more on P2P Fuels Global Bandwidth Binge

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat org>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 15:36:22 -0600
To: <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] P2P Fuels Global Bandwidth Binge

At 08:43 AM 4/15/2005, Mike Godwin wrote:

> I think it remains appropriate to be skeptical about CacheLogic's
> claims that BitTorrrent or other P2P applications are taking up
> 60-80 percent of all Internet bandwidth.

Dave:

It always pays to be skeptical of statistics, especially those
profferred in an attempt to sell products. However, it's also
important to note that Mr. Godwin's skepticism is itself
self-serving, coming as it does from a long time advocate of P2P.
In this particular case, the statistics actually do jibe with what
most ISPs report.

Here are some more statistics from our own ISP, which -- like all
others -- is caught in the middle between eager customers (who
would quit if we cut off their P2P connections), the record
companies (who, we fear, will attempt to use us as a bulwark or as
scapegoats in their battle against P2P), and bandwidth costs (which
are coming down, but not nearly rapidly enough).

While we are located in a college town, only about 1/3 of our
clients are college students. (This is because the University
provides them with subsidized Internet access if they live off
campus, or practically free access -- via the government-funded
Internet2 no less -- if they live in the dormitories.) Yet, about
2/3 of our traffic is demonstrably P2P: Kazaa, BitTorrent, etc. And
this is a conservative estimate; it's only what our patterns
detect. One student, without bandwidth restrictions, could easily
soak up 10 Mbps of continuous backbone bandwidth, which in our
location can cost as much as $6,000 per month wholesale.

That's why we were among the first ISPs to implement P2P
mitigation. Had we not done so, those users -- perhaps unwittingly,
because many of them did not realize that they were transmitting as
well as receiving illegal copies of music -- would have choked off
those engaged in legitimate activities and we would have lost their
business. Many P2P applications, upon discovering an unfettered
fast "pipe," quickly make the computers on which they're running
major hubs in the P2P network, consuming all the bandwidth they can.

Also, of all of the P2P users we've queried about their activities
over the years, we have found only two who are using P2P for legal
downloads. In both cases, they are obtaining software which is
licensed in such a way that it may be freely redistributed. All of
the rest were downloading music and similar media.

Thus, CacheLogic's claims seem to be substantially accurate, at
least from our measurements. And we do face a great dilemma: we
will lose our customers if we do not allow downloads and will not
have sufficient bandwidth for customers' legitimate needs if we do
not throttle P2P activity to a sane level.

--Brett Glass


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