Should ISPs play traffic cop?
By Michael W. Jones
There are apparently no easy solutions for internet congestion problems. Many internet service providers (ISPs) think the answer is to throttle specific types of users. Opponents to that theory (and privacy advocates) say that the only answer is to accommodate all users by building a higher-capacity internet. These positions are far enough apart that there does not seem to be an acceptable compromise position.
This has resulted in a standoff. The providers of broadband internet services want to take bandwidth away from the users they feel are causing the problems, namely those which participate in peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing activities. Those users, and others, say that the only answer is the construction of an internet with big enough pipes to carry all the traffic, regardless of what applications are being used.
One possible answer, a scheme developed by the Distributed Computing Industry Association, appears to be workable, but does not seem to be acceptable to the broadband ISP group. Their new P2P protocol guides the selection of file sources and network pathways rather than letting the selection happen randomly, or using criteria that don’t maximize efficiency.
Robert Levitan, CEO of Pando Networks, says that his company has built a better answer, developed with the help of P2P providers. Levitan says, “We’ve tested a new set of protocols on the networks at Verizon and Comcast that help reduce the stress on their networks and increase delivery speeds. It’s been proven. The results show that these new protocols can route P2P traffic in a much more efficient way.”
The fly in the ointment is the fear of investigation by the FCC. When BitTorrent users were specifically targeted by Comcast, the FCC began looking into privacy issues implicit in such targeting. Eventually, the FCC ruled that it wasn’t legal for Internet service providers to delay P2P file-sharing requests for any reason.
The new protocols developed by Pando and the Distributed Computing Industry Association would almost certainly result in BitTorrent and other P2P users being throttled, but this time as a result of an algorithm instead of specific targeting. Broadband service providers feat that if the end result is the same, the ruling of the FCC may be the same, so they are balking at trying the new technology. It seems that the standoff between Broadband providers and P2P users is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
under
Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
Stumble It!
