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Coincidence that the http://www.allot.com/NetEnforcer is from Israel?

You probably would not see this post as it is hugging the bottom of a long pile of messages, but here are my two cents:

In small scale networks, as few as five to ten over utilizing customers can bring the whole structure to its knees. From ethical perspective, it is your duty to keep network as operational as possible for the whole customer base. So that it is OK in my book to shape traffic as long as you keep it as fair as possible for your customers' benefit. Also it is important to back your traffic shaping with a solid mathematical model, as some (usually below 1%) of your customers can complain, and even can claim that you are stealing their capacity...

FAP (Fair Access Policy) is a rolling average, leaky bucket traffic shaping algorithm. We are using HNS (Hughes Network Systems) implementation with great success for five years. As you are a cable operator HNS solution would not work for you, however it is well documented (by public, in public domain. HNS' own documentation sucks). If you ignore customer complaints about HNS services in USA (problem there is not FAP mechanism, but very tight parameters set by HNS operations team) and concentrate on the system you would learn a great deal about traffic shaping that is adapted to real life conditions.

As you would need an implementation to use, a single layer FAP (HNS implementation permits three layers) can be put in place by using basic traffic shaping parameters in Cisco. For multi layered approach, you can use a Linux firewall. If you have money to spend on this, Allot traffic shapers are very good Linux based devices.

Regards

Loser.

I'm trying to be objective here.

Appliances produced by Tumbleweed, Allot and Radware are all heavily adopting FOSS. They can secure their VC investment, their brand and their business; their staff contribute back to FOSS community and keep it growing. They wouldn't whine, do they?

we all know it's nonsense, when he said no FOSS software giant exists. What he actually meant was 'No FOSS Software Giant that can cash in big profit for small group of people'. If it can't take huge profit, it's then a failure. Bullshit. People paid overprice product just because there're no other better alternative around. Things changed, face it.

No they just (start) to throttle all encrypted communication. Didn't we hear about an ISP who did/does this?
And/or they buy a device like the netenforcer http://www.allot.com/ which the manufacturer claims can throttle torrent traffic.

As numerous other posters have pointed out, it is feasible to limit p2p traffic by both quality of service (QoS) and explicit bandwidth caps. At my employer, we use Allot's NetEnforcer to limit customer's P2P somewhat, but primarily use it to drop its QoS level below that of other traffic (streamed video & audio, http, pop3, etc) that is more dependant on high burst speeds and a steady connection.

The available technology for network traffic management is becoming extremely sophisticated -- check out the offerings of Sandvine and Allot.

With the products from these vendors (among others), carriers can prioritize traffic across their entire network -- in some cases this becomes a sizable chunk of the Internet. The traffic management products integrate seamlessly to the billing systems -- think "click here for a 10 minute, 2 GB speed boost for $10."

At some point, some website will sign a deal to guarantee a certain amount of throughput to their site, or for a special event, etc. It starts with carriers "recouping costs" by ensuring QoS on the Superbowl and then quickly gets ugly. When will Microsoft Live (Hotmail, etc.) sign a deal to ensure it loads faster than Google?

http://www.allot.com/

http://www.p-cube.com/indexold.shtml

http://www.toplayer.com/

http://www.arbornetworks.com/

http://www.riverhead.com/

http://www.sonicwall.com/

http://www.fortigate.net/

I've heard that this guys have implemented the same idea as one of the trick they use in their traffic shaping/QoS products. They're for WAN links IIRC so that any client (in the remote sites) can take advanatge of it.

It seems a little biased/uninformed to mention only the Packeteer product here, so I'll broaden the horizon a little: A solution that is comparably priced (Still very expensive) and IMHO is a better choice is the Allot Netenforcer. There is also P-Cube and F5, but independent tests (and my own) makes the Allot-box the better bet. If you think Packeteer is easy to use, you should check them out yourself!