Waxy may very well be a service provider’s worst nightmare:
June 25, 2004: Starting this month, I’ll be burning through all my leftover bandwidth by posting large videos and audio on my site toward the end of every month. It’s Waxy.org’s Bandwidth Blowout!!First up, the best TV pilot you’ve never seen: Ben Stiller’s Heat Vision and Jack from 1999. Jack Black stars as Jack Austin, an astronaut on the run from NASA after a solar accident makes him the smartest man in the universe. Owen Wilson plays his talking motorcycle. Produced by Stiller, who also appears in the introduction and as a strip club DJ.
Download it quick, before I change my mind.
June 28, 2004: Well, my bandwidth was blown. My server can’t handle the load, so I’m moving this to my BitTorrent tracker. It’s seeded locally, so it should be very fast. I’m looking into upgrading to a 100MBps uplink, so I don’t have to deal with this next month.
![[The shrinking blue sliver is your email. CacheLogic Research]](http://www.trimmail.com/news/images/gif_102105)
Folks like Waxy want their video and music now. And content providers like the BBC, Bertlesmann and Sky want them to have it… especially since p2p delivery costs them virtually nothing. Once a video hits the p2p network, it’s split into zillions of pieces, which are sent to disparate client-servers across many ISPs. That makes it tough for service providers to bill for or control. Worse, a relatively small number of users eat the bulk of their bandwidth.
Many prognosticators are unsympathetic to ISPs’ plight. Mark Cooper (Consumer Federation of America) told the Wall Street Journal, “They claim it’s a network-management issue when it’s really a revenue-maximization issue.”
Tech Dirt worries that the US Federal Communications Commission may aid-and-abet the anti-p2p charge by ignoring excessive upcharging, slow-tracking or even blocking of competitive or non-billable services.
While a few broadband providers enjoy monopolistic pricing power, many are already fighting for their lives, competing against a smorgasbord of cable, copper, wireless and now, even broadband-over-power line vendors. Many of our ISP friends originally built their business models around dial-ups for US$20 a month. In those halcyon days, a T1 could feed an entire college campus. Since then, every bump in cost they’ve passed along has earned them lynchings and scorn at the local Rotary meetings. And as we all know, there have been plenty of bumps.
Most are aiming for a not-so-happy medium by trying to throttle-back heavy users enough to keep the rest of their customers reasonably quiet, if not totally satisfied. After all, the email must go through.
One thing’s certain. As file sharing fever spreads from “Sally’s Wild Ride” to “Martha Stewart’s Apprentice”, p2p usage will skyrocket, along with all the spyware, viruses, legal headaches and Quality of Service issues it creates. And along the way, we’re all likely to discover wonderful new ways to enjoy the 21st Century.
Try not to think too hard about the ISPs we left dangling from the trees. Life goes on.
9 comments
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October 22nd, 2005 at 9:52 am
bad karma
wait til aol’s the only game left.
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:45 am
samE
Subs dont know that even the comcasts who adv unlimitd bandwidth throttle p2p. p2p consumes as much bandwidth as it can, usually 100%. It grows to fill available capacity.
You’re always managing traffic, trying to keep both sides happy.
ISPs should see p2p as a the killer app of the future instead of a threat.
October 27th, 2005 at 1:39 pm
angelalita.com
without p2p i don’t want my T1
October 27th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
chaser7016
Future data bills will mirror current cell phone bills; consumer pays for X amount of bandwidth and anything over monthly plan consumer would be charged accordingly. From here ISPs can funnel monies to copyright holders(the big players to regular joes) and P2P can thrive finally as a legitimate business.
This is a no brainer when ISPs are now trying to sell phone service, but with the Skype(s) of the world they’ll need to seek relief and change the way they bill monthly for data.
Peace, Chaser
October 28th, 2005 at 9:01 pm
Rhods
ISP’s who charge according to data transferred would see 90% of their customers jump ship overnight. People want broadband because they want to be able to transfer large files.
Even worse, they will attract a lot of ultra-low use customers who will not generate any revenue for them.
If ISP’s cant handle large amounts of data then they shouldnt advertise ‘unlimited’ services at prices so low that they cant afford to improve their infastructure.
October 30th, 2005 at 11:04 am
chaser7016
People want to move large files?
Well the current majority who are transferring large files, those files are copyrighted and the people who invest their money are not making their investment back. The stated future of data bills will mirror my statement and anyone who holds a copyright can then make money. From big media to regular joe who files a copyright and then places his work onto P2P. Such any idea jives with why copyright was established.
This model is a no brainer, as the internet will displace many services ISPs currently provide. Cable TV and phone. Also, with this model the ISPs can offer $5 a month plans with a small amount of bandwidth per month. Those want the internet but dont want to pay through the nose would jump onto the $5 plan.
Didnt you ever take economics?
October 30th, 2005 at 11:19 am
chaser7016
Well those ultra low customers will obviously, follow the rest of world who will use the internet for communication, entertainment(Internet TV, movies), health care(morning specimen analyzed by digital toilet and analysis sent to doctor) and slew of other internet applications. The ISPs would make money even with the supposed ultra low users.
The internet is no longer just for email and browsing.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:37 pm
Mr. BK of Baltimore, MD (http://fluff.info/blog)
I have to chide you on the choice of graphic.
It is four separate layers, so the HTTP graph is _behind_ the P2P graph. This gives the impression that somewhere around 2002 (can’t quite tell when, due to 3D effects), HTTP just disappeared, when this was actually just when the estimates of the two crossed.
We’re a little more misled because this is a graph of _percentages_, but it only goes up to 70%. Visually, it looks like P2P is 100% of bandwidth, when it’s barely past half. You can see how this is augmented by the fact that HTTP, which no doubt takes up most of the other 40%, disappeared in 2002.
You didn’t give an explicit source for the data, but we see that it’s from CacheLogic by clicking on the next link in the text. This provides a bit of context: CacheLogic sells products to cut off P2P traffic, so of course they are working hard to trick viewers into thinking that P2P traffic is now 99.9% of bandwidth. (It’s been discussed to death, but shall we talk about the actual data? Have methods changed/improved/grown more biased since 1999? CacheLogic sells ‘deep packet analysis’ because just looking at the port is misleading, but do they have packets to compile stats from dating back to 1999, and if not, when did the graph switch to a more inclusive method?)
Even though you didn’t draw it yourself, please don’t lend eyeballs and credibility to misleading graphics like this. Yes, we all know P2P traffic is on the rise since ‘99; why use dishonest graphics to convey a true point?
November 4th, 2005 at 10:02 am
Editor
Thanks for the insightful comment. The graphic is indeed misleading. Instead of plateauing, HTTP plummets. As to explicitly referencing the source of the graph, if you let your mouse hover over the graphic, you will see that CacheLogic is indeed credited. CacheLogic’s conclusions are undoubtedly defined by its own source of data, which is confined to the portion of the Internet space that passes through CacheLogic systems.
This necessarily skews their impressions. While it’s said less often, the same skewing infects every report cranked out by Keystone, Internet Traffic Monitor, Google, Alexa, Traffic Ranking, F-Secure, Symantec, Trend Micro, Panda, Kaspersky, MessageLabs, trimMail and every other outfit that tries to generalize some aspect of web activity. That’s why you see four virus surveys from different vendors at the bottom of every page in Email Battles. Each vendor serves a slightly different demographic mix, the results from which accurately reflect that firm’s experience.
Sorry, after much scrutiny, we still haven’t unearthed any inherent dishonesty in either the CacheLogic graphic or the article. But we could provide additional light with more metrics, like volume. If you have sources you would like us to include, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Heaven knows, we appreciate all the help we can get.