FW: ISPs slowing P2P traffic...

David E. Smith dave at mvn.net
Tue Jan 15 18:14:33 UTC 2008


Joe Greco wrote:

> I have no idea what the networking equivalent of thirty-seven half-eaten
> bags of Cheetos is, can't even begin to imagine what the virtual equivalent
> of my couch is, etc.  Your metaphor doesn't really make any sense to me,
> sorry.

There isn't one. The "fat man" metaphor was getting increasingly silly, 
I just wanted to get it over with.


> Interestingly enough, we do have a pizza-and-play place a mile or two
> from the house, you pay one fee to get in, then quarters (or cards or
> whatever) to play games - but they have repeatedly answered that they
> are absolutely and positively fine with you coming in for lunch, and 
> staying through supper.  And we have a "discount" card, which they used
> to give out to local businesspeople for "business lunches", on top of it.

That's not the best metaphor either, because they're making money off 
the games, not the buffet. (Seriously, visit one of 'em, the food isn't 
very good, and clearly isn't the real draw.) I suppose you could market 
Internet connectivity this way - unlimited access to HTTP and POP3, and 
ten free SMTP transactions per month, then you pay extra for each 
protocol. That'd be an awfully tough sell, though.


>> As long as you fairly disclose to your end-users what limitations and 
>> restrictions exist on your network, I don't see the problem.
> 
> You've set out a qualification that generally doesn't exist.

I can only speak for my network, of course. Mine is a small WISP, and we 
have the same basic policy as Amplex, from whence this thread 
originated. Our contracts have relatively clear and large (at least by 
the standards of a contract) "no p2p" disclaimers, in addition to the 
standard "no traffic that causes network problems" clause that many of 
us have. The installers are trained to explicitly mention this, along 
with other no-brainer clauses like "don't spam."

When we're setting up software on their computers (like their email 
client), we'll look for obvious signs of trouble ahead. If a customer 
already has a bunch of p2p software installed, we'll let them know they 
can't use it, under pain of "find a new ISP."

We don't tell our customers they can have unlimited access to do 
whatever the heck they want. The technical distinctions only matter to a 
few customers, and they're generally the problem customers that we don't 
want anyway.

To try to make this slightly more relevant, is it a good idea, either 
technically or legally, to mandate some sort of standard for this? I'm 
thinking something like the "Nutrition Facts" information that appears 
on most packaged foods in the States, that ISPs put on their Web sites 
and advertisements. I'm willing to disclose that we block certain ports 
for our end-users unless they request otherwise, and that we rate-limit 
certain types of traffic. I can see this sort of thing getting confusing 
and messy for everyone, with little or no benefit to anyone. Thoughts?

David Smith
MVN.net



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