[ILUG] Free software for .pando files?

[Brendan Minish]

On Mon, 2007-09-03 at 11:06 +0100, Jeroen Massar wrote:

> 
> No 'free' software noted though. But the ads are logical, that is how
> they fund their operation.

No they 'fund' their service by stealing other people's bandwidth,
putting ads on top is adding further insult to injury. 

It's becoming a big issue with P2P putting ever more pressure on
contention ratio, someone is going to have to pay and it will be the
consumer if the consumer decides that P2P is that important.

By Pay I mean Pay Quite a lot too. Here In Ireland about the best deal
you can get on un-contended bandwidth off fiber ( Not currently
available on DSL, CATV or wireless..)  is in the region of 200 EUro per
meg per month in small doses. 

Contention ratios are what keep prices semi-reasonable for the end user,
in addition to this Wireless and Cable TV (CATV) providers have another
problem  in that their 'last mile' is by it's nature a shared medium
(contended) so to reduce contention in the last mile means running fiber
deeper into the network and installing lots more expensive head end
gear. In the case of wireless ISP's it means putting up lots more
infrastructure (on expensive masts that are very hard to get planning
for) 
For all providers DSL, CATV,Wireless and Fiber to the home, lower
contention ratios means buying more expensive transit capacity and more
(even more expensive) transit within the country.

Contrast this with the traditional methods of distribution  

Content provider buys hosting capacity someplace and funds the delivery
bandwidth requirements (as they bloody well should) 
Normal ISP strategies such as sensible local peering arrangements (INEX
etc see here *) caching etc help manage the transit costs.
Yes it still hurts contention ratios a bit if the content is popular
(AKA Bebo / Youtube ) but since the content is only accessed when
required it does not hurt nearly as much as a P2P setup running 24/7 


How do you want your content delivered and how do you want your Internet

1/ Content owners get a free ride but your ISP Either enforces a strict
CAP or charges more (either a bit more to everyone for going over the
cap or a LOT more to heavy P2P users)

2/ Content owners pay for all their bandwidth and hosting, ISP charges
remain broadly the same (relative to the market conditions)  

It is worth noting that for content providers, the cost per meg at the
scale that they are buying at, is a great deal cheaper than ANY ISP can
hope to deliver the same meg to an end user at.

I suspect that content providers choice is not going to be the same as
the Internet user's choice however bandwidth economics make this choice
real.

personally I think P2P is in most cases a con job.

regards
Brendan 

* more on neutral peering and why it's a good thing 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point