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P2P Set-top Boxes To Revolutionize Internet
An anonymous reader writes "The European Commissions 7th Framework Program (FP7) is working on a project called Nano Data Centers (NADA) as part of the its future Internet initiative. NADA will seek to build an Internet architecture that delivers data from the edge of the Internet using set top boxes and Peer-to-Peer technology, instead of the network-centric architecture that stores and delivers content from data centers via Internet backbones. NADA is proposing a network of hundreds of thousands of set top boxes, hugely popular in Europe, to be essentially split into two — one side is the user interface side, the other a virtualised Peer-to-Peer storage client that stores and sends media in the same way a data center would. Ideally there would be millions of these boxes each acting as a mini data center — hence the Nano Data Center moniker.
The NADA project is convincing enough to have attracted some of Europe's largest telecommunications companies. Set top box manufacturer, Thomson SA, and European ISP, Telefonica, are among nine contributing partners to the NADA project.
NADA could see a dramatic reduction in the size and frequency of data centers that serve all kinds of media over the Internet."
Develop an application that can inject whatever you want to share (porn, movies, music, pictures, computer software, stolen identity data, the list is endless) and you would have instant and free worldwide delivery. All you would have to do is insert the data at a public box (one not tied to your house or account) and there's no way to track it back to you.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I'm sure that the ISPs will not be happy about this idea - I see that none are on the partners list.
How responsable would you be for the content stored on your Nano Data Center... I can see tons and tons of lawsuits.
Another thought, how much redundancy would be required to protect the data should Joe-Six-Pack accidently wipe his data. Or get his set top infected while surfing for porn.
This could be a good way to distribute malware, being that we'd (presumably) have access to someone else's data within our datacenter. What would stop me from replacing the content of the datacenter side of my box. Physical access is a bad idea.
There is also a privacy issue. If we know what is on our datacenter, we could track incoming requests and build a database of users/ips that like whatever content we are serving.
It sounds like part of this plan includes passing on the electrical and cooling costs of the internet across the grid, vs. making the network centers pay for the power. Yes, the article says that the devices are more efficient ("these set top boxes don't consume a lot of energy,) but I'd still have to foot the bill for that energy.
The problem with putting anything that provides bandwidth to others on the edge is that it is really inefficient from an aggregate cost-of-bandwidth view.
Bandwidth to a colo facility costs an order of magnitude less than bandwidth to an end-user's location. Thus shifting to a P2P or distributed architecture like this for providing content doesn't actually reduce the costs, instead it substantially increases them. It just shifts the cost from the content provider to the end user or the end user's ISP.
The only real savings is cooling: at the user's home, they don't have the thermal load so they don't need the AC to cool the end-point node. But OTOH, the end user's cost of electricity is higher, so that may be a wash as well.
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I just can't stand settop boxes. I've yet to have ever seen one from the cable company that is responsive or as capable as anything homebrewed. I loved my old tivo, but, I gotta say, newerones that I've seen...seem to be slower than the old ones?
In the past...I'd opted for just plain analog cable...just to avoid the stupid settop box, the extra fees, etc.
Let's also consider how locked the cable co's boxes are.
Since I've put together a couple of MythTV boxes, I do enjoy it. My last one may need a bit of a faster processor...I built this media box pre-katrina, and didn't really have much need for HD stuff. I now have it loaded with a Haupauge analog card...and have a HDHomerun dual tuner unit...one spliced into the cable feed and one into an antenna. The great thing is...I can set it up to record what I want, when I want..keep things as I want, backup to DVD if I please...timeshift and send it to every room i want. The only thing I can't do, is pay tv stations, and frankly, I've not see that many. I'd like to get the HD of Foodtv and some others, but, that's about it.
I'm not interested in recording things, and sending it out for free on a P2P system, I just want to use things for personal consumption, but, the cable co's won't let us do that. Until then, I'd do not want their set top box. They are slower than what I can do, they aren't as flexible (can't have more than 2 tuners in them usually), and they charge fees (one for each tv in the home?).
Does anyone out there in the US actually LIKE the set top boxes they have? Would you not rather have different choices?
I keep thinking, if they'd make it easier to buy 3rd party stuff (or DIY materials) that would allow YOU to get the content you pay for and use it as you please for private consumption, there's be less need for 'pirated' content to be out there, etc.
Let the consumer have more choice and charge a fair rate, and I think 98% of the people out there would have no problem with paying for content and hooking into their system.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Here is what is going to happen:
The big media companies are going to have a finger in designing these boxes.
They are going to lock them down.
They are going to use YOUR bandwidth to push THEIR content that you may not even have bought or have access to.
I am not going to let a media company leech off my bandwidth so that they can push content I don't even own, want or can access.
Internet bandwidth is most expensive at the edges, and latency to other users is the longest. It's the worst place from which to serve up data; you want to do that from servers in the "middle" of the Net. What's more, the most scarce and valuable resource of the Internet is bandwidth near the edges. Put the servers out there, and you'll raise the cost of broadband deployment and exhaust the resources that are already there. Anyone can buy space on a fast, cheap server at a server farm for far less than it costs to serve data from the edge. So, why don't the people who are running this project just do that? There's only one possible reason: they want to get users and ISPs to give them these resources for free. Which just doesn't wash. If use of these devices became widespread it would either drive up the cost of broadband tremendously or be banned from networks outright by businesses and ISPs. And deservedly so. It's a bad idea.
If ordinary users are able to publish data anonymously using NADA, I will come to your house and pay you one thousand pounds to watch me eating my hat. If, on the other hand, it's just a way for the same old centralised media companies to distribute their DRMed data more cheaply, I will not.