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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."
I have never even seen a single set top box for Internet access here in Europe. Of course we use them for Cable TV but I doubt that's what they are referring to here.
While their video sales business is DOA, this is what they're up to: http://www.bittorrent.com/devices/
That's been changing. People are now more aware of applications they can use to get the most out of their broadband. That's why we saw questions asked recently of the BBC's iPlayer. Who will foot the bill for the increase in bandwidth, we were asked. The ISPs? Or the BBC, who have 'caused' such an increase in traffic?
The answer is the ISPs, obviously. That's what they get paid for, by the customer - and usually the customer has already paid more than once, without realising it. In many cases an ISP's infrastructure has been HUGELY subsidised by public funds, and many have frittered away a lot of money they could have spent preparing for some kind of a high-bandwidth revolution.
But every time a new trend starts, and a new high bandwidth application becomes easily available to the masses, the situation gets a little worse for our ISPs. They're not nearly as prepared for this as they should be.
Here's a new application of P2P, one that could very easily replace regular scheduled television, and it's as easy to use as plugging in a box.
Eventually, the ISPs will have to raise those prices, and not just by a little bit, but by enough to tear up and relay a lot of their infrastructure.
This was bound to happen. P2P is very useful technology. The RIAA and friends have approached the copyright issue by (more or less) tarring this technology as either immoral or just plain wrong. Sooner or later, somebody else with a bit of backing was going to leverage P2P to solve a problem and then come face-to-face with the RIAA. This is just another illustration of how the RIAA have approached this whole thing all wrong.
I'd like to see NADA become commercial to see how this would pan out.
What, no link? Major FTLC (Failure to Look Cool).
Should be Here .
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Let me get this straight in my head. You want to charge me for your service and then use my bandwidth and electricity? You want to run bittorrent 24/7 on my internet connection to distribute files that I may not be allowed to view myself? How does this benefit me? (Listens to crickets chripping in the deafening quiet.) That's what I thought...
If you use P2P instead of centralized server to move the same total amount of data, what's the problem? In fact, it should be beneficial for the ISP if most of the traffic is going within its own network; any decept P2P software should prefer the topologically nearest peers. I thought it's mostly external traffic that the ISPs have to pay for, while their own infrastructure has fixed costs.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The similarity, conceptually, between NADA and Freenet is quite interesting.
The Internet is "always on."
In global terms, some part of the internet is 'always on'. But regionally, usage varies over 24 hrs.
And, yes, latency slows down P2P to the point where it's faster to use FTP.
Nobody is trying to argue that P2P is always faster than FTP. Please do not create straw men.
But of course, that would mean that the content provider would have to pay for its bandwidth and not try to fob the cost off on the ISP.
With P2P, the content provider still pays for its bandwidth. The only difference is that the user allocates some of his or her bandwdth (which he or she is also paying for) to help distribute the content.
Nobody is using bandwidth that they have not paid for. Nobody is getting 'fobbed off'.
The vast majority of BitTorrent traffic is still pirated media.
And your point is?