ISPs Experimenting With New P2P Controls

alphadogg points us to a NetworkWorld story about the search by ISPs for new ways to combat the web traffic issues caused by P2P applications. Among the typical suggestions of bandwidth caps and usage-based pricing, telecom panelists at a recent conference also discussed localized "cache servers," which would hold recent (legal) P2P content in order to keep clients from reaching halfway around the world for parts of a file. "ISPs' methods for managing P2P traffic have come under intense scrutiny in recent months after the Associated Press reported last year that Comcast was actively interfering with P2P users' ability to upload files by sending TCP RST packets that informed them that their connection would have to be reset. While speakers rejected that Comcast method, some said it was time to follow the lead of Comcast and begin implementing caps for individual users who are consuming disproportionately high amounts of bandwidth."

less peering

give increased speeds when you don't leave the network. downloads will complete faster, so less peering will be done.

They want control but should not have it.

Here's how media companies will kill the free internet we all know and love:

• Meter everything but a few incumbent favored sites [ning.com], everything else loses traffic and ad revenue overnight.
• Kick off the users you don't like [slashdot.org], alternate sites will wither and die when their owners are harassed this way.
• Block sites you don't like [slashdot.org] by calling something nasty.

"Legitimate" media caches and disruption of all other P2P traffic only makes step one worse. They will continue to slow the rest to lower than their heavily filtered networks can deliver. The result will look like broadcast media does today, one big corporate billboard, instead of a free press. Part of censorship is shouting louder than others.

Yeah, I've said this before [slashdot.org]. As long as ISPs have the same story, so will I.

Perhaps it's time for

ISP's to quit offering unlimited service, or stop overselling what they have. What's the point of having a 15 or 20 Megabit downstream, when I can only download 50 Gigabytes of traffic per month? Because i'm sure as hell not going back to renting my porn from the video store...

Re:Perhaps it's time for

It's a bit like having a 300hp car but only fuel for a mile.

Yay for car analogies! But this one at least works.

Re:Perhaps it's time for

But they have to pay by the gallon for the gasoline they use.

Re:Perhaps it's time for

No, it is more like having a 300hp car, using it to go to the shops and back but when you try and go over 70mph the cops ...

Wait, this car analogy is far too good, I can't use it on Slashdot =)

Re:Perhaps it's time for

ISP: We offer "unlimited" internet access.
Customer: Sweet! *starts downloading*
ISP: Oh, we didn't mean you should use it.

They advertise a low price and a high speed, then oversell to get that price then reduce the high speed because of it. Hmm, methinks they need more truth in advertising.

Apply traffic shaping per-user, not per-service

This is all we need. The problem is not that the providers aren't giving us enough bandwidth (they aren't). The problem is that they care what we spend it on.

This is no good...

Ok so, my ISP (theoretically) wants to keep the data my neighbour has downloaded, incase I want to download it to.

Yet, obviously these caches will have to be legal content, which means filtering out illegal content, which means they will be tracking everything I download, and thus, can force me to 1) pay more for this, 2) notify appropriate authorities, 3) limit my interaction with the rest of the world via the internet.

Although as stated in the article/summary its supposedly "temporary" but this means that ISP will have to start gathering massive amounts of storage, inevtiably making one ISP better at this than another, and hey fuck it, lets just have one ISP... and the internet just becomes Wikipedia.

I honestly can't see any benefit to this, it seems to just end up with steralization whichever way I look at it.

Re:This is no good...

well all that's potentially happening is that your ISP is joining your torrents but only serving those in particular IP ranges, but really really fast - to me this is an added benefit, I'd probably choose an ISP that carries the latest kernel downloads locally - it's not really any different than a html proxy cache (except that because the torrents are crypto corrected an ISP can't inject ads into them)

Re:This is no good...

Yeah I'm aware of that, and I agree completely, the problem is can you actually see an ISP (outside of smaller, barely making a profit, looking for clientele please join us ISPs) doing that so honestly?

That was sort of my point, in the immediate conclusion it seems like a great idea, but it gives far too much power to the ISP, or even more power to the government to control what the ISP can do.

It will make sponsored content (Windows Update, Fox News, etc) the primary purpose of the cache after awhile, it is a business after all.

People without the money to pay ISPs or Governors, or whatever to get their content approved for cache, will be on this lesser accessed, slower WWW, making it a pain to get real information or media, and since people are fundamentally lazy, they will inevitably give in, and just go with "what works, right now!"

Re:This is no good...

I'd probably choose an ISP that carries the latest kernel downloads locally...

hahahahaha. You think the ISPs are going to start caching the Linux kernel? Where's the money in that? Now, if you want the latest Britney Spears video (kickbacks for promotion from the RIAA) or movie trailers (ditto from the MPAA) or game demos, you're set.

You gotta understand, to the content distribution companies, "legal P2P" = "free shit that we'll give you under the hope that you'll spend money later". Linux absolutely isn't on that list.

I've got a good solution..

How about they roll out the infrastructure we paid for with our tax dollars, then not apply any "controls".

you know, a proper, neutral internet that fulfills the promises they made again and again to our government officials when they were given grants, local monopolies, etc. etc.

Re:I've got a good solution..

And where is the government we paid for? They should be seriously thumping these clowns over the head for even considering "combating internet traffic" which is clearly the type of traffic intended when the 1996 Telecommunication Act [fcc.gov] was passed and the deregulation started.

Section 706 paragraph (c) line 1 states:

(1) ADVANCED TELECOMMUNICATIONS CAPABILITY- The term
                            `advanced telecommunications capability' is defined, without
                            regard to any transmission media or technology, as high-speed,
                            switched, broadband telecommunications capability that enables
                            users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data,
                            graphics, and video telecommunications using any technology.

The key here being enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video, thats right, originate AND receive. Somebody clue these dolts in to the fact the internet is not TV 2.0.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way subscribers are utilizing their ISPs, this is exactly as it was envisioned by the authors of the 1996 Act. Imagine that, government officials having better vision for the future of technological advancement in telecommunications than the people running the companies. I can tell you why, the problem is also the clueless bean counters and MBAs could care less about technology, innovations, etc. and would demand a monthly fee just cause if they could get away with it. These people should be running illegal whore houses and extortion rackets, not technology corporations.

If our government doesn't step in and force these bozos to provide the service they advertise and were given deregulation perks for then we may need to step in and explain that they don't own our back yards through which they run their damned cables, I deserve a tariff since its my land they're hauling all those bits through.

alt.binaries

Isn't this just what alt.binaries was doing for the ISPs? Local caching? And they just got rid of those.

total bandwidth used, not downloaded

My ISP very cleverly tells me I can download 12gb per month, which is true. What they don't tell me is anything I upload when I'm peering is also counted to the 12Gb total.

Re:total bandwidth used, not downloaded

I mean I doubt you grab the calculator everytime you download a file, or a webpage is finished loading...

My ISP tells it somewhere on the web interface for my account settings. Moreover, the web interface to your ADSL modem probably also shows it somewhere, at least since the last reboot.

ah, and I'd trust my ISP for accurate metering. it is in their best interest to provide you the full service, right?

and who says p2p control is necessary?

how about we also have http controls, and mms controls, and...

oh wait those are not being continuously vilified by the MAFIAA, who also own the news.

ISPs can cache illegal content

I don't know why people keep getting hung up on legal vs. illegal content; the law clearly says that ISPs have no copyright liability for their caches:

http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/512.html [bitlaw.com]

Let's see how this works...

1. Cache known legal content to improve download performance.
2. Significantly reduce performance of content with "unknown" legal status.
3. Result: legal content gets preferential treatment so legal downloading performs better.
4. Non-"neutral" treatment completely justified by the war against contraband.
5. Hit content providers for kickbacks, those that don't pay get their content treated as "unknown" legal status.
6. PROFIT!

p2p creates cost shifting

P2P shifts costs of distribution from central servers and spreads the load out among the downloaders. This is *helpful*, and it is more equitable given that the marginal costs of data copying is near zero - pushing the price of downloaded content lower and lower.

The pricing seems like such a non issue. The elephant in the room is that companies like Comcast are making a killing, taking a ton of money selling services that largely go unused. many service businesses over sell their capacity to ensure high usage rates, but broadband has taken it to an absolute extreme.

The obvious and easy solution is for providers of cable and DSL services to price their offerings according to usage, and when it comes to bandwidth, the accurate solution is 95% billing: you use a ton of bandwidth, the customer gets charged more. They don't really want to do this though - they make a lot more money buying in bulk and selling little access services for much higher rates than the bandwidth used.

One huge upside of changing the pricing system for home Internet to 95% billing is that you don't have to go metering and capping bandwidth to homes. People could get an *extremely* fast connection, but if they utilize it fully 24/7 then they get billed a high rate. This is not that complex a concept to implement technically.

The Fraud of the Cable Companies

The fraud of the cable companies -- and I'm talking about you, Comcast -- is that you say these people are clogging up our cables so that no one else can use them as we've promised everyone can. Yet money completely solves this problem. Pay for a more expensive business account and suddenly, with no other changes at all to your local cable loop, you get higher bandwidth and caps and somehow are no longer killing their system.

Tell me Comcast: Just how did your cable suddenly get better once you start charging me 2X to 5X as much as before?

They're just a bunch of fsking liars!

Why don't they just put valve on your pipe?

I recommend they add a valve to everyone's internet pipe. If they become troublesome, you simply close their valve down a little bit to stop the flow of the internet through the pipes.

Re:Legal content?

No, but it will be a good "proof" for the argument against P2P. Akin to "See? We have caches with all the legal P2P content and yet no decline in P2P traffic. So it's proven that P2P is mainly used for illegal means".

Yes, I know it's no proof. Tell your congressman, not me.

Re:Here's a better idea

Support multicast

Cable companies use the DOCSIS specifications: multicast is pretty feeble (I won't argue with you if you say "broken") in the versions of DOCSIS that are currently deployed. However, that changes in DOCSIS 3.0. It is one of the "big three" benefits in DOCSIS 3.0 (the others being channel bonding and IPv6 support). DOCSIS 3.0 will probably start being rolled out by at least some cable companies next year.