P2P Bandwidth Hogging the Net 539
zymano writes "zdnet has this article about bandwidth hogging p2p." I'm sure we'll see more rate limiting in the future and per-gig charges. The article says 60% of ISPs bandwidth is P2P, and that seems high to me, but not unrealistic. Besides, since most broadband is pretty seriously hamstringed in the upstream department, I'm not sure where they can go with this.
spam? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Big LAN (Score:1, Interesting)
Alternative to per-GB charges... (Score:5, Interesting)
60% not so unrealistic (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:spam? (Score:5, Interesting)
One afternoon the network was crawling. Our remote site was complaining the VPN was atrociously slow. The connection to the web was slow, and our firewall was blinking like mad.
I reprogrammed iptables to block a few key ports and a few subnets where the P2P master nodes live and it was like a shadow was lifted from the network.
Re:spam? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Two words: Metered Bandwidth (Score:5, Interesting)
Eh, I wouldn't go that far... if anything, I'd expect the "all-you-can-eat" rates go up, but I don't see telcos and ISPs abandoning the idea any time soon.
Additionally, if metered rates do in fact go into effect, we may be on an accelerated path to widespread deployment of wi-fi clusters in more populated areas as a means of circumnavigating the limitations.
Personally, I'm optimistic. History shows humans to be fairly resistant to various roadblocks being thrown at us, so should your prognosis come true, I'm sure we the geeks will find a way around it somehow, wi-fi or otherwise.
Statistics. (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact of the matter is that due to the distributed nature of the internet, no one knows what the actual usage breakdown is. Even if you were able to classify all of the traffic that passes through MAE East and West, it still would not be an accurate reprisentation of all internet traffic.
My own experience (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm blocking p2p on my network (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't take p2p, either. All you need is someone trying to download the latest RH9 ISOs over the office T1 while another someone is streaming music from shoutcast/icecast/"insert other-streaming-service here". People need to learn that business and pleasure don't mix, and that they will be hunted down like animals when they abuse the privilege of using business resources, be it internet or otherwise. Especially if the admins know those people to have high-speed internet connectivity at their homes.
Re:Two words: Metered Bandwidth (Score:1, Interesting)
Unless you reinvent the medium somehow. Take telephones for instance. Would you pay metered costs on a landline phone? Probably 98% of the people pay a flat fee for local calls, yet these same people most likely pay for metered cell phone access. Why? Most likely they have no alternative. If all the phone companies in the country switched to metered local calling then you'd just have to STFU and accept it or stop making phone calls. Same with the Internet. Sure, you'll hop around carriers for a few years until that last unmetered ISP dries up and you're left with AOL/EarthLink/TimeWarner/MSN as your only ISP choice.
Biased study? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Two words: Metered Bandwidth (Score:2, Interesting)
"Insert mangled copies of above staments that most peoples bills will probably go down"
So it may not necessarily be a bad thing - just different, but then again it could.
Re:Two words: Metered Bandwidth (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it simply amazing that the Comcast disallows any type of server on their system, yet turn their head when it comes to P2P clients (I guess by calling it a "client" you're really not running a "server"). I am forced to operate under the radar so I can run a mailserver that gets maybe 10 e-mails a day, and a text-only webserver that gets a handful of hits when the sun is up, yet my next-door neighbor can run Kazaa all day long (presumably because it's a "form of entertainment" rather than something truly useful).
Re:I'm blocking p2p on my network (Score:3, Interesting)
My experince has been that you can't simply block certain TCP ports because alot of the clients automatically reconfig themselves for port 80.
Did you use a layer 4 analyzer/blocker thingy?
I'm cornfused (Score:1, Interesting)
That's like buying a PIzza for $10, but being charged another $5 if I eat it all. What am I not getting here (admittedly, it may be quite a bit, but initially this seems strange to me)?
Metered bandwith might help stop spam and worms (Score:5, Interesting)
It would also really embarrass a lot of people when they demand to see where they "used up their bandwith" and after the ISP logs are presented with the urls it turns out to be tons 0 porn, back to the "Well! I never! I must have been hacked, YOU fix it Mr. ISP or OS vendor, it's all your fault" and etc.
It's not a can, it's a case of worms. It might happen though, given the RIAA and MPAA efforts in lobbying, and "we need CYBERSECURITY' and whatnot. Bandwith caps, severely restricted ports, etc.
I think we are in the wild wild west days of the net, I expect something like these severe restrictions combined with increased costs. It's the nature of political reality and really big brand money now. And even if a few major ISPs hold out, they'll eventually go under if all the rest of the ISPs are back to making money with their restrictions and filtering efforts. Isn't the very large bandwith more or less a similar priced commodity now? Once you get far enough upstream it's roughly the same, or am I wrong on that? If it's similar, there's no way the unlimited flat rate providers could compete with the limited but significantly cheaper providers, if they are paying the same bulk rates.
what's your point? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not like p2p apps are actually "hogging" anything. Have you ever tried to load a webpage and gotten a "Sorry, the internet is too busy" error? P2p is simply using what is there. If there were no p2p applications, that bandwidth would just be sitting there unused.
Of course, with things like college campuses, with limited bandwidth, then yeah, I can understand where the complaint comes from. But just the internet in general? Come on.
It's so annoying that actually using the available resources is considered such a bad thing. Like complaining because there's so much traffic. Don't bitch because so many people are using your freeways, build bigger freeways! That's what they're there for.
Re:Two words: Metered Bandwidth (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work on the helpdesk at a small ISP. We decided to get into ADSL, since we were losing a lot of dialup customers to high-speed (like, when I left we had half the customers we had when I started). It ended up being a lot of headaches -- dealing with the Big Telco, learning how to debug connections, figuring out how the network was set up (don't even get me started) -- but the biggest thing was dealing with people's preconceptions about bandwidth.
We went through another company for our ADSL, rather than dealing w/Big Telco, and we got charged for bandwidth -- anything over a gig per customer per month. But you can't go around saying that your customers only get a gig per month, 'cos very few other companies even mention that. So we upped it to 1Gb up, 5Gb down. The idea was that most people wouldn't even get close, and those that would, would shoot right over and pay for the rest, at $20/Gb.
For the most part, that was true: most people never did get close; the ones who went over tended to go 'way over, and we'd send 'em bills for a thousand dollars (no lie). But have you ever dealt with anyone handed a thousand-dollar bandwidth bill? My sympathies if you have.
There were two things working against us and everyone else who wants to switch to metering bandwidth:
- Like I said, no one else does it; most advertising just skirts around the issue.
- Most people have no concept of bandwidth use, or have a sense of scale about it, or understand how much something like KaZaa can use, or how to keep bandwidth usage down to a dull roar.
It's that last one that really gets people, I think, and I can understand it. You're using your computer, doing the computer thing and downloading mail, checking a website, grabbing some songs, and alla sudden BAM! you get a thousand-dollar bill for this...this invisible stuff that they say you used, even though you already paid your $34.95 plus tax for the month! No wonder we had angry people on the line.And another thing that just occurs to me: it's really hard to explain how much a gig is, or isn't. It's a fair question from someone checking out your service: You offer x bandwidth per month, so how much is x? But it's nearly impossible to offer a real answer ("It's as long as this here piece of string"), so we offered bland platitudes ("For most people it's never an issue.").
I realize that not everyone was innocent, and we found it hard to believe that anyone could possibly use up 75Gb in a month and not know what the hell they were doing. But even if someone does understand what we were talking about, factor #1 kicks in: Shaw/Telus/Whoever doesn't charge me, so why are you?
We cut deals, of course -- better to get some than none, better to keep a customer than lose one, and the $20/Gb charge had a lot of leeway built into it. And then we tried calling people up once we noticed they were above, say, 4Gb for the month. But eventually the boss told us that if these people left -- the ones using the really insane amounts of bandwidth -- that was fine. We weren't going to get the money (no matter that they signed the agreement), and it would cost too much to either keep 'em on or pursue the matter. They'd quit, and we'd let 'em go.
Re:I'm blocking p2p on my network (Score:5, Interesting)
Muhahahahaa.
I also know that nobody on our internal network should be HOSTING information. I use a Linux box to do the firewalling via IPMasquerade, so all of the traffic has to pass through that box. I periodically sniff packets using etherdump, and look for outlying info.
For added added safety, I also run nmap periodically to sniff out what workstations are running p2p software. When I find them I sic the helpdesk on them like wolves.
While this is funny, the truth is: (Score:3, Interesting)
So really, ISPs want to be the electric company of our data. The more you use above what they deem 'nominal' you pay a demand fee for and an increased fee over the guy down the street that lives off of one light bulb that is on only one hour a day.
Customer Annoyance Will Drive Metered Bandwidth (Score:3, Interesting)
Most ISP subscribers don't kow what P2P is, much less spend their day tolling the net for mp3's and movies. But, if they decide that P2P is ruining their use of the Internet, metered bandwidth will be an easy sell. P2P users will be painted, with some credibility, as "a bunch of kids" downloading "stuff" no one else cares about.
Re:Metered bandwith might help stop spam and worms (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think those few ISPs will go under, because I don't think the other ISPs will be making much money with restrictions and filtering efforts. Then again, it all depends on skillful marketing.
The way I see it, the fewer of those unlimited ISPs are around, the more popular they will become, even if they impose otherwise unimaginable restrictions such as p2p filtering. My current ISP limits me to 10GB combined in/out / month, and charges per every gig over limit. If I could for example opt for a plan that keeps my rate the same, removes the cap but blocks all p2p ports like kaaza (sp), gnutella etc., I'd switch. Even though I don't come close to using up the bandwidth I'm given right now (at least I don't think so). It's the principle of things. I don't need to have access to p2p networks. I'm willing to give up that freedom voluntarily (as opposed to a host of others, which would be OT here). You can bet your internet that the minute my ISP raises prices and/or imposes additional port blocks to those they have in place already (25, 443) without offering me an alternative, I'll start looking for alternatives. Very quickly. And if I don't find any, I'll suck it up and go back to dial-up. Let them drive away their customers. Let them issue earning report warnings to their stockholders. Let them burn a bit. I'll come back when they change their ways.
Re:I'm blocking p2p on my network (Score:3, Interesting)
Secondly, our id10t users have a tendency to store these megalithic file on their desktop. Windows tries to suck the whole thing down when the log off, and copy it back when they log on. In the process, they fill the drive where the roaming profiles are stored.
Finally, there is a certain level of expectation administrators have about the manner in which the network will be used. We explicitly designed the system for email, web research, and not much else.
That's not a design flaw. It's discipline.
Re:Two words: Metered Bandwidth (Score:3, Interesting)
50 bytes per request * 10 requests per second * 60 * 60 * 24 * 30 = over a Gb.
Sure, the 10-per-second was an extreme case, but even 1/10 that result is still unacceptable for metered bandwidth. What legal responsibility does the ISP have to keep their network from hitting you with spoof data and other such unwanted/uncontrollable-from-your-end packets? From what I've seen in the agreements people sign with ISPs, none. It always seems to be a "we can charge you what we want and cut off your connection when we want and you can do nothing about it" agreement.
What about if their network is having problems somewhere away from your node that causes packet loss? You have to transfer more data from your node because their network is losing alot of it. Do they charge you for that?
Metered bandwidth is fine if they can keep control over their service. The Internet is still going through alot of development and, honestly, I've yet to find an ISP that can handle it. Whether it's over-booking broadband and cluttering the network, having little or no security policies in place for dealing with infected user machines (or infected servers... AT&*cough*), or having a generally unreliable network, "bandwidth" is a big picture that includes a hell of alot more than the upstream/downstream between me and their nearest switch.
-cyber0ne
PS... does anyone have any references to actual court cases over metered bandwidth involving my concerns stated above, or any other similar concerns? I was discussing this same topic with a friend a couple days ago and we were interested to know if anyone's ever had to explain such technical terms to a judge before.
Re:Actual bandwidth usage of an ISP (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:that's a lotta emails! (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it hard to believe P2P is using "as much as" that much of the total bandwidth. What is the average, not the peak usage? "As much as" implies a maximum throughput which is not sustained.
My first question is what use is acceptible for the number one spot in bandwidth usage? What about CD image downloads (650MB each), porn (ISPs are probably too embarassed to mention what % this is), forwarded emails with attachments, search engine spiders, and so on?
Next, if the P2P bandwidth carried 95% legal content, would there be an issue here if a peak of 60% bandwidth was used? Is this really about the bandwidth?
Are those who share their files via P2P really bandwidth hogs, or are those who download the files the bandwidth hogs? Merely providing the files for download would produce zero bandwidth (aside from protocol overhead) otherwise.
Near the bottom of the article, they say that intra-ISP and intra-country bandwidth is the most expensive and is what must be kept under control. So what brings us all together should be regulated? Maybe they don't like how free the Internet is, unless portraying freedom and unlimited access helps them sell more services through their commercials.
Well, they've killed all the local resources... (Score:4, Interesting)
I also know that the University prevents people from sharing stuff over network shares (there are some internal DC hubs if you know of them, but few do). So what do people do, even though it's probably on the local network ten dozen times already? They go on KaZaA or whatever and get it from somewhere else, making for a helluva inefficient bandwidth usage.
And if they start really cracking down on normal P2P users, I imagine most will move to Freenet or something like that, sending it 10x around the world to anonymize where it came from and who's getting it.
If you force people to go halfway around the globe to get what's next door, well surprise surprise. It takes bandwidth. Lots of it, too.
Kjella
Re:that's a lotta emails! (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, yes it is 'that expensive'. I pay £100 a year for more student 10Mb/sec connection.
Say I hypothetically (ahem) downloaded southpark and simpsons every week (since the uk keeps showing reruns), then how much that cost me?
Not to mention my changing tastes in music, and various movies. I also (hypothetically) get startrek episodes - just them alone would cost a fortune.
I'm trying to work out how to pay the rent next month, let alone pay several thousand pounds to legally own what I have.
So no, I can't pay for my stuff.
If on the other hand you say "well if you can't pay for it, don't get it - this is a capitilist society", then you would have a point.
DotCom Delusions (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it's more like a business with mega expenses without any profits. P2P and unlimited 1Mbps+ broadband service is a prescription for certain failure.
Consider this: Call up Sprint, AT&T, MCI, etc. and ask them what their price is for a DS3, including loops. You'll probably end up with something around $500/month. per Mbps. Negotiate a bit and you might get below that a bit - maybe even down around $200/mo. per Mbps if you buy enough capacity. Now, turn around and sell that same sustained Mbps/month for $35-$40 to a cable modem user.
Good business? Don't forget, you've got local transmission, switching/routing, customer support, billing, fixed costs/backoffice, equipment capital & depreciation, etc. So, for $500/mo/Mbps or so, you're making big profits on that $35/mo. customer?
Now, excuse me, but shouldn't providing BANDWIDTH be a primary focus of an ISP.
Actually, you're in the minority of broadband customers. More than 80% want fast web pages and quick email. That's not directly corrolated to bandwidth (caching servers, for instance, and high performance local network, can provide for those).
Since you're obviously not paying true bandwidth costs, and aren't in the majority, expect to pay your fair share or be pushed off of your provider's network.
(Like, you can buy this nice car, but dont drive it more than 2 miles a day!)
Actually this is a good analogy. You're not buying, but renting a car. You want the $22 discount rate, but want to put 1,000 miles a day on it and drive it 90 MPH with a load of bricks in the trunk. Try doing that at National or Budget. You'll get the same answer as your broadband provider.
There is something inherently criminal in this DOT COM men tality, where you are supposed to make money without hard work and the providing of a real, tangible service.
The only thing criminal (not quite... incompetent is a better word) is providers that advertise unlimited service but don't provide it.
*scoove*
Overusage throttling is a good thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Throttled, mind you - not cut off.
I've been hanging on to an email from the Vuln-dev list for ages that links to the UIUC bandwidth policy, because I think it kicks that much ass. A fair policy that keeps the heavy users from choking the others out, but still lets you get in the big DL's if you need them.
Unrestricted Class (10Mb/s): By default, connections are in this class. The connection is not artificially throttled or limited.
Restricted Class A (128kb/s per flow): When the Internet traffic of an IP address reaches 80% of the limit (600MB), the IP address (computer) will be rate-limited (throttled) to 128kb/s per flow.
Restricted Class B (32kb/s per flow): When the Internet traffic of an IP address reaches 100% of the limit (750MB), the IP address (computer) will be rate-limited (throttled) to 32kb/s per flow.
Restricted Class C (512kb/s aggregate): When the Internet traffic of an IP address reaches 150% of the limit (1125MB), the IP address (computer) will be rate-limited (throttled) to approximately the speed of a 33.6 modem (about
"Q: Will I ever get shut down for traffic?
A: The current "rate-limiting" system does not turn off ports it just slows down your connection. However, rooms and computers may still be turned off for many other reasons (viruses, copyright, abuse of the network, and for very large amounts of traffic as determined by the CIO's office)."
That progressive degradation sounds great to me. Just alter the breakpoints and you can have different plans for business/residential too.
Anyone rolled something like this out? Any pointers?
Re:DotCom Delusions (Score:2, Interesting)
Good business? Don't forget, you've got local transmission, switching/routing, customer support, billing, fixed costs/backoffice, equipment capital & depreciation, etc. So, for $500/mo/Mbps or so, you're making big profits on that $35/mo. customer?
Yeah, but remember this bandwidth that you, as an ISP, pay for and are assured by your backbone provider that you will be allocated at a sustained rate, is usually contended at your customer's end at a minimum of 20:1, and here in the UK you're more likely to be looking at 50:1. So your $35/month. figure gives you an income of at least $700/month if you're feeling reasonably generous towards your customers, and $1750/month on the business model in place here. That should cover your overheads quite nicely.
If you're seeing a sustained throughput anywhere near the maximum possible on your DSL line, then you're a very lucky person, and you should make hay while the sun shines, 'cos you just know that soon enough some local idiot's going to sign up and start hoovering animal porn and bangin' hard house choons, and knock your throughput for six.
And anyway, your wider point that they'll pass on the cost tp bandwidth hogs as soon as they can get away with it's a fair one. They will. But it wouldn't do to put people off just yet, as NTL found out to their cost in the UK lately - they seem to have quietly dropped their bandwidth cap.
Re:Actual bandwidth usage of an ISP (Score:2, Interesting)
Then you can monitor your "important" traffic and make sure you always have enough pipe for them and a little left over for the large file transfer users. Everyone is happy and users likely wouldn't even notice the difference.
Re:Two words: Metered Bandwidth (Score:3, Interesting)
That isn't necessarily true, and it's intutive that the opposite would be true.
The old statistic is that 2% of users make up 50% of network utilization. If true, that means metered access would result in 98% of users paying half as much, and only 2% of user going elsewhere. Personally, that sounds appealing to me, and I imagine the subscriptions would skyrocket if people heard they could get broadband (hence free their phone-line, and surf faster) for as much as dial-up.
However, it looks to me that the price of bandwidth is the least of the ISP's costs, and it's quite possible they are just using bandwidth costs as a red herring, as an excuse to force people to pay more for the same level of service they were getting before. I happen to believe that, because I've personally seen this with DSL. Verizon had one DSL plan, for $50/month, and as much bandwidth as you could utilize. Then, they decided to spin-off multiple DSL plans, and the only way to get people to pay more, was to reduce the speed of their base offering (and most people assumed it was faster because previous commericals that were nearly identical touted the faster speeds).
Meanwhile, unlike cable broadband, telco DSL has competiton from 3rd parties, and I found that Earthlink (which I had wonderful experience with) was offering unlimited bandwidth, and to top it all off, were happy to allow you to hook-up any network devices you want, including routers and multiple computers! Since I had know Earthlink to be a bit on the more expensive side as a dial-up ISP, I know they aren't curring corners, and other ISPs could be providing just as much bandwidth for less. The fact that nobody is, just shows that bandwidth is likely not a significant broadband cost for the ISP.