P2P Set-top Boxes To Revolutionize Internet 134
An anonymous reader writes "The European Commissions 7th Framework Program (FP7) is working on a project called Nano Data Centers (NADA) as part of the its future Internet initiative. NADA will seek to build an Internet architecture that delivers data from the edge of the Internet using set top boxes and Peer-to-Peer technology, instead of the network-centric architecture that stores and delivers content from data centers via Internet backbones. NADA is proposing a network of hundreds of thousands of set top boxes, hugely popular in Europe, to be essentially split into two — one side is the user interface side, the other a virtualised Peer-to-Peer storage client that stores and sends media in the same way a data center would. Ideally there would be millions of these boxes each acting as a mini data center — hence the Nano Data Center moniker.
The NADA project is convincing enough to have attracted some of Europe's largest telecommunications companies. Set top box manufacturer, Thomson SA, and European ISP, Telefonica, are among nine contributing partners to the NADA project.
NADA could see a dramatic reduction in the size and frequency of data centers that serve all kinds of media over the Internet."
Hugely popular? (Score:1, Interesting)
Popularity = Quality Control? (Score:4, Informative)
The thing I am wondering though is how would they maintain quality with such an uncontrollable system. Basically it seems that it will, of course, benefit the content delivery company in reducing bandwidth overhead. But where is the benefit to the user? What happens when a particular "torrent" is less popular? Will it be able to stream fast enough for the end user to see the video in reasonably close to real-time? Or, would they be distributing every file equally? essentially consuming the user's bandwidth and hard drive space for files they don't use/need/watch?
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I believe the benefit would be in having the title selection of the mail-order Netflix, but all on the internet. Because there would be P2P and they would have to maintain fewer servers to stream content, Netflix could afford to sell the service for a lower price. Currently Netflix on Demand doesn't have many titles, let alone newer releases worth watching.
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why can't netflix use torrents? Why do we need a new system.
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Basically it seems that it will, of course, benefit the content delivery company in reducing bandwidth overhead. But where is the benefit to the user?
If there's any competition then the benefit to the user is (potentially) reduced prices.
What happens when a particular "torrent" is less popular? Will it be able to stream fast enough for the end user to see the video in reasonably close to real-time? Or, would they be distributing every file equally? essentially consuming the user's bandwidth and hard drive space for files they don't use/need/watch?
Cable modem systems are regularly capable of delivering more bandwidth than you are allocated. Why not use it? Especially when you're not uploading.
Further, it won't be the user's hard drive space; the user isn't buying a STB, they're renting it. They're buying access to a service.
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I think its more the case that you've got a dedicated seeder with some base capability for sending out most of its content and that has a copy of all the content, and then uses the P2P system for load. If everyone is watching a popular program, the seeder doesn't have to do anything. When someone wants an obscure item, the seeder steps in and the connection drops to traditional client-server like YouTube or NetFlix. You can meet a huge demand this way as well as offer a wider selection because you don't
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"The thing I am wondering though is how would they maintain quality with such an uncontrollable system."
the same way any bittorent maintains quality, by hashing the sums of data, before writing to disc, even if you have 12 'poison' seeders, who give you corrupt data every time, the client eventually learns to blacklist poison seeders, by their ips, the only downside, is it takes longer to download when a chunk of data gets barfed in transit. hey, bittorrent is easy to specify downloading from the start firs
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I just can't stand settop boxes. I've yet to have ever seen one from the cable company that is responsive or as capable as anything homebrewed. I loved my old tivo, but, I gotta say, newerones that I've seen...seem to be slower than the old ones?
In the past...I'd opted for just plain analog cable...just to avoid the stupid settop box, the
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I love my Hauppauge MediaPVR hooked to my SageTV server. But yes, you are 100% correct, for HD and home brew, I see nothing other than OTA options, and I get terrible reception so I currently have no option to do it myself legally. I would pay the fee for the HD content from my local cable company if I could hook it to my media server. Like yourself, I am not interested in sharing it to the world, or even the next door neighbor, just personal time shifting as I never watch when programmers want me to wat
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Does anyone out there in the US actually LIKE the set top boxes they have? Would you not rather have different choices?
I certainly don't care for the STBs Time Warner Cable has been subjecting us. They can't even serve their primary purpose reliably ever since they put their "mystro" software on the Scientific American hardware. You can't change channels at scheduled programming start times reliably anymore. It may fail to change channels, change to the wrong channel due to digits being thrown out, or even crash and restart but not power on. They've effectively sabotaged it against control by a TiVo.
So I don't think I'd
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Sky make pretty good boxes. We had one years ago (probably around 10 years ago that we got it), and it was web enabled via dial up over the phone line. I recently used Sky+ at a relative's house and they are using basically the same system we had back then, but they can choose to record shows too. The only thing I don't like (and that I don't see why they haven't fixed by now) is that when you surf what's on other channels with the arrow keys, when you press 'information' it doesn't give you the information
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In France, they are more than popular, they are the standard.
Most internet plans are now sold with a set top box, even for basic internet access (the client can then choose to activate an option).
We have the livebox from Orange, Freebox from Free (they were the first non cable provider to make a box), 9box from 9telecom, and so on ...
What's regularly in the plan (some include everything, some make those options) :
* numeric TV, sometime HD, with extra channels from all arround the world (the usual stuff), pl
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>Well I have never seen P2P used for anything legitimate.
BBC iPlayer.
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Well I have never seen P2P used for anything legitimate.
http://beta.legaltorrents.com/ [legaltorrents.com]
It's nothing.... (Score:3, Funny)
in Spanish.
In unrelated news... (Score:5, Funny)
In unrelated news, RIAA sues Europe
"But your honor, its not a bittorrent client, its just my nano data center..."
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Yeah, i gotta say, thats pretty funny. :D
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Still more unrelated news: FBI works with Interpol to get a warrant for the arrest of everyone.
"Sir, everyone has child porn on their computers these days.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these... (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine the possibilities... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Imagine the possibilities... (Score:5, Funny)
I thought we already had a name for that? Most people call it the internet.
Re:Imagine the possibilities... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, yes. But this is going to revolutionize it! Which is good, because nobody's come along and revolutionized the Internet in weeks!
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MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Interesting)
The similarity, conceptually, between NADA and Freenet is quite interesting.
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If ordinary users are able to publish data anonymously using NADA, I will come to your house and pay you one thousand pounds to watch me eating my hat. If, on the other hand, it's just a way for the same old centralised media companies to distribute their DRMed data more cheaply, I will not.
But... But... (Score:5, Funny)
P2P is vile and evil. The RIAA and MPAA told me so.
ISPs will love this (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure that the ISPs will not be happy about this idea - I see that none are on the partners list.
Re:ISPs will love this (Score:4, Informative)
It's in the summary, and again in the article:
"Telefonica is a key partner"
Cool that its finally here (Score:1)
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YEAH....you know...I could go quite a ways with this one...but we'll leave it at "the guy who made this comment is full of shit".
Can we build a wifi mesh network into this? (Score:2)
That would allow a highly redundant network to add support to existing wired infrastructure where available and would extend reach of existing networks where necessary.
Of course it opens things up wide to MITM attacks, but any sensitive communication would be signed anyway. In addition, you could develop a system to mark bad nodes and avoid them when routing.
Liability (Score:4, Insightful)
Another thought, how much redundancy would be required to protect the data should Joe-Six-Pack accidently wipe his data. Or get his set top infected while surfing for porn.
This could be a good way to distribute malware, being that we'd (presumably) have access to someone else's data within our datacenter. What would stop me from replacing the content of the datacenter side of my box. Physical access is a bad idea.
There is also a privacy issue. If we know what is on our datacenter, we could track incoming requests and build a database of users/ips that like whatever content we are serving.
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How responsable would you be for the content stored on your Nano Data Center... I can see tons and tons of lawsuits.
This is why freenet encrypts. I do not see how a network like this could get around that with current copyright laws.
This could be a good way to distribute malware, being that we'd (presumably) have access to someone else's data within our datacenter. What would stop me from replacing the content of the datacenter side of my box. Physical access is a bad idea.
Of course, getting a random untrusted party to distribute your data for you is a bad idea. The solutions include (1) using a big semi-trusted party like is common now (YouTube, Flickr, etc.), (2) only having trusted parties host your data (doesn't help much because the person viewing your data does not know who you trust and if they did you could just use option (3)), (3) sign the data. By si
Re:Liability (Score:4, Insightful)
Presumably, the data on the Nano Data Center will be encrypted and essentially stripe raid-ed across the network. This is how modern wide-area data distribution networks are currently being implemented privately, and the technology itself circumvents most of the problems you mention.
Responsibility: It's hard to argue that a user is responsible for encrypted content on his/her node, given that it just isn't accessible for review in the first place.
Redundancy: Files can be kept in pieces, with info (like checksums, etc) available elsewhere on the net to reconstruct the data in the case of loss.
Malware: This problem will probably be avoided along with the redundancy problem, by checking checksums of file parts and reconstructing the files if the check goes bad.
Overall, a distributed network is much more difficult to attack than a centralized one, since the missing pieces can easily be rebuilt or reconstructed if a node goes down or goes haywire.
But that's just my opinion
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Look at it this way, we know ISPs are on side with people such as MPAA and RIAA but oppose p2p because they don't want to pay for what they have sold to the consumer.
Why would they support this P2P system?
Something is missing from this picture.
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Another reason to support this would be because the European Union tells you to, EU is not afraid of regulating something they think isn't working as it should, things like roaming costs which they are in the process of mandating lower costs on for traffic inside EU.
Bittorrent, inc. (Score:4, Interesting)
sounds like a smart idea (Score:2)
It's making better use of what we already have. Truth is it has been beta tested to hell and back via torrent users. I guess my first question is tracking, ie your a media delivery site you want to track your downloads. How would you do this with a distributed system and how much overhead would be dedicated to data tracking and security.
Higher Internet Access Prices (Score:5, Interesting)
That's been changing. People are now more aware of applications they can use to get the most out of their broadband. That's why we saw questions asked recently of the BBC's iPlayer. Who will foot the bill for the increase in bandwidth, we were asked. The ISPs? Or the BBC, who have 'caused' such an increase in traffic?
The answer is the ISPs, obviously. That's what they get paid for, by the customer - and usually the customer has already paid more than once, without realising it. In many cases an ISP's infrastructure has been HUGELY subsidised by public funds, and many have frittered away a lot of money they could have spent preparing for some kind of a high-bandwidth revolution.
But every time a new trend starts, and a new high bandwidth application becomes easily available to the masses, the situation gets a little worse for our ISPs. They're not nearly as prepared for this as they should be.
Here's a new application of P2P, one that could very easily replace regular scheduled television, and it's as easy to use as plugging in a box.
Eventually, the ISPs will have to raise those prices, and not just by a little bit, but by enough to tear up and relay a lot of their infrastructure.
Re:Higher Internet Access Prices (Score:4, Funny)
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That's exactly what ISPs are doing in fact comcast and virgin media prevent the user from getting what they paid for by slow the users connection.
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On the other hand.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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If you use P2P instead of centralized server to move the same total amount of data, what's the problem?
The problem for some ISPs is upstream congestion causing light users to complain about VoIP dropouts.
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... and which ISP do you work for exactly? My shill sense is tingling!
My entire post highlighted the issues that are at stake being the direct fault of poor planning by badly run ISPs, so I doubt it was your 'shill' sense tingling. Most likely you just shat yourself again.
A possible sharing of costs? (Score:1, Insightful)
It sounds like part of this plan includes passing on the electrical and cooling costs of the internet across the grid, vs. making the network centers pay for the power. Yes, the article says that the devices are more efficient ("these set top boxes don't consume a lot of energy,) but I'd still have to foot the bill for that energy.
It's been coming... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to see NADA become commercial to see how this would pan out.
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This was bound to happen. P2P is very useful technology.
This was bound to happen, as you say. And has already, in many places - although not so much with streaming media as yet, but there are more than a few well-backed pilots out there. Even video games use P2P. World of Warcraft, although not a lot of people realise this, uses P2P in order to get its patches out. I believe it may actually use the dreaded bittorrent!
Personally, I remember being slightly irked that they were using my bandwidth to get their patches out when I was paying them a monthly fee. But
Cost SHIFTING, not Cost SAVINGS. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with putting anything that provides bandwidth to others on the edge is that it is really inefficient from an aggregate cost-of-bandwidth view.
Bandwidth to a colo facility costs an order of magnitude less than bandwidth to an end-user's location. Thus shifting to a P2P or distributed architecture like this for providing content doesn't actually reduce the costs, instead it substantially increases them. It just shifts the cost from the content provider to the end user or the end user's ISP.
The only real savings is cooling: at the user's home, they don't have the thermal load so they don't need the AC to cool the end-point node. But OTOH, the end user's cost of electricity is higher, so that may be a wash as well.
Oh, my slides on the subject: (Score:1, Redundant)
From the IETF P2PI Meeting are here.
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What, no link? Major FTLC (Failure to Look Cool).
Should be Here [berkeley.edu].
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But most people don't use all their avalible bandwidth.
P2P can be used to make use of the users unused bandwidth.
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How about the fact that bandwidth from one user to another topologically nearby user is often essentially free? If you're sending a large file to ten people on the same ISP in the same neighborhood, it is extremely inefficient to send that same file to each person individually, and extremely efficient to send it once, and have each of those ten people share the pieces they have to the other nine locally.
This is the concept behind the poorly named "P4P" technology that some ISPs were experimenting with, and
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Actually, it is often THIS bandwidth that is the SCARCEST.
Its easy to add bandwidth to a trunk: just light a few more wavelengths. Providing more bandwidth to a cable modem, however, is often very expensive if possible at all, short of pulling new wiring.
Edge of the Internet (Score:4, Funny)
What exactly is the edge of the internet? Can you cut with it? Should there be some kind of safety warning?
And how exactly does a series of tubes have an "edge"?
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There's the edge, and then there's the bleeding edge. Obviously it's the latter that needs the safety warning.
Again? (Score:2, Funny)
The internet has edges? (Score:5, Funny)
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The parent poster is obviously misguided and uninformed. Talking about sailing around the internet and such. Pure rubbish. Everyone knows you don't sail the internet. Everyone I know surfs the internet. Put away the sail and pull out the board, man!
NADA nothing (Score:2)
Well, NADA (spanish) means NOTHING (english), that's what's all about, hot air, and beatiful and inexpensive bridges.
Where's the incentive? (Score:1)
Company: Hi! Try our new box, it passes off our expenses to you by utilizing your personal internet connection and utilities. It's great! Hopefully you won't have to ever use your internet connection for something personal though, because it's our box, and we need your bandwidth. Please kindly pay, and enjoy, any bandwidth overage fees on our behalf.
Heads I Win, Tails you Lose (Score:1)
1. This article is very thin on facts.
2. How does the consumer benefit? Will my entertainment costs be lower? Communication costs get lower? Doubtful. This is before RIAA members either torpedo it, or use it to raise entertainment costs.
power consumption (Score:1)
Financial reasons (Score:1)
On a sidenote it should be noted that most telcos, unlike what most people are telling you, are only interested in throttling BT or other P2P because of the massive traffic load this causes, and not because of legal issues; in fact they couldn't care less whether a file is legal or illegal as long as you pay
NADA que ver aqui... (Score:2)
Well...really - NADA to see here, now please move along...
Note: sorry about the 'i' instead of "Ã" (i+ascent). For reason
Apropos (Score:5, Funny)
I laughed out loud with that summary.
3..2..1 (Score:2)
Am I the only person who had a mental image of the Cisco Systems campus breaking out into the Hallelujah Chorus when I read this headline?
Excuse me but.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me get this straight in my head. You want to charge me for your service and then use my bandwidth and electricity? You want to run bittorrent 24/7 on my internet connection to distribute files that I may not be allowed to view myself? How does this benefit me? (Listens to crickets chripping in the deafening quiet.) That's what I thought...
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Or UUCP it to yourself... (Score:2)
I seem to recall an April Fool's prank post from the 80s, in which someone "discovered" that he could store his backups "for free" on other people's systems by uucp'ing it via a circuitous path that would bring it back to him two weeks later. (Sort of like a big, slow ring buffer.)
For some reason, this scheme reminds me of that...
oh, goodie (Score:2)
It's like Miro player or Joost, except half a dozen years late and controlled by big European media conglomerates!
But wait, I thought P2P was bad... (Score:2)
I guess we were misinformed. Peer to peer transmission of data is wonderful... as long as the Right People are the only ones allowed to use it.
No thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
The big media companies are going to have a finger in designing these boxes.
They are going to lock them down.
They are going to use YOUR bandwidth to push THEIR content that you may not even have bought or have access to.
I am not going to let a media company leech off my bandwidth so that they can push content I don't even own, want or can access.
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and on day 0 there will be a hack that allows the motivated user to freely access anything on this network or insert anything into this network.
NADA (Score:2, Funny)
Amazing, this just kills me to read. (Score:2)
I have only been explaining this architecture since 1990 or so, "Head in hands shaking it" why doesn't anyone get it when I explain it!
Worse yet when they do "get it", it's like some new invention as if they never heard it before.
I have tried 3 times to get set top box companies going to do this since 1994 only to have "money people" not "get it".
Decentralized is the solution with high demand, high up time services for the internet.
Like Google for example. It's also worked great for Torrent and Skyp
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I have done some experiments.
You really need channel flipping or it will get boring fast, because when "channel surfing" you come across content you'd never ordinarily watch.
But if you must wait 1 or more seconds to see that next channel it's not going to work.
The technology can handle it. Just not the way we are doing it now build on Microsoft thinking.
J
what the deuce? (Score:2, Funny)
Johnson: Why don't we get the users to use peer to peer software to distribute media to each other?
ISP CEO: No that's a terrible idea! They'll get sued by the RIAA and MPAA. I have a better idea. Why don't we get the users to use peer to peer *hardware* technology to distribute media to each other?!?!?
Johnson: Brilliant idea sir! That way we can charge them for the hardware :P
Beginning of the Independence Revolution (Score:2)
Words can't describe how stoked I am that distributed computing technology is finally being implemented on a large, public scale. So far, I've noticed many
The boxes will likely be intended to function as a single large data-center cluster, spread out over the entire net, with the "distributedness" of it all being transparent to the user of any particula
So, lemme get this straight... (Score:2)
You want ME to power and host part of YOUR datacenter to distribute data, some of which might be questionable, like CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, for which I can be held liable?
</hyperbole>
I don't think so.
I knew there was a reason I don't watch TV: no need for a set top box that I don't control.
Crack for nano data centers in 3, 2, 1 ... (Score:2)
Telefonica is a partner? (Score:2)
Will direct tv use this for there on demand any... (Score:2)
Will direct tv use this for there on demand any time soon?
This seems either underhanded or foolish. (Score:4, Informative)
In effect, bittorrent's success is not based on its efficiency as a file transfer mechanism(which is actually quite lousy); but on its effectiveness as a download micropayment system(which isn't fantastic; but is better than anything else we have). Bittorrent reduces the cost, to the distributor, of distributing a file by making it easy for downloaders to contribute their own bandwidth. Even more conveniently, for anybody with a fixed-price internet connection, the marginal cost of their bandwidth contribution is near zero. Unfortunately, the total cost of distribution is actually fairly high, since bittorrent uses a lot of "last mile" bandwidth(particularly upstream last mile bandwidth) which is quite limited and expensive compared to bulk datacenter bandwidth. If micropayment were possible, and if individuals paid for bandwidth per-unit-use, rather than fixed rate, it would be cheaper for them to just pay the file distributor's upload costs directly, at bulk rate, rather than "in kind" at retail rates. The exact same argument applies for electricity and disk space. Bittorrent is great because it is an efficient method of aggregating the limited amounts available at zero(ish) marginal cost, not because it is actually efficient per unit.
Given this, I find it hard to judge TFA's scheme kindly. Either it is based on a frankly delusional understanding of relative costs, or it is essentially a cynical attempt to shift costs onto end users. This will only get worse if the ISP pressure toward caps and overage fees gets stronger, since the amount of "free" bandwidth will decline, and the impact of shifted costs will become much more direct.
Clog the Net? Yes. Revolutionize it? No. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Internet bandwidth is most expensive at the edges
It's also currently massively under-utilised in terms of upload capacity. This capacity is already paid for, so putting it to use should increase efficiencies and reduce costs.
latency to other users is the longest
Latency is not an issue for most P2P apps.
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No; upload capacity at the edges is not underutilized at all.
Even at 4am?
Also, this capacity is not "already paid for." It was an investment that is still being paid back.
Sorry, I should have said that it was a sunk cost.
As for latency: yes, it is a big issue for P2P
So you claim. And yet BitTorrent works fine using data served at the edge of the network.
As usual, we see in this case that P2P is a solution looking for a problem. In fact, it is really only good at solving one problem: the one it was invented
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The Internet is "always on."
In global terms, some part of the internet is 'always on'. But regionally, usage varies over 24 hrs.
And, yes, latency slows down P2P to the point where it's faster to use FTP.
Nobody is trying to argue that P2P is always faster than FTP. Please do not create straw men.
But of course, that would mean that the content provider would have to pay for its bandwidth and not try to fob the cost off on the ISP.
With P2P, the content provider still pays for its bandwidth. The only difference
This is what we now call innovation. (Score:2)
P2P rebroadcasting: Like multicast, except with multiple competing and incompatible standards, and no need for skilled network administrators.
P2P + Mesh over IPv6 (Score:2)
What would really be cool is adding a mesh network based on Mobile IPv6 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_IPv6 [wikipedia.org] )
That way if me and the folks in my building all need Vista SP1, it could download to one of our set top boxes over wires and then distribute to the 400 others by means of the local mesh network.
I could envision bringing my mobile mesh P2P set top box to work where we have an open 100Mb Internet connect & letting the node fill, then I could take it home and everyone in my area with sucky ba
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What the ISP's could instead do is actually start using IPv6.
1. It removes all the difficulties of NAT, making the concept of P2P a non-issue (all peers will be servers with no port-forwarding-mumbo-jumbo).
The bandwidth-sucking of P2P is still just as much an issue with IPv6.
2. It will add multicast which will enable TV and other streaming media to be very effective.
If ISPs wanted multicast, they would have enabled it already. Multicast is not coming.