Can P2P applications learn to play fair on networks?

Sun Oct 21 19:26:16 UTC 2007

* Eric Spaeth:

> Of that group, only DSL doesn't have a common upstream bottleneck
> between the subscriber and head-end.

DSL has got that, too, but it's much more statically allocated and
oversubscription results in different symptoms.

If you've got a cable with 50 wire pairs, and you can run ADSL2+ at 16
Mbps downstream on one pair, you can't expect to get full 800 Mbps
across the whole cable, at least not with run-of-the-mill ADSL2+.
(Actual numbers may be different, but there's a significant problem with
interference when you get closer to theoretical channel limits.)