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Enhancement To P2P Cuts Network Costs

Posted by kdawson on from the not-the-enemy dept.

psycho12345 sends in an article in News.com on a study, sponsored by Verizon and Yale, finding that if P2P software is written more 'intelligently' (by localizing requests), the effect of bandwidth hogging is vastly reduced. According to the study, redoing the P2P into what they call P4P can reduce the number of 'hops' by an average of 400%. With localized P4P, less of the sharing occurs over large distances, instead making requests of nearby clients (geographically). The NYTimes covers the development from the practical standpoint of Verizon's agreement with P2P company Pando Networks, which will be involved in distributing NBC television shows next month. So the network efficiencies will accrue to legal P2P content, not to downloads from The Pirate Bay.

5 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. 400%? by Sam+H · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do you reduce the number of 'hops' by an average of 400%? Negative number of hops? Also, FP.

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    1. Re:400%? by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just typical market speak. 400% sounds sexier than "a factor of four".

      The problem that leaps to my mind is that either you're going to have to collect a huge chunk of routing information so your client can figure out which peers are "close" to you, or a third party is going to have to manage the peering...Neither one of those thrills me, especially since an ISP is pushing the technology, which would make them the obvious third party.

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    2. Re:400%? by ThreeGigs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It gets worse. From RTFA:

      "Using the P4P protocol, those same files took an average of 0.89 hops"

      How do you possibly get an average of LESS than one hop, unless you're getting the file from yourself?

  2. Re:P2P - P4P? by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, strictly speaking, incrementing the number would result in P3P, not P4P. Just as P2P means "Peer to Peer", P4P could be interpreted as "Peer for Peer", justifying the numeral.

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  3. Is it just that I'm naive ... by Dr.Merkwurdigeliebe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... or is it encouraging to see network providers taking a stance other than p2p is bad? This looks good - kind of like "p2p isn't going away, so as long as we have to live with it, let's try to make the best of it"

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