Throttling P2P traffic is shortsighted, experts say

Even as Bell Canada awaits the CRTC's verdict on its traffic-shaping practices, experts say the practice is shortsighted. They advocate a new file sharing model that will benefit users and carriers alike.
8/22/2008 5:00:00 AM By: Brian Jackson

Throttling is a short-sighted strategy to deal with peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic congestion, computer science experts say.

Instead, they say, a new model for file sharing on P2P networks would not only result in faster download times for users, but also offer relief to bandwidth-strapped carriers.

Bell Canada is currently waiting to hear the Canadian Radio-Television Commission's (CRTC) verdict on its traffic-shaping practices.

The Commission is reviewing a petition by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers' (CAIP) that Bell Canada "cease and desist" its traffic throttling practices.

Bell counters that this practice is necessary as there's just not enough bandwidth to allow P2P traffic to go unchecked.

But now research out of the University of Washington and Yale University suggests there might be a solution.

On Thursday computer scientists presented a paper in Seattle that describes a test conducted on a protocol that takes a new approach to P2P traffic.

The protocol is dubbed "P4P" by researchers to reflect its upgrade.

But a more accurate name comes from U.S. carrier Verizon, says Lawrence Surtees, vice-president at Toronto-based consulting firm IDC Canada.

Verizon and other companies interested in the protocol call it "P2P with intelligent routing."

"I like that phrasing better because it's another iteration of application network routing technology, similar to when digital routing really took off," he says.

To solve the P2P deployment problem, carriers simply have to take a page from a book telecom network operators already wrote two decades ago.

P2P allows a user to download a large file in smaller chunks from many different sources simultaneously.

The approach to fixing P2P is a simple concept – location, location, location.

Right now, only six per cent of file sharing is done locally, say researchers, but with their new algorithms that can be increased to 58 per cent. With fewer hops between different servers, the traffic will become more efficient.

Users downloading P2P files would find either the same performance or a 20 per cent increase in speed. But the real difference is made with the carrier, as P4P could reduce network load - making it five times less than that used by P2P.

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