Major ISPs To Deploy P4P Within MonthsBut will it be a way to filter 'non-sanctioned' content? ( old news - 06:13PM Thursday Nov 13 2008) tags: Fileswapping · business · networkingThe P4P Research Group (pdf), a coalition of most major ISPs, researchers and Pando networks, is working on their own P2P protocol that saves transit time by only serving file parts from local peers to reduce hops. Pando and the new coalition have been bandying plenty of numbers about, claiming they can speed up P2P traffic up to 235% across US cable networks and up to 898% across international broadband networks. In Verizon tests, Pando increased the percentage of data routed internally across their networks from 2.2% to 43.4%, which they claim reduced inter-ISP data transfers by an average of 34%. This week the coalition, which includes AT&T, Verizon and AT&T, proclaimed that the most recent round of testing increased download delivery speed, on average, fifty-nine percent -- and up to one-hundred-fifty percent for some users. That certainly sounds nice, but the implementation of this system has created more questions than answers. Will ISP executives be able to resist impulses to charge customers more for prioritized P2P? Will carriers have to pay the major ISPs to play along? Will the client source code be published? Will the system come with anti-piracy provisions and filters? If so, will that create an ISP gatekeeper situation to wall off "non-ISP-sanctioned" P2P content? Will user data be sold? Seeing what we mean? It's hard to think that the implementation of this technology won't come with a catch -- or three -- but it looks like we should start seeing real answers soon. While so far participating ISPs have primarily been engaged in testing, Silicon Alley Insider reports that the ISPs involved are getting very close to real world deployment of the technology. AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast will deploy the technology "over the next two months", according to the website. Color us skeptical until we can see exactly how the bionic P2P enhancement is implemented and presented to consumers.
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 |  | SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| Re: The idea is good, reduce traffic and bandwidth usages quote:
Will ISP executives be able to resist impulses to charge customers more for prioritized P2P?
Highly doubtful. I am envisioning ridiculously priced tiers for "favored" traffic such as the above referenced. They're already fucking consumers up the ass reaping maxium profits by double, and, in some cases, triple dipping on overage fees. This latest development will enable an even more gluttonous approach. | |
| | | | | SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| Re: The idea is good, reduce traffic and bandwidth usages said by amigo_boy  :said by KrK :and force users back to un-gimped P2P applications. Maybe that threat will keep them honest? You mean in the same manner that ISPs are so "honest"? LMAO. You're living in a dream world. | |
| | | | | pbarrow
Premium
join:2003-09-16
Montgomery, AL | Seems to me it would take away their excuse for higher prices and bandwidth caps and overage charges.
I won't hold my breath on that happening. | |
| | 
tad2020
join:2007-07-17
Orange, CA | Seems like it would have been easier if the ISP would provide a DB to users of if their IP ranges and the cost (ie. hops, distance). Current client apps would just need to favor ranges their ISP says are in-network and closer. | |
| 
FTTC
join:2008-10-01
Mount Rainier, MD
 ·Verizon FIOS
| what this is sweet, nice to see improvement coming soon.
If I have to pay a couple extra $ I really dont care. you dont have to get it if you dont want to you know, this is for people with cash like me.
sorry to rub it in oh wait no im not get owened poor loosers. =) | |
| | 
dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
| Re: what said by FTTC :this is sweet, nice to see improvement coming soon. Not so fast there bubby. When was the last time your ISP did something for YOUR benefit. keep it all within cox, you know who exactly to send the nastygrams to.
--
When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
| patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| P4P should be ASN preference I hope P4P is nothing more than giving preference to peers on the same ASN as you, or least number of ASN hops from you (your ISP's direct peers), or avoiding sending transcontinent. That is ultimately the only way to reduce p2p traffic, or atleast make it more LANish. | |
| | ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL
| Let them try First of all, I applaud any effort to reduce bandwidth. Frankly, I can't understand why current or even past P2P clients didn't implement something like this, since it benefits the end user. Why would a Comcast user want to download a file from China when the same file is available from another Comcast user? Odds are, the file that's closer will be served up faster.
Having said that, let the ISP's try to place restrictions on this. As soon as they do, two things will happen. First, other P2P clients will implement the same technology, which may happen even if P4P comes without any catches. Second, you can bet that, even if the ISP's don't release the source code, someone will manage to decompile the application and remove any restrictions it contains. Mark my words, it'll happen. | |
| | 
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Skype
| Re: Let them try said by ISurfTooMuch :First of all, I applaud any effort to reduce bandwidth. Frankly, I can't understand why current or even past P2P clients didn't implement something like this, since it benefits the end user. They already do, in the way that the P2P clients select peers to pair with for longer-term higher-speed transfers, but it takes 15-30 minutes or so to work through the list of peers (in BitTorrent). The same effect works in eMule and Gnutella but it's based on how many times the same pairs will trade with each other based on their scoring systems.
P4P adds intelligence provided by the ISPs as to where their own routes are vs. the routes of their most expensive transit providers. That intelligence is used to bias the results in peer selection so that the first set peers that you connect with will be heavy on the more local peers.
Of course, all of these tests have been closed and we've just got their word to go on -- but their words are that YES it will be open-source, YES P2P client authors will be able to incorporate it, YES P4P is a choice and users can opt to ignore it without penalty.
Those are great words, and I hope they come true.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
More features, more fun, Join BroadbandReports.com, it's free...
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| | 
RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY
| said by ISurfTooMuch :First of all, I applaud any effort to reduce bandwidth. Frankly, I can't understand why current or even past P2P clients didn't implement something like this, since it benefits the end user. Most of the support for doing a P4P-like system already exists in the current BT code. All that is needed is to add code to flag each peer as Type1 (same netblock as you), Type2 (same Network), or Type3 (not on my ISP's Network). This information can be located via a WHOIS to whois.arin.net. You query it for your IPN and this will tell you your Netblock (Netblock Name and IPN Range). The Type2s are located by editing the Netblock name. Any peer whose IPN is not in the Type1 or Type2 range is automatically Type3. Now you parse the list of peers to get Type1s. If this does not yield the number of maximum sessions that the user has defined, start adding Type2s. If you still have open slots, go for Type3s. In each case, you select from the current pool using the same methods that are currently used.
This causes you to first talk to near peers, then others on your ISP's network before going out of your ISP's network. No need for P4P mucking with (or monitoring/approving/censoring) your connections since your client does all the selection as it does right now (just more efficiently). | |
| 
DSLTech
join:2000-12-30
San Jose, CA
| Pandora's box. Once an ISP has the tools to understand a differentiate P2P traffic, what will stop the government from requiring them to investigate the traffic?
My theory for ISPs: The less you know about your traffic, the better. If you KNOW about your P2P stuff, you can't claim that you don't any more. If you cant claim that you don't, then you will have to spend money on govt and legal requests to investigate P2P activities.
Ignorance is bliss. | |
| | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
| Re: Pandora's box. said by DSLTech :The less you know about your traffic, the better. You can't manage a network if you don't know what's traversing the connections. Contrary to the desires/beliefs of some of the elitists in this forum who believe they should have an unfettered "dumb pipe" from their ISPs, a network does need to be managed.said by DSLTech :Ignorance is bliss. Remaining ignorant is also apathetic IMO. | |
| 
Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| Useless without software Doing up their own P2P protocol assumes that you need new client software too, unless they do this as an extension to the BitTorrent protocol and contribute code or make a deal with BitTorrent Inc. to update uTorrent, it's not going to fly.
That said, does P4P really offer any advantages over existing ISP-level BitTorrent caching solutions? | |
| | Samwoo
join:2002-02-15
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
1 edit | Re: Useless without software Well according to openp4p.com . The core participants for the P4P Working Group (I don't know what the P4P Research Group cited by DLSR is... and the link points to a P4PWG article) are:
AT&T, Bezeq International, BitTorrent, CacheLogic, Cisco Systems, Grid Networks, Joost, LimeWire, Manatt, Oversi, Pando Networks, PeerApp, Telefonica Group, VeriSign, Verizon, Vuze, Univ of Washington, and Yale University
Also:
I'm not sure who openp4p is, but it appears openp4p is run by one of the Yale members of p4pwg since the contact email is a Yale address.
Anyways they seem to have a more detailed report of p4p testing results
»www.openp4p.net/front/fieldtests
If it really works the way that openp4p says, then the isp can remain a service provider, rather than a file provider. This has the big consequence as reducing the liability of the ISP on the files that are transferred. In other words, if an ISP caches a file, it better be legal. | |
| AVonGauss
Premium,MVM
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL
1 edit | An Opinion... I am going to disclaim this post as from an engineering side (writing software) I don't tend to work a lot with BitTorrent applications and from a user side I often find it more annoying than rewarding so I might be a bit biased.
To use a cheezy clique, I think we're getting the cart in front of the horse in this and similar articles. The broader and more immediate question is still will the idea even take off? I am not involved with the effort, but as an outsider it looks like there are a couple different business objectives trying to be achieved and I'm not sure they all compliment each other.
For this or a similar effort to be successful, I believe ISPs will need to implement this as an open and free "topology type" service with an open API that a client (inside ISP) or server (outside ISP) application can take advantage of without regard to the underlying application (i.e. BitTorrent). This may be the intent, but I personally have not seen this clearly demonstrated yet. In fairness, most of this seems to have been a corporate driven effort so far and may only now be getting ready to move in to more of a community style endeavour.
BitTorrent, the (sole?) P2P application that P4P seems to be constructed around, evolved to satisfy specific needs and desires by the Internet user - some legal, some not so much so. If those same needs are not met as they can be using today's techniques, it is doubtful that this will succeed in mass adoption.
To give one specific example, the typical user will not mind helping a company such as Canonical or Revision 3 distribute their content (P2P style) as they do not directly charge that consumer for the download. However, for company's such as Microsoft or Universal who do want to charge for their content or the original purchase, people are generally less inclined to use their connection to help save that company some cash in distribution charges - even if it's a service pack. Companies have been trying for years to get mass adoption of P2P technologies to efficiently (read: cost effectively) distribute online content, most have been unsuccessful and hence the expansion of CDNs such as Akamai. | |
| | | 
Laird Popkin
@verizon.net
| Re: Flaw with P4P? "... where there's a piece of the file missing and none of the customers of your ISP has it. How does P4P work in this case?"
P4P doesn't prevent the P2P network from getting the data from outside the ISP, it just helps the P2P software pick closer peers if there are any. | |
| 
lolwhat
We Are Toast
Premium
join:2001-06-11
USSA | please include a post subject quote:
which includes AT&T, Verizon and AT&T
Uh? I guess AT&T is big enough to mention twice.  | |
| | | Samwoo
join:2002-02-15
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
| Re: I already max out my downloads Your ISP will like you slightly more because you tax their network slightly less?
I don't know how the ISP is supposed to give you incentives to use packet prioritizing schemes.
Maybe ISPs should give more "perma boost" to cheap connections.
(Would be protocol agnostic, but not be destination agnostic. Would that conflict with the idea of neutrality?) | |
| cpsycho
join:2008-06-03
Orangeville, ON
·Wightman Telecom
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
| Message to ISP's If there are ISP's monitoring this heed my warning.
Do not charge make it as open source as possible without leaving security holes everywhere.
Use the tech yourself. You now have a cheap distrubition method. Put basic cable on there. No charge! Seriously. Put your commercials in of course. Now you have direct stats and a proper advertising numbers. Do not favor your traffic over others, or people will not use it. For more special issed channels. Like specialty channels have a linking file so users IP or passwords match with your software. That way you still can make money on special channels. Dont charge anything for the software. No one will buy it.
If you are doing this for your network and customers. Keep us updated on the process. | |
| | 
RRMAN
Premium
join:2007-04-02
Cleveland, OH | Re: Message to ISP's Oh yeah this is awesome! NOT! Another way for this crap to eat up bandwidth. I have another idea ROT!!
--
Two people shorten a road. | |
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All these worst case scenarios very unlikely
Flaw with P4P?
