Bittorrent To Cause Internet Meltdown

Gimble writes "Richard Bennett has an article at the Register claiming that a recent uTorrent decision to use UDP for file transfers to avoid ISP 'traffic management' restrictions will cause a meltdown of the internet reducing everybody's bandwidth to a quarter of their current value. Other folks have also expressed concern that this may not be the best thing for the internet."

Comments

Re:fairness

[Ed Avis]

If you're going to transfer files over UDP then you need to build some TCP-like protocol on top of it.

Not really. You would need that if you were transferring a file from one computer to another. But Bittorrent scrapes together little bits of file from lots of other computers. If a packet is lost here and there, that bit of file is naturally requested again, probably from a different machine. That's just a consequence of the way Bittorrent works.

However, one thing to realize about P2P is that because there are often dozens of active TCP connections transmitting from one machine, fairness goes pretty much out the window anyway.

There's no reason in principle for this to be the case; obviously, metering of bandwidth should be by subscriber according to money paid, not by some arbitrary and easily manipulated value like number of open TCP connections.

Re:fairness

[nmg196]

Not really. You would need that if you were transferring a file from one computer to another. But Bittorrent scrapes together little bits of file from lots of other computers. If a packet is lost here and there, that bit of file is naturally requested again, probably from a different machine.

No... you're getting confused between network packets (a kilobyte or two) and bittorrent's blocks (many kilobytes). Each bittorrent chunk is transferred using many network packets. If you're going to transfer those chunks using UDP, you need to sort out the packet order and do all the missing-packet checks and retries etc yourself. So you still DO need to build some kind of TCP-like protocol on top - even just for the error checking.

Re:Everyone wants a piece of the pie...

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

8 Linecards @ 50,000 ea = $400,000
2 routers @ $400,000 = $800,000
$800,000 / 30,000 = $26.67
12 months * 5 years = 60 months (standard depreciation period for equipment)
26.67 / 60 months = $0.45 per month per customer for the routers

I think that when you start throwing large numbers out there to justify cost to the customer, please remember that these costs are amortized over the entire customer base and over time as well.

Let's say you lease the lines for $50,000 per month for each router:
50,000 * 2 = 100,000
100,000 / 30,000 = 3.33 per month per customer

Let's add in $10,000 per month for power
10,000 / 30,000 = $0.33 per customer per month

Add in $100,000 per month for line maintenance, $100,000 per month for repairs
200,000 / 30,000 = 6.67 per month per customer

And $100,000 per annum for your salary (being generous for sake of demonstration) and say another $200,000 per annum for overhead expenses and support staff
$300,000 / 30,000 = $10
$10 / 12 = $0.83 per customer per month

So for the equipment (amortized), electric, facilities (as overhead), staff, leased pipes, maintenance, etc. we have a total of $11.61

Now a low end line goes for ~$24 per month, while a high bandwidth line ~$60...

Re:fairness

[Belial6]

That is just not true. Telephone companies where very clear that you should go with them because you don't have to share a line. That was the benefit they claimed that DSL had over cable internet access.