Broadband News
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Another P2P Restraint Demand
12 May 2009 | 09.18 Europe/London
Eight bodies representing the creative industries are calling for persistent copyright law offenders to be disconnected by their ISPs. John Woodward, head of the UK Film Council, said illegal file-sharing was hurting film-making and risking jobs. The coalition says more than 50% of net traffic in the UK is illegal content.
Traffic graphs from Plusnet certainly support the volume argument, showing well over 50% of traffic to be P2P at times when their traffic management system relaxes its constraint on file sharing :-
Plusnet and other ISPs already restrict P2P traffic in order to provide sufficient bandwidth to maintain good response times on interactive and time sensitive traffic such as gaming, VoIP and web browsing. This is one option in matching the fixed capacity network to a variable demand from customers on fixed monthly price tariffs, other ISPs opt for GB/month caps or pay per GB models.
P2P traffic can of course also be used for distribution of content that has no copyright issues or that is being distributed with the rights holder's agreement and it could be challenging to differentiate this traffic from that which offends the creative industries. On the other hand the BBC and others have moved away from P2P distribution models saying that the costs of hosting and bandwidth are now such that it is more cost effective to provide it themselves rather than have their users provide it for them.
ISPs have in the past tended to shy away from active involvement in policing use of their connections, beyond the usual network abuse activities or responding to court orders. They are however uniquely placed to identify the P2P users by the traffic on their connection - P2P clients typically use all the available bandwidth and make multiple concurrent TCP sesssions.
The Plusnet graphs and the Swedish experience suggest that it could well be in the ISP's interest to lose heavy P2P users from their customer base. Why spend £80 per month providing 1 Mbit/s of capacity for use by a P2P customer paying £15 per month for a connection ? Why invest in extra fibre capacity or more capable routers to handle the concurrent sessions if there's no more income to be had as a result ?
Perhaps we will see a growth in P2P traffic management or a move to pay per GB or GB capping as another way to restrain P2P and keep the creative industries off the back of the connectivity providers. A restriction in the volume of copyright violation would surely go some way to mitigate potential damage to the creative industries and may improve the broadband service received by those who don't dabble in the dark arts of P2P "sharing".
Traffic graphs from Plusnet certainly support the volume argument, showing well over 50% of traffic to be P2P at times when their traffic management system relaxes its constraint on file sharing :-
Plusnet and other ISPs already restrict P2P traffic in order to provide sufficient bandwidth to maintain good response times on interactive and time sensitive traffic such as gaming, VoIP and web browsing. This is one option in matching the fixed capacity network to a variable demand from customers on fixed monthly price tariffs, other ISPs opt for GB/month caps or pay per GB models.
P2P traffic can of course also be used for distribution of content that has no copyright issues or that is being distributed with the rights holder's agreement and it could be challenging to differentiate this traffic from that which offends the creative industries. On the other hand the BBC and others have moved away from P2P distribution models saying that the costs of hosting and bandwidth are now such that it is more cost effective to provide it themselves rather than have their users provide it for them.
ISPs have in the past tended to shy away from active involvement in policing use of their connections, beyond the usual network abuse activities or responding to court orders. They are however uniquely placed to identify the P2P users by the traffic on their connection - P2P clients typically use all the available bandwidth and make multiple concurrent TCP sesssions.
The Plusnet graphs and the Swedish experience suggest that it could well be in the ISP's interest to lose heavy P2P users from their customer base. Why spend £80 per month providing 1 Mbit/s of capacity for use by a P2P customer paying £15 per month for a connection ? Why invest in extra fibre capacity or more capable routers to handle the concurrent sessions if there's no more income to be had as a result ?
Perhaps we will see a growth in P2P traffic management or a move to pay per GB or GB capping as another way to restrain P2P and keep the creative industries off the back of the connectivity providers. A restriction in the volume of copyright violation would surely go some way to mitigate potential damage to the creative industries and may improve the broadband service received by those who don't dabble in the dark arts of P2P "sharing".