NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: News: Comcast to end P2P interference
Notice the fine print: They aren't saying they are ending
interference with P2P, they are saying they will stop treating
BitTorrent differently then other heavy transfers.
Which is a Good Thing, IMO, and I'm happy to have been proven wrong (I
thought the P2P vs ISP war was going to heat up further.)
However, a guess: it may be a consequence of improved traffic shaping:
they are already starting to prioritize short connections ("Speed
boost", which is being very heavily advertised in this area).
You don't NEED to do RST injections if you can take the 1% heavy-users
and traffic shape them down to a reasonable level when there's
congestion. RST injection is very crude traffic management compared
to the alternatives.
It also allows the ISP to deal with the cost externalities indirectly,
because now the 90% don't complain as much about bad performance when
they want to surf the net.
Finally, there is NOTHING in this that says they have to treat
BitTorrent UPLOADS as special, just "not different from youtube".
Comcast has repeatedly claimed that they are only killing
"leeches/seeds", flows which upload vastly more than they download.
If Comcast instead just shapes all large uploads, this will have
effectively the same effect, without the visible political
repercussions.
Likewise, if ALL ISPs agressively shape uploads, this kills the P2P
business model nearly as sure as anything else.
Also, the lack of topological awareness does hurt BitTorrent, as well
as the lack of cacheability. If the ISP is able to say that
a) BitTorrent-type protocols can stay in my local loop and
b) These flows are ones I CAN cache without being sued
BitTorrent type flows become far less objectionable.