[e2e] end of interest

David P. Reed dpreed at reed.com
Mon Apr 21 07:26:03 PDT 2008


Randy - this was a theme in both my and Dave Clark's testimony at the 
FCC en banc on reasonable network management practices at Harvard.  Both 
of us suggested that if ISPs would open up the discussion of whatever 
problems P2P systems cause for their access networks, the solutions 
could be developed in an open transparent process (probably in front of 
the entire world at IETF, as other solutions have been created in the 
past).  But instead of data about traffic in ISP's networks, we get 
slideware from Ellacoya and other vendors of amelioration systems that 
claim to show surges of "video" or "P2P", but when asked where the data 
comes from, all we get is vague allusions to "companies won't let us 
share" but "it's typical".

As a scientist, I'm trained to be skeptical of claims without 
reproducibility.  Not all my peers in the network field are scientists, 
I realize.  Many are just selling stuff they happen to have to sell.

P2P is a great bugbear - you can conjure sales with it.  And you can 
recruit the kiddie porn and copyright protection lobbies to add to sales 
and political pressure.

But scientifically, it's just an interesting problem that is worth 
solving - if you can reproduce and test your solutions.


Randy Bush wrote:
>> p2p v. isp: this is standard value chain stuff.
>>     
>
> [ apologies, but you have triggered a rant i have been foaming about for
>   some years ]
>
> this characterization, while historically true, is the root of a major
> mistake.  big content owners (note that, unlike the internet model, they
> were not the content creators) helped create this polarization and lobby
> heavily to maintain and expand it as much as possible.
>
> in fact, it is bleedin' insane for isps to position against what the
> customer wants.  if you can not provide the customer what they want and
> still keep some margin, then your business model is broken, you should
> not be in business, and soon will not be, unless you manage to get the
> lawyers and the government to tilt the billiards table.
>
> the isps, instead of making the p2p software authors think they have to
> work around and evade the topology, should help the p2p software
> discover how to most efficiently utilize the actual topology, to find
> the closest and most efficient neighbors, use the less congested paths, etc.
>
> this would be a win for the customer, who gets faster more efficient
> service, for the isp, whose bandwidth is used more efficiently, for the
> p2p software author, as their product looks darned good, and for the big
> content owners, who will be forced to enter the current century even sooner.
>
> some isps have heard this over the last few years, and are working with
> p2p authors.  but i think this is mostly in asia, not the states or
> europe, or south.
>
> sorry to rant on.  you pushed an old hot button.  delete this message
> and spend the time reading john day's latest again.
>
> randy
>
>   


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