AT&T Could Cut Off P2P Users 397
malign noted that AT&T has stated that using P2P on their 3G wireless network is grounds for disconnection. The lobbyist told congress "Use of a P2P file sharing application would constitute a material breach of contract for which the user's service could be terminated."
Nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
Step in the right direction (Score:5, Interesting)
While this may be oppressive, at least users now know where they stand.This has to be better than an invisible, 'if we think you're using too much we may slow you down, and then lie about it repeatedly' policy.
Not to say that both are mutually exclusive, of course.
Clear enough; no deal. (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as they're clear about what they are and aren't selling for $XX.99 per month, they're free to not sell whatever they don't want to sell.
(The mistake that the ISPs made was in claiming to sell YYY Mbits/s 'unlimited' and then not actually providing that.)
This is news? (Score:2, Interesting)
No Safe Harbor (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't really blame them... (Score:5, Interesting)
3G wireless data networking is a service with very limited total bandwidth. It has a premium price, and is primarily targeted at business users.
We're talking about AT&T.
You know, the people with the exclusive deal on the iPhone...
You're trying to tell me that those millions of iPhone subscribers are business users?
Maybe "3G wireless data networking" was "primarily targeted at business users" by AT&T, but they got the iPhone and with it comes the non-business masses. Not to mention that 3G is not "primarily targeted at business users" anywhere else in the world.
Easy way out of contract :) (Score:3, Interesting)
Voracious Bandwidth Devourers (Score:4, Interesting)
AT&T can certainly change their contract as they deem apropriate. I'm pretty certain that's become a common practice. But A lot of you decriers of 'FOUL' are kind of missing the point.
The whole "Legitimate" reason for using P2P / BitTorrent whatever is to try and ensure that there will be more bandwidth for a desired file than will be availible by any one provider.
That is to say, now adays files are so large and there is so much demand that unless you have oodles and oodles of upstream bandwidth, someone is going to get denied access because of too many users. (any of you who may remember ftp archives like WU) or downloads that are much slower than that 8Gb fiberline you just had run the last mile to your house.
It's the same philosophy that you all bitched about when you'd say MS Windows expands to fill all resources. Just because you can use P2P doesn't mean you should. A lot of you are savvy enough to know how to limit the number of upstream clients you can provide for. But in general uncontrolled P2P will consume as much of your upstream as it can while your downloading your Pr0n.
Anyone who plays WoW will know their P2P is vicious, and this is from a company with the most popular MMORPG in the world, Billions of dollars a month from user fees and such and they have to use your network to help spread their updates?
So cry if you get thumped by the 'Corporate Giant' trying to keep the hard working hacker down. It's not about unlimited data, it's about people using tools that crush everyone elses fun using that service.
Think about it, you paid to move data for yourself up and down that line, P2P makes you a data dealer for 2 - 100's more all on that one line you are paying for.
Probably blew my Karm but oh Well.
DS
Re:It's THEIR network. (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you sure about that, In my area we have a few cell phone companies, but in the places I need to travel to (out in the countryside) there is only one company with any service.
I have tried ATT, tmobile, sprint, etc. None of them functioned where I work, except for one....
Verizon.
I hate verizon's phone choices, I hate their restrictions, etc. But I simply do not have a choice.
I'm sure there are places where the same is true about att.
Re:Nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
AT&T has discovered Step 2 for us! Awesome work, AT&T scientician people! We can bail ourselves out of the recession this way!
- David Stein
Re:Step in the right direction (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't really blame them... (Score:3, Interesting)
AT&T doesn't say unlimited on the laptop plans, they state 5GB.
p2p is a beast on a bandwidth limited network. It doesn't back off properly when there is congestion, and just hammers until things start to break.
3G wireless connections are NOT the place for p2p. As such we shouldn't be counting them when we count broadband availability. I have a Cable modem at home and work, and a T1 at work. Plenty of places to do p2p without clogging the 3G network.
in regards to (2) - no choice (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a matter of not caring, it's a matter of lack of choice.
In my neighborhood the choices for internet access are Comcast or Dialup. Verizon provides phone service for my neighboord(Houston metro area) but they don't offer FiOS, let alone DSL.
I'd love to switch off Comcast as until recently they'd been throttling my connection to less than dial-up speeds after exactly 2 minutes of a video conference via iChat. No P2P was involved, just iChat. I use iChat to keep in touch with my parents,my dad's job took them out of the country, and my brother, who lives in central Wisconsin.
Even though they've stopped the throttling in the past few weeks I'll be leaving Comcast as soon as FiOS is available because Comcast lied to my face, "we're not throttling", whenever I'd call about the iChat issue.
Re:It's THEIR network. (Score:5, Interesting)
Screw that. It maybe their network but I have issues with them plastering signs up saying unlimited internet 60 bucks a month. Then sneaking in some shit in the contract written in flyspeck 3.
My story. I almost signed up for this 3G bullshit from AT&T. I asked the sales monkey what unlimited meant. He said it meant I could do anything with no limits, just what it said. I played 20 questions. I ask him could I watch unlimited video over it. He said yes, no limit. I ask him about running VPN on it 24/7. Same answer. I stated that I sometimes use bittorrent to download openSuse DVD iso, 4.5 GB. He nodded and said no problem.
So the fucker lied didn't he? He said to me point blank I could use p2p over the network but the contract woudl state I can't? This is the BS I have issues with. In the end I didn't get the service. Something about the way the sales monkey smiled.
Re:I don't really blame them... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ironically, the entire point of a phone is to stream continuous audio data. It's weird that they would forbid that data from being sent over IP, but it is okay to send it over whatever protocol is used for voice communications.
Re:This is news? (Score:4, Interesting)
Today? I don't know. Today P2P is mainly used just for the sharing of large data files.
It's pretty to imagine future applications where it really makes a lot of sense, though. Imagine this: your jabber server says that someone wants to initiate a VoIP phone call. The caller's request is PGP-signed, so you don't just immediately reject it out-of-hand as obviously a spammer. You immediately download their public key from a keyserver using a non-p2p protocol, but now you need to do a reputation lookup, to find out if anyone on your reputation WoT asserts that this identity is not a spammer. Your phone, talking through giFT layer, sends a request out to a variety of p2p networks, asking for reputation attestations concerning keyid 98379234. You get an answer from someone, where 43523453 (who happens to be someone with an already-positive reputation in your local cache) attests that 98379234 is not a spammer, so your phone goes ahead and beeps and displays "incoming call." The file transferred is really pretty small and not incompatible with the idea of bandwidth-limited networks.
p2p's potential applications are vast. We're just in the very early days, is all, so we don't always see every way it could be used.
Has anyone here attempted to use it, themselves? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry, they just bog down the system to the point of uselessness (and that is from the client), so I can't even imagine how bad it is for their cell aggregators.
On a side note, had it worked, the second problem AT&T would have is that they've not bulked up their infrastructure enough at cell towers to handle full-on 3G traffic. I swear to God that I get only ISDN-ish speeds for internet surfing at airports where there's probably the highest concentration of HSDPA traffic in the area. Of course it is THEIR problem and THEIR false advertising for improperly selling a service that they did not allocate enough backend bandwidth for, not mine.
Re:It's THEIR network. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, it's their network, but it's using radio frequencies which are leased from the public. They're part of a small group of carriers which have exclusive rights to certain blocks of frequencies. The limitations of the available bandwidth stop this from being a freely competitive market. As such, it is reasonable to discuss whether or not their policies are appropriate. If we collectively feel that their policies are inappropriate, then we should change the terms of the spectrum lease when it comes up for renewal to limit what they are allowed to do or require them to do certain things.
Essentially, they're our tenants and if they aren't using our property in a way we find acceptable, we should change the lease. Now, while the current lease is in effect, it's their decision how to use the bandwidth within the bounds of the current lease. But it's perfectly reasonable for us to discuss whether or not we like what they're doing. Bandwidth leases are not given out blindly. They frequently have conditions attached to them which are meant to promote the general good. There's certainly nothing wrong with discussing a requirement that bandwidth used to provide internet service be free from user policies which restrict which applications can be used on that service.
Re:I don't really blame them... (Score:2, Interesting)
EDGE-capable phones, when receiving a phone call, disable EDGE and transmit voice in plain GSM mode.
3G phones, however, have enough bandwidth to send (higher-quality) voice data over the 3G network, in either ATM/AAL2 or IPv4/RTP mode (technically, VoIP.)
Re:Step in the right direction (Score:2, Interesting)
I work for ATT, and I am pro bit torrent / P2P. P2P is not illegal, even though it can be used for shady things, it is not illegal all in its self.
The reason we dont want you to do P2P is because it uses a lot of bandwidth. We want you to stay inside of 5 gb a month on your connection. 5 GB is a lot, and you normally wont even be able to touch that. But with p2p apps like bit torrent running, you could pop through that in a day no problem.
Now, if you go over 5gb a month, we will send you a letter asking you to stop it. There is no connection throttling. I am not lieing, there is no connection throttling.
You will also note that other high bandwidth applications are forbidden through the contract. Streaming video for instance. Now, this does not include youtube type streams, more like the ones for live webcams, like for chris pirillo, at pirillo.com.
Bottom line, we dont want you hogging the lines, thats really all there is to it.
Re:Class action suit brought by WoW players.... (Score:2, Interesting)