Can P2P applications learn to play fair on networks?

Mon Oct 22 02:45:49 UTC 2007

> 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 