Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Technology Under Fire By CRTC in Canada

P2P (Peer-to-Peer) is a technology, not an activity.

• File sharing is an activity uses P2P technology.
• P2P is about sharing content and resources with peers.
• The internet has always been about sharing resources with peers.
• Bandwidth is a resource.

In the beginning it was military computer peers. Then it was academic researcher peers. Now it’s the consumer public peers.

Many ISPs emulate the original internet and peer with each other to save on transit data thereby clearing the internet highways for traffic is not generated locally.

Empirically, closed access (non P2P) detracts from a country’s economy by artificially restricting trade and encouraging “gray marketing” or pirate marketing of products.

The CRTC in Canada is now taking submissions from the public on throttling DSL connections.

Consumers feel it’s because the Telcos want to push their own content onto users (which of course is not throttled.)

Users also unrealistically expect $20.00 per month entitles them to 6.5 mbps for the entire 730 hours.

The CRTC receiving evidentiary submissions from industry experts, lobbyists, big iron sales people but so far I haven’t seen a single net economist give evidence.

Being Australian, I guess my input is not really warranted for what Canadians consider to be an internal countrywide matter.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world is watching Canada, and the RBOCS/Bells and large carriers are awaiting the outcome – sitting on the edges of the chairs whilst they do so.

Will the CRTC give them a precedent that will allow them lobby their own governments for similar treatment resulting in being able to  implement packet prioritization ensuring higher corporate profit margins?

Any economist would tell you throttling should depend on several things:

Are all services being throttled identically? i.e., if P2P is being throttled, are the Video on Demand services also being throttled an equal amount?

If not, an obvious case of abusing their position as dominant market player by Bell may need to be investigated.

The solution to the problem is quite simple.

If Bell Canada is not prepared to peer with all ISPs and insists on “applying to utilize DPI for throttling only P2P traffic,” an as a result,  the CRTC finally accedes to their request, then:

The CRTC needs to mandate DPI traffic management across all ISPs with each DPI activity being monitored by the CRTC and logged in a database.

• The database needs to collect – network segment traffic flow, reason for throttling – % of throttling.
• The throttling needs to be reset to zero as soon as traffic conditions warrant it.
• Any unfair throttling needs to be logged by CRTC for anti-competitive disciplinary action (fines).

I’ll revert to an analogy —->

If all traffic lights were always green at all intersections, there would be a high number of collisions, specifically during morning and evening rush hours.

Eventually, traffic would stop flowing altogether.

Traffic lights are therefore recognized by the public necessary to ensure a smooth transition from point of departure to the destination.

The timing of traffic lights alter per hour, and sometimes per minute, depending on the traffic flow in other parts of the city grid.

Sometimes there’s more demand on the East West axis, and therefore North-South traffic needs to wait longer for the lights to change.

The timing is calculated by computer database, and over-sighted by human operators, who curiously are Government officials.

Adding freeways changes traffic patterns (in many cases improving the flow for a limited period – until the population catches up) but traffic lights are still needed at the on and off ramps to regulate the traffic flow.

Bandwidth throttling should be managed in exactly the same manner.

Ambulance traffic, fire and police get first priority followed by mass transit vehicles, thereafter minibuses, motorcycles with single seater V8 sports cars coming last.

In the Internet World this translates to:

Why am I selecting Video on Demand as one of the most required items for throttling? Because the model is extremely net unfriendly and is the least important content.

1000 – 3000+ kbps (.TS MPEG) is required to be streamed by a single host to a single client.

This example utilizes a T3 connection for every 5 clients.

A T3 wholesales in the USA for $3,000 (USD) per month.

If each client is watching a 90 minute movie, a T3 is only capable of delivering 2433 movies per month – or essentially, a wholesale bandwidth price of $(USD)1.23 per movie.

However, P2P delivery of the same movie at 750 kbps with every ISP in Canada being mandated to peer (without exception) would deliver the same movie to a user for the bandwidth cost of approximately $0.21 cents

ISPs in Canada have absolutely no hope of competing on a commercially level playing field basis with Bell Canada —- unless the delivery of on demand video content is either delivered via P2P or Bell Canada is instructed to throttle VoD.

Utilization of a P2P software solution to deliver the video through a client like MIRO can be monetized for those desiring to deliver video on demand.

The downside is transport stream DRM would need to be revisited in conjunction with developers who can add a flag into file sharing programs.

Unfortunately, the one downside of this proposal is DPI be utilized in the execution of the proposed throttling.

Checks and balances need to be put into place to ensure a private users data is never revealed.

While I realize this isn’t within the CRTC bailiwick and involves the privacy commissioner, I’m fairly sure the following methodology would satisfy all parties as it doesn’t in any way alter the current status quo.

This can be achieved by each transaction on a network being allocated an incident number by the ISP. With only the ISP capable of relating incident number to user IP or User login details.

The importance of a CRTC database with every throttling action logged is to ensure dominant market players do not continue to abuse their market dominance to the detriment of Canadian users and the Canadian economy.

NB In Australia of course, references to Bell or Bell Canada should be transposed in readers minds with the name ‘Telstra’.

[thanks to mlaaker and tom koltai via cc]

The End of P2P Throttling: FCC Slaps Comcast

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced its orders on Comcast, a major high-speed internet provider, to halt their practice of throttling selected peer-to-peer file sharing traffic. The commission voted 3-2 on the said ruling stating that Comcast has been monitoring the contents of their customers’ internet connections and has been blocking traffic, particularly in BitTorrent peer-to-peer networks. The commission claims that such practices are invasive and have significant effects on the rights of internet users.

According to the commission, Comcast uses deep-packet inspection to monitor the contents of the customers’ internet connection, instead of the destination. “In essence, Comcast opens its customers’ mail because it wants to deliver mail not based on the address on the envelope but on the type of letter contained therein,” the commission said.

The commission also claims that the effect of Comcast’s throttling is widespread, to the point that they have managed to control the traffic of up to three-quarters of all file sharing connections in some areas.

The Comcast Violation Run-down

Comcast violates FCC policies on Net Neutrality, forbidding any kind of restrictions on the kinds of equipment, communication, and content allowed on the internet. In particular, Comcast violates the policy on the grounds of discriminating against file sharing traffic.

Comcast admits performing network management practices in allegiance with Sandvine and claims that its actions are in accordance with the law and are reasonably consistent with industry practices. It denies the FCC statement that the company is blocking any file sharing traffic whatsoever. It also asserted that the company does not have anything against peer-to-peer networks, let alone, anything specific against BitTorrent.

Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice said that the company was “gratified that the commission did not find any conduct by Comcast that justified a fine,” still claiming that the company never did meant to throttle internet traffic. Comcast was not asked any monetary sanction but was ordered to completely halt its monitoring practices. The commission gave the company 30 days to fully disclose its throttling methods.

The FCC believes that Comcast’s motive in halting BitTorrent network traffic was profit-oriented. It has to be considered that BitTorrent provides high-quality video downloads accessible to all internet users. Such wide scale video distribution provides a tough competition to Comcast’s own video-on-demand services.

Public Knowledge, a nonprofit digital rights group brought the said complaint to the FCC months before the ruling was announced. Gigi Sohn, president, said that “Comcast’s throttling of legal internet traffic had nothing to do with network management as the company claims.” The group shares the speculation of FCC that the practice was clearly profit-oriented stating that what Comcast did has “everything to do with a big company trying to exert its power over a captive internet market.”

Net Neutrality is a policy adopted by FCC as a result of a hearing done back in 2005. The rules have a mandate to ensure that the internet is “accessible to all consumers.”

The ruling against Comcast was proposed by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican and was voted on by Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, both are Democrats. Republican commissioners Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor voted against the said ruling.

McDowell believes that the decision has the potential to politicize the internet. “It will be interesting to see how the FCC will handle its newly created power because, as an institution, we are incapable of deciding any issue in the nanoseconds of internet time. Furthermore, asking our government to make these decisions will mean that every two to four years the ground rules could change depending on election results,” he said.

What You Should Know About the French Anti-Downloading Pact

Have you ever downloaded materials from P2P (Peer-to-Peer) networks? Maybe you’ve been downloading music, or movies, or documents. Maybe you’ve downloaded works in the public domain, maybe some still under copyright.

If you’re in France, and you’ve been caught 3 times, then it’s three strikes and you’re out.

And when we say out we mean out. You’re losing your internet access.

The background behind the Anti-P2P movement in France

The French Government, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in France, and the local film and music industry has gotten together and drafted up this pact in order to punish ordinary users of the internet like you and me from downloading on P2P networks.

What are P2P networks?

Peer-to-peer file sharing is when people on the internet make files available to be downloaded over the internet. Examples of software programs that let you do this are Napster, Kazaa, Gnutella (like Limewire), and Bittorrent (like Azureus and uTorrent). Let’s say you recorded a school play on a video camcorder. You make a video file (let’s say .avi) and you put this up on YouTube and you also put it up on a P2P network. This means you can share this with others – but in France this could be grounds for you getting dropped from getting access to the world wide web.

How the French punishment system will work

If you’re a P2P user in France, you’ll get the three strikes and you’re out policy like we mentioned. The way this works is that when you are caught downloading what they presume to be illegal content, you will get a warning for that specific illegal download. These warnings will be held in their records. For all intents and purposes, after 3 total downloading infringements, you will lose your internet service.

The cancellation of your internet service follows a procedure. First your internet account is suspended. Then an independent authority, who will be supervised by a judge, will then decide your internet fate.

“We run the risk of witnessing a genuine destruction of culture…The Internet must not become a high-tech Far West, a lawless zone where outlaws can pillage works with abandon or, worse, trade in them in total impunity. And on whose backs? On artists’ backs.” said French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is definitely behind this move and firmly supports the initiative of the French government and corporate agencies that support this pact. John Kennedy, who is head of the IFPI, said about this pact that “this is the single most important initiative to help win the war on online piracy that we have seen so far..President Sarkozy has shown leadership and vision. He has recognized the importance that the creative industries play in contemporary western economies.”

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