L. Hicks
>Network Engineer
>NMSU ICT
>
>On 8/30/04 12:43 PM, "Jeff Wheeler" <jwheeler at usip.org> wrote:
>>My two cents:
>>When Windows XP SP2 was released the only way to get it (for those of us 
>>not part of MSDN at least) was via P2P.  The same has been true for 
>>countless other large but important software releases on various 
>>platforms (particularly ones like Linux that aren't backed by huge 
>>corporations with tons of bandwidth to host these sorts of files).
>>
>>Point is?  P2P is extremely valuable for the timely and cost-effective 
>>delivery of critical updates to the masses.
>>
>>--
>>  Jeff Wheeler
>>  Postmaster, Network Admin
>>  US Institute of Peace
>>
>>
>>On Aug 30, 2004, at 2:27 PM, Henry Linneweh wrote:
>>>So I would like some professional expert opinion to give her on this 
>>>issue since it will effect the copyright inducement bill. Real benefits 
>>>for production and professional usage of this technology.
>>>
>>>  -Henry