In the last decade I owned and managed various ISP’s and Co-Lo businesses; I used to get a buzz out of sitting in front of the monitors and watching the MRTG graphs never peaking.
(MRTG Graph "borrowed" from Wikipedia)
Peaking was bad; peaking meant that customers were not getting what they were paying for, Internet access. Or at best, some customers were receiving a reduced level of service.
Not peaking was good. Not peaking meant that every customer was a happy customer because they received their content with no packet loss (fast).
But in my day, we did not have it as bad as ISP’s do today. In the late nineties most clients were connected via dial-up with only corporations connected via bonded dial-up, ISDN, bonded ISDN or frame relay.
Ten years ago – you could put 100% of your traffic through a squid cache and no one new any better.
In fact in 1997 with Andrew Chris, Stephen, Adrian and Rex we built the worlds first Terabyte Squid Cache. We called it the Fridge. Then we hung an entire country wide IX off the fridge and everyone told us we had a kick-ass network.
Of course today with P2P, VOIP, demand built PHP database
pages, we would not get away with caching everything. (Which is why I feel sorry
for Optus. Their Satellite batteries do not get much of a charge during the
winter months so users in the bush get a raw deal after about
We may be getting a brand new NBN in a few years but before
that, unless someone at NASA feels like doing a grease and oil (battery
exchange) on three Geo Satellites over
However, I digress. We were discussing me watching MRTG charts. There is something about owning/running a network that you built every step of the way that the Telcos/RBOCs will never quite grok. You know every point of failure, potential failure, chewing gum and shoelace repair location in the whole network. It is yours. You created it. Therefore, when some little kid comes along with Napster and tries to take it down by filling up all the MRTG graphs, you start a battle of wits. It is you versus the kid. He wants to rape your entire bandwidth and you have another 25,000 customers that do not really want him too.
So you watch graphs, you reconfigure routers; you purchase expensive $24,000 Alteon smart switches so that you can traffic shape the little kid. However, he gets his mates in on the Napster thing. Suddenly there is not just one leak in the dam; the whole network in multiple locations around the country is holier than a set of fishnet stockings.
You are left with no choice, all the Napster traffic has to be routed via an alternative source. You buy a satellite feed and divert all the P2P traffic straight out the dish on top of the roof to Pas-8.
Hah! That fixed his wagon and his little mates. They are now Sprint’s problem. The other customers click on blissfully unaware that you just single-handedly fought off the invading Mongol hordes to ensure that the MRTG graph did not blip over 90 %
What is all this about?
There is no such thing as net neutrality.
Anybody who thinks there is should with 19 other people squeeze into one 9 metre square washroom with a single toilet bowl and tell them that this is the only opportunity they will have for 72 hours to go to the toilet – and they only have two minutes (for all 20) in which to do it in.
Cannot be done.
P2P is killing the networks in its current format.
It is killing the networks because the content industry insists on flooding the net with fake files and DoS packets.
They consider that by making it harder for a P2P’er to obtain a file, he/she will give up and go and buy the music/video. Ummm, no!
All that happens is a quantum addition to the amount of CRC packet retries that occurs as various p2p clients reject the corrupted data and re-ask for the part file again.
Sometimes the file (usually the wmv files boys and girls – try not to download those ones – they are usually the fakes….) arrives and requires connection to obtain a license – usually a virus – do not bother – just download the next file in the list and if necessary the next one.
The harder the content industry makes it – the more determined the individuals attempt at getting the file is. I know – I can see the repeat IP numbers going after similar named files.
How to Get a Record to Number One.
But then again, this is not news to the content industry. They learnt years ago that the way to make a record number one in the physical vinyl world was to not print enough copies and let the record stores sell –out. This would cause would be purchaser to do the pub-crawl of the record stores to obtain the desired item. Record stores would be inundated with requests from individuals for the record and consequently order up big. The following week, with lots of stock, the sale people would be encouraged by the management to push the “well stocked” labels.
So whilst I am not saying the Record Companies are devious enough to repeat that modus operandi in the digital world, their actions do make think.
Therefore, the problem is that the Internet is being filled up with junk, denial of service attacks, virus masquerading as legitimate content and thousands of little content industry bots invading your home networks peeking and probing your service ports (which of course goes towards your monthly bandwidth total – without your permission – some would call that illegal trespass and theft).
The result of course is that the net is slowed down for everyone.
Your computer is slowed down (by answering all the bot queries) and the entire world looses billions (daily) in loss of productivity and ecommerce.
I blogged the other day that someone should sue the industry
for the Denial of Service attacks on networks outside of the
However, I also think that ISP’s should penalize P2P and video/music streaming users on a pro-rata basis. i.e.: During peak load periods, the heaviest down-loaders should pay the highest fees. Just like in the Electricity and Gas, demand marketplace.
There you have it. I am a proponent of P2P, but also a pragmatist when it comes to ensuring Service Level Quality for all users.
Sort of like the Smoking on the bus example, I gave a few weeks ago. One smoker can ruin it for everyone.
Does that mean I think that P2P should be outlawed?
Hell no. I think P2P is the only chance the Internet has of becoming very self-healing and independent of all negative growth regulatory interference.
However, I do believe that some regulation has to be inserted into the equation somewhere and if the ISP’s do not implement the regulatory environment, they probably will not like the alternatives that I see coming over the horizon.
Basically, I believe that Internet users want to be able to get what they want, when they want it and I believe that there should be a methodology developed for that eventuality to be possible without becoming a criminal.
I believe that if the world could obtain content without having to loose their anonymity or having to take out a second mortgage on the family home, then the whole illegal file sharing debacle would disappear.
Therefore, I propose a voluntary set of P2P Commandments.
I am not a deity, so this is just a very rough beginning draft….
1. Thou shalt honour the net, only use P2P in a responsible manner, and only file share for two hours per day.
2. Thou shalt not use non-P2P video or music streaming services.
3. Thou shalt pay for at least one item you download into the P2P conscience fund* – daily. Thou shalt pay what you can afford.
4. Thou shalt immediately report illegal content to the authorities as soon as you are aware of it. Dial 1-800-Dob-in-a-Pedo
It is a short list. However, I am sure that readers could suggest additional commandments.
*No – there is no conscience fund, which I am aware of – but someone should start one.
