P4P on the horizon?

[EastCoasthandle]

Tests show localizing P2P traffic cut the impact on Verizon's network 50 percent. Verizon prefers the P4P technique tested by Yale University and Pando Networks to Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent P2P traffic, but an analyst says other ISPs aren't likely to agree. And a blogger says P4P as tested by Verizon won't help cable and wireless networks.

With the ongoing debate over Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent traffic as a backdrop, Verizon on Friday released a study that shows new technology can dramatically reduce the impact of peer-to-peer (P2P) systems on Internet service providers.

Yale University and Pando Networks worked with Verizon and Telefonica to test so-called P4P technology, which localizes P2P downloads. The results: the impact of P2P on Verizon's network was reduced 50 percent.

Current versions of P2P systems speed up downloads of large files by breaking the files into small bits and distributing them among users. When a BitTorrent user requests a file, machines all over the world respond by each sending off a little chunk of the file. But the software doesn't check where the machines are located.

Localizing Traffic

P4P works by favoring machines closer to the requesting user, which has an outsize impact on network efficiency because P2P packets represent a huge amount of the traffic that passes over an ISP's network. Verizon senior technologist Douglas Pasko reported that 58 percent of P2P traffic remained local with P4P, compared to six percent with plain P2P.

On average, P4P cuts the number of hops traffic takes to a destination from an average 5.5 hops to a mere 0.89 hops, Pasko said. That means not only substantial cost savings to Verizon but also much faster downloads for users. Pasko said users of Verizon's all-fiber Fios network downloaded movies twice as fast as normally, and in some cases six times as fast.

More found here

 

[panchoman]

wait wait, so they're actually promoting this by saying that movies will download twice as fast?!?! VERIZON FTW!!! now see, if my isp could do that, that'd be freaking sweet.. as my isp (cablevision systems) is the largest fiber network in the nation!!! heh, most of the high speed peers i get are from my isp lol.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Hold on a minute. Localizing file sharing would allow for better tracking IMO.

 

[AsphyxiA]

thats what i was thinking as well.

 

[panchoman]

this is a win win situation for torrents & isps.. but hollywood will take verizon to court as the next isp they target if verizon promotes this.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

I like to know who actually beta tested this. They were very tight lipped about it. I read no leaks (post, articles, etc) about this at all until now. Maybe I missed it...

 

[panchoman]

I like to know who actually beta tested this. They were very tight lipped about it. I read no leaks (post, articles, etc) about this at all until now. Maybe I missed it...

probably was an internal verizon affair.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

sounds like it