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Peer-to-Peer Networks Blocked in NZ
mjl writes: "It seems that Time Warner is not the only ISP that limits bandwidth of residential customers. In New Zealand, Telecom is also blocking the use of well known P2P applications. What Telecom fails to recognise is that these people are pushing the envelope of what the Internet can do, and will drive the technology economy in years to come."
No! The people who invented P2P apps maybe are pushing the envelope of what the net can do - but 95% of the people on the biggest P2P networks are just downloading free music. They're not pushing anything other than their luck, because they're basically massively abusing the system.
I'd love to be in NZ right now! Now all the kiddies that think downloading music and burning it to CDs for their friends constitutes a "business" - like some people I know - have had their access blocked, it means better connections for everyone else who does in fact respect the law. I think this should happen more.
OK. If the problem is that some users are hogging all the bandwidth, what about this for a solution:
You monitor the total bandwidth usage over the month for each user. Then you adapt the priority of each connection dependent on the usage:
User A has only used 2MB bandwidth this month, so you give their requests priority over User B who has already downloaded 200MBs.
In prinicipal, this is easy and seems a fair solution - the more data you download the slower your connection becomes. I'm sure this has been thought of/implemented already - so why aren't ISPs using something like this?
The problem though is when you start abusing it.
Like if you started 8 air conditioners [in one house] in USCA you wouldn't make alot of friends. I wouldn't doubt there are laws concerning power usage [there are when there are water shortages].
The problem they are trying to fix is that bandwidth is not an unlimited thing they have to give out.
Of course, I would have addressed the problem differently. Instead of banning ports I would do dynamic capping. e.g. you get 500MB a day at full bandwidth. after that you get 1/4 bandwidth [or something like that]. That way you get
a) no loss of connection
b) stops bandwidth hogs
c) doesn't arbitrarily block random ports
Personally if I were an ISP I would make it something like 250MB full speed [512k/256k] then the rest at a lower speed [128k/64k] [this is all per day]. 250MB is more than enough to browse through webpages and chat. Its not nearly enough to be a elite haxor or something [e.g. dork on Kazaa].
But what do I know, I'm just a kid who failed business in college...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.