Written by Janko Roettgers
Posted Friday, March 14, 2008 at 12:00 PM PT

 

How Verizon Wants to Speed Up Your BitTorrent Videos

p4p1.jpgVerizon and Pando will use today’s DCIA conference in New York to release test results of a system aimed at reducing the impact of P2P traffic on ISPs. AP reported about this first, promising that the system will make P2P downloads up to six times faster while at the same time reducing the costs for ISPs. CNet added a few more details about the technology known as “P4P,” including the obvious fact that you really won’t see much higher speeds with a basic DSL line that’s already maxed out by your downloads. FIOS customers, on the other hand, should be able to tell the difference.

P4P is the result of a joint working group that includes P2P companies and ISPs as well as researchers from Yale that have been working on optimizing P2P networks for years. Here’s how it works, and what it means for your torrent downloads:

The basic idea behind P4P is fairly simple: A dedicated server collects network topology data from ISPs and relays the information to P2P networks, optimizing specific transfers. The system is supposedly open to different P2P technology approaches, but it’s clearly designed with BitTorrent in mind.

p4p2.jpg

P4P compared to traditional P2P. Source: DCIA.

BitTorrent uses a so-called tracker server to coordinate downloads of a specific file. A tracker will let you know who else is sharing the file you’re trying to download, and it will keep track of your upload data to make sure you’re contributing to the network. Trackers currently don’t care about the actual location of their users. P4P plans to change this by introducing a second tracker server to the system. This second server, dubbed iTracker, won’t keep track of the actual uploads and downloads, but of the network topology being used to facilitate them.

Let’s say you’re downloading a movie from Vuze.com. Vuze’s tracker would first gather the IP addresses of the people sharing the movie and then query the iTracker server to see where these IP addresses are actually located. Are any of them using the same provider or the same backbone infrastructure? iTracker will help to find clients close to each other and get them to swap data within an ISP’s network.

The iTracker server would also know how a certain ISP wants to utilize its network at any given time. A certain link tends to be congested in the evening? iTracker will tell Vuze’s tracker to use a different set of connections for your download. Future iTrackers could be run by ISPs themselves, or by trusted third parties, with Pando’s CTO Laird Popkin suggesting a nonprofit like ARIN as a possible host.

So what will this mean for your Joost streams and Pirate Bay downloads? That depends, in part, on how ISPs will implement the system. Joost doesn’t rely on a tracker architecture, so it may be a while before it can actually make use of something like P4P. ISPs could also decide to set up P4P in a way that makes it impossible for trackers like the one run by The Pirate Bay to access the system, for example by running their own iTracker servers that only communicate with licensed P2P systems.

But there is a good chance that they won’t bother doing so. P4P can save them lots of money. Verizon, which made use of an iTracker run by Yale for its recent test of the technology, was able to route 56 percent of its P2P traffic locally with the help of P4P, whereas usually only 6 percent of all P2P transfers happen between Verizon customers. This means that they’ll have to buy much less bandwidth to give you access to your torrents.

Verizon or any other ISP implementing P4P would save even more money if they’d leave running the iTracker up to a third party that serves all BitTorrent trackers, such as the one run by Vuze.com, or the one run by The Pirate Bay. And ISPs like to save money, so the odds are good that your Pirate Bay torrents will get a boost from this as well.

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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. [...] will make P2P downloads up to six times faster while at the same time reducing the costs for ISPs. Continue Reading on NewTeeVee Share/Send Sphere Print Previous [...]

    Verizon Wants to Speed Up Your BitTorrent Videos - GigaOM on March 14th, 2008 at 1:00 pm - Permalink

  2. Joost is actuly a Core member company of P4P Working Group so I would say that they might be able to use the technology .Joost control many of their super nodes something that was not able to be done in the Kazza/fasttrack days due to legal issues .

    http://www.pandonetworks.com/p4p

    Matt_ on March 15th, 2008 at 7:48 am - Permalink

  3. this is old tech. Several papers from academia have been published on this specific topic years ahead of the yale kids… it’s nice that their feeb education is catching up but this topic and these exact claims have already been proven in academia. Maybe their advisor should actually do a check for prior art before publishing findings that someone else already had. No der right?

    Pj CommonSense on March 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am - Permalink

  4. Much of the technology used to deliver online video is has been around for a while. What’s important is that they are working with big business and ISPs to prove and implement them on a large scale.

    Ben Homer on March 15th, 2008 at 1:13 pm - Permalink

  5. regardless of if verizon or bo jangles thinks it’s interesting it isn’t anything new nor was it called “p4p” when I was reading about it a few years ago.
    Also you think this is the first time people have done a “test” like this!!!??? obviously we’ve never heard of planetlab? go look on their consortium members list…
    But again who says doing a simple search on prior art is common sense cause we all know common sense is common right?

    PJ CommonSense on March 15th, 2008 at 11:40 pm - Permalink

  6. “Several papers from academia have been published on this specific topic years ahead of the yale kids”

    PJ, there are several groups working on the general area of improving P2P. If you know of anyone that’s working on anything directly relevant to ISP’s and P2P companies that’s not already in the P4P Working Group, I’d love to hear about it. Please email me at laird@pando.com.

    Laird Popkin on March 17th, 2008 at 8:42 pm - Permalink

  7. [...] peer-to-peer traffic, and find some other way to avoid swamping their network. In the meantime, Verizon has found a way to support peer-to-peer file sharing, increase upload and download speeds, and minimize [...]

    Comcast: “All Your Law Are Belong To Us.” « Steve’s Peeves & Affinities on March 27th, 2008 at 6:37 pm - Permalink

  8. [...] new P2P buddy, Pando, had previously cooperated with Verizon, AT&T, Telefonica and other ISPs to test an open-source technology called P4P as well as its [...]

    Comcast to Create P2P Bill of Rights « NewTeeVee on April 15th, 2008 at 3:10 pm - Permalink

  9. [...] P2P networks for years. Here’s how it works, and what it effectuation for your stream downloads: Continue datum at Newteevee.com. Tags: dcia, p4p, pando, verizon, [...]

    How Verizon Wants to Speed Up Your BitTorrent Videos | Fresh Web 2.0 News on April 16th, 2008 at 3:40 pm - Permalink

  10. I am using Dial up connection and I want my connection to be fast .can your product helps me?

    Thank you

    samuel on September 10th, 2008 at 11:22 pm - Permalink

  11. [...] of the solutions that quickly gained traction within the industry was an idea developed by a handful of Yale researchers. What if, they asked, ISPs could actually help P2P users find the closest link to other users [...]

    2008: The Year ISPs Got Real About P2P Video « NewTeeVee on December 13th, 2008 at 2:01 pm - Permalink

  12. I’m afraid that there’s not much that can be done to speed up a dial-up connection… You may want to speak to your ISP about possibilities in this direction, such as compression for the data flow, but the best thing would be if you could get broadband somehow. You may be able to get it wirelessly, even if you can’t get cable or DSL, or a comparable wired technology.

    Also, if worst comes to worst, you may be abke to set up your own personal “bridge” to a high-speed connection, by a number of means, but this can be very difficult and/or time-consuming. Post any more questions here, and I’ll attempt to answer them as best I can, or direct you to people who would be able to better than I.

    ThePositronicMan on April 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm - Permalink

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