[ILUG] Free software for .pando files?

[Michael Watterson]

Brendan Minish wrote:
> 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. 
>
>   
All agreed.

And the biggest insult to consumers is foisting "reduced quality p2p 
financed" TV. Cost of Broadcast TV for a Cable Operator is 10,000:1 
cheaper than p2p or VOD video content.

p2p users should have to pay 10 times as much if you really wanted 
everyone to be able to watch Sky, ITV, C4, BBC by IP instead of a 
Satellite Dish, cable TV, MMDS, or TV aerial. Then they might buy the 
DVD set or buy a PVR instead.

Much more sensible is PC accessible PVR fed by a broadcast method to a 
hidden cache and then the user catalogue of VOD is infact the cached video.

I suggested this about 6 years ago as athe solution to IPTV numbers not 
working. Sky actually do this on their larger PVRs with a background 
stream from satellite on 2nd tuner when it is unused. They spoil it by 
making it inaccessible to PC or if you downgrade you subscription, items 
previously recorded at higher package will not replay.

> 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.
>   
It's wasteful as a small fraction of what the user  downloads is  
really  ever  wanted  or would not be bothered with if it was deemed to 
even cost 20c.

We in worked have looked at idea of offering a virtual PC in the data 
centre for p2p users..

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


-- 
Mike