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ISPs Fight Against Encrypted BitTorrent Downloads
oglsmm writes to mention an Ars Technica article about a new product intended to detect and throttle encrypted BitTorrent traffic. When torrents first saw common use ISPs would throttle the bandwidth available to them, in order to ensure connectivity for everyone. Some clients began encrypting their data to get around this, and the company Allot Communications is now claiming their NetEnforcer product will return the advantage to the ISPs. From the article: "Certainly, increasing BitTorrent traffic is a concern for ISPs. In early 2004, torrents accounted for 35 percent of all traffic on the Internet. By the end of that year, this figure had almost doubled, and some estimate that in certain markets, such as Asia, torrent traffic uses as much as 80 percent of all bandwidth. However, BitTorrent is an extremely important tool that has many uses other than what everyone assumes it is good for, namely movie piracy."
many uses other than what everyone assumes it is good for, namely movie piracy.
- Game Demos
- Software updates / upgrades
- Free / Legal Videos
Look, I use Bittorrent and it's great. But I also run an ISP.
The thing is, bandwidth isn't cheap. People bitch that ISPs "oversubscribe", and that we can't really deliver our advertised bandwidth to everyone all of the time. This is true, but how do you think we manage to sell people 5Mb connections for $40/month? Do you know how much 5Mb of bandwidth costs and ISP? It's a lot more than $40. In the market I'm in, we pay THOUSANDS of dollars for that much bandwidth.
The real problem is that bandwidth is too expensive in this country, thanks to the likes of AT&T and MCI and all the other big players. They've got tons of unused fiber lying around, and it costs them next-to-nothing to use it, but it still costs the end-user (in this case, the ISP) a hell of a lot of cash.
Exactly.
The price is formulated on the basis that you do not use it.
I agree with you - this is fraud and there is only one way to fix this.
The problem will go away immediately if ISPs turn off flat pricing and users start to pay for bandwidth used. Even better - if they start charging a differential/tiered pricing depending on the type of traffic. There is no rocket science here. The gear currently on the market is supposed to be able to do it (does it do it is a different matter).
The business models is well known and this is the way the Internet used to operate all the way up to the end of the 1990-es (especially in the slower peripheral parts). This was abandoned when the incumbent telcos entered the access market in the end of the 1990-es. They went after scale and port densities which resulted in bandwidth accounting features being abandoned across most of the equipment. Cisco broke all of its accounting by introducing CEF, other vendors were not any different.
Over the last 5-6 years most of the features crept back due to demand by business users so technologically the gear is in the same (or better) shape as before the telcos entered the market as far as accounting is concerned. In addition to that new gear from Ellacoya, P-cube and such can do things the old systems were not capable of.
All it will take to get this working now will be people who know how to formulate a viable product and tie this up all the way into billing, CRM and relevant backend systems. Unfortunately there are not that many people left capable of doing it in most ISPs so they prefer the BIG STICK(tm) or the "magic vendor silver bullet". It is easier. It does not require investment. It does not require thinking. It does not require competence. Sad, but true - this reflects the state of the industry.
It is rotten, it sucks and it hates its customers.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Bandwidth accounting isn't necessary.
I work for an ISP. Yes, we oversubscribe. It's the way the business works. We only see problems when many people use their bandwidth *at the same time*.
Moving more data total does not cost any more many than for the electricity to move it. What costs more money is having more available bandwidth so that more can be moved at one time.
We get our bandwith from first-tier providers. They do not charge us by the amount we transfer, but they charge us for the speed of the port. They don't care how much we transfer in total, they only care how much they use at once. We do likewise for our customers, with the exception that we oversubscribe.
Oversubscribing doesn't cause problems as long as there's enough available bandwidth out and the hardware to handle it. Some people expect dedicated bandwidth, and for them there are the options of lower speeds or more money.
I want to see oversubscription come to an end, but I don't see it happening. The dropping price of bandwidth and network equipment is primarily driven by increasing customer demand for higher speeds rather than by an increased number of customers. Unless prices drop as customer demand for higher speed remains static (or at least grows slower than the prices drop), dedicated bandwidth at today's consumer-appropriate speeds and prices isn't going to happen.