I'm not a Comcast customer. I happen to get service from Verizon, ATT and Time Warner at various locations where I pay for internet service.
If I was a Comcast customer, I would tell them, as I am now telling all the services I am a customer of:
BLOCK P2P TRAFFIC , PLEASE
As a consumer, I want my internet experience to be as fast as possible. The last thing I want slowing my internet service down are P2P freeloaders. Thats right, P2P content distributors are nothing more than freeloaders. The only person/organization that benefits from P2P usage are those that are trying to distribute content and want to distribute it on someone else's bandwidth dime.
Does anyone really think its free ? That all the bandwidth consumed with content being distributed by P2P isn't being paid for by someone ? That bandwidth is being paid for by consumers. Consumers who pay for personal, not commercial applications. When consumers provide their bandwidth to assist commercial applications, they are subsidizing those commercial applications which if it isn't already, should be against an ISPs terms of service.
Thats not to say there isnt a place for P2P. There is. P2P is probably the least efficient means of distributing content in the last mile. Comcast, Time Warner, etc should charge a premium to those users who want to act as a seed and relay for P2P traffic. After all, that is why P2P is used, right ? For content distributors to avoid significant bandwidth and hosting charges. That makes it commercial traffic far more often than not. So make them pay commercial rates.
That will stop P2P dead in its tracks. P2P isnt so good that people will use it when they have to pay for all the bandwidth it consumes. It will die a quick death. That will speed up my internet connection.
thats a good thing.
So hang in there Comcast
Update: I wanted to offer the best alternative to P2P for audio and video..... Google Video. If you are trying to do distribution of audio or video, why in the world would you use P2P when Google Video will host and distribute it very efficiently and for free ?
To help those of you who cant understand how to distribute audio on Google Video, here is a hint: Re encode it with a little video, a couple pictures, whatever. Then it it wont be an audio file, it will be a video file.. Ta da . You get distribution by the best distribution network on the planet, for free.
m
An Open Letter to Comcast and Every cable/Telco on P2P - updated
Recent Posts
- Beating Google ? (5/14/2008)
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. www.skype.com is P2P - it saves me 10's of thousands of dollars a year and I run my entire business on it, I will gladly pay a little more to have more bandwidth. P2P isn't the problem, internet providers who fail to see there role as pipe providers are the problem. I have a 10MB home office connection (outside of Toronto) it never hiccups, and in comparison to friends in Japan, Denmark etc., the speed I get is prehistoric. When greedy pipe providers stop worrying about (and trying to) control the syntax of the messages going over the network and concern themselves more with providing a better network, they will realize incredible profits. He who provides the best connection wins.
3. I do agree with you Mark!
I just got ATT here at the house and my download speed is shit right now where I am suppose to be at 6Mbit, however, it works good sometimes, so its clearly just being overloaded and I wish we could get what we do pay for. I buy all my music on iTunes or such and have not touched a P2P program in years, so it is not fair to be penalized for that.
Posted at 1:51PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Rodney Giles
4. These users have paid for some level of service at XX mbs up and YY mbs down. Why should they be restricted in how they choose to use that allotment? Just because it's inconvenient to you? The real issue here is how ISPs oversubscribe their networks in order to achieve higher profits without sufficient reinvestment of that money into their infrastructure to support the level of service they've sold.
5. Marc, your opinions are usually quite good, however this one stinks.
To properly frame my comments, I don't participate in P2P file sharing. Illegal P2P is the issue here, not P2P in general. There are plenty of legitimate applications of P2P technology that also suck bandwidth, and blocking them because of the 'bad kids' is opening a can of worms. Simply put there is no clear, effective way to block the bad guys without penalizing the rest of us, not at the ISP level at least.
I agree that economics can be a quick and effective way to mitigate this kind of activity, but blocking all P2P traffic is opening the door to other unwanted restrictions on how we use the internet. We may as well block all email because of the spammers. The people using P2P are paying for their connection too, they just use it differently.
With any ISP there are customers that use a lot of bandwidth downloading media from iTunes or transmitting other large files for perfectly legal reasons; and there are people that just check email once a week. They all pay the same rate for a standard of service and that's fair. There are always a few that blow the bell curve. If you are not getting the standard of service you expect, then your ISP isn't doing their job.
Your opinions usually have more thought behind them, I'll chalk this one up to a quick rant because your bandwidth was slow at the time.
Posted at 2:06PM on Nov 20th 2007 by J Cornelius
6. You should be complaining about your ISP, not your neighbors. You paid for a certain amount of bandwidth and you have every right to use it as you see fit. Your internet connection being slow is your ISP's fault. They are the ones who oversold their capacity.
You can't punish your customers for simply using what you promised them.
Sorry, Mark. You're full of it on this one.
7. This is a misguided post that seems to have not been properly thought out.
What you are suggesting would be like a gas station telling me a limited set of destinations and highways I can travel after I fill up.
People pay for bandwidth, and can use it as they wish. Here in Canada many providers have started limiting how much you can download / upload in a month, charging a premium if you go over. I think this is generally a better idea than specifying what you can use the bandwidth for.
Posted at 2:22PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Hemant J. Naidu
8. Mark,
1. No, it's not commercial. It's only commercial if we preserve the old model of moneyed producers, distributors and gatekeepers. I'm quite surprised you'd say this, considering that your very own HDNET would do well to consider bypassing the cable gatekeepers for direct
2. No, it's not lowering your performance, the last mile is where P2P seeds should, if anything, be compensated for bringing the data closer to the user
3. No, it's still not commercial, it's people doing what they care about, and it needs to grow. Commercial is all those dues in Silicon Valley. Oh, and you.
3. No, it's still not lowering your performance, you should know this, all that famous "dark fiber", well there's still a whole lot of it. Has anyone ever thought that perhaps the American taxpayers could and should get back something, even bandwidth, from the likes of MCI-Worldcom, who laid so much of it, through mighty scams
P2P is the democratic internet. Your performance is being lost due to bean counters maximizing profits, not due to the people who actually use the internet, such as yourself.
In any case, your influence on this topic is negligible, as is Comcast's, so the rest of us don't need to worry that you want to keep high bandwidth within the hands of the rich, established, or commercial.
Posted at 2:29PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Marcus
9. Here's my analogy: I used to be on Verizon's wireless service but left recently for AT&T's rollover minutes. I'm paying for a certain number of minutes, why shouldn't I get a credit if I don't use them all up? Bandwidth is no different. I pay Comcast $42 per month for internet access, I'm going to use up my bandwidth.
Network providers should concentrate on upgrading their facilities because bandwidth usage is still in it's infancy. Look for more and more services to shift to internet protocol in the next 5-10 years. Wireless phones, television, etc.
Zipityzap.com. Internet Television. Seeking funding.
Posted at 2:33PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Gerald Zuckerwar
10. Mark,
P2P is the future. You have pointed out MANY times how things like HDTV can not go over the Internet well in its current form. The centralized servers and the high speed lines that lead to them choke under the strain.
However, P2P could solve this. If I have downloaded a HD movie from Netflix, and someone else that is a customer of the same ISP as me wants to download it, why should they download it from 1/2 way across the country? They could stream it from me and SPEED UP EVERYONE'S INTERNET! If the content provider secures the transfer, there is no reason to re-send the file from the main server.
You said "P2P is probably the least efficient means of distributing content in the last mile." That is 100% incorrect. Sending a file to someone in the same ISP as me (or 100 people sending the same file to one person in the same ISP) is the most efficient way to do it, as you put zero load on the ISP's lines to the Internet. Local traffic is always lower cost.
As for the connection being slow, that is only going to get worse. The ISPs are dragging their feet on adding bandwidth. If P2P was blocked on all ISPs, the people would still find ways to download content.
I'm saying all of this as someone that does NOT use P2P for illegal movies, music, or software. I have used it for Linux distros and downloading true free music (SWSX) or free shows (fan-films).
Posted at 2:38PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Jason Tracy
11. What in the world? This makes no sense at all. If the market wanted to price in the cost of P2P bandwidth subsidies, there would be ISP's who offer cheaper service but either limit bandwidth or prohibit certain applications from running.
Encouraging Comcast to simultaneously advertise unlimited internet access and block P2P traffic is just bizarre. Heck, I don't use email from my ISP account. Maybe they should block everyone who does, since I don't want to pay for their bandwidth for an app I don't use.
There's also the spurious assumption that "stopping P2P in its tracks" is a good thing. It's not. There are plenty of legitimate P2P apps out there that it would be wrong for ISP's to block (Miro, Joost, etc).
All of this sounds like an old-school media cartel owner's ends-justify-the-means argument. I expected better from Cuban, who is generally on top of things and more sensible than his peers in the media industry.
Posted at 2:42PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Brooks Talley
12. You missed the boat on this one. While we're at it, why don't we block VoIP traffic. After all, I don't use it. That will speed up my internet connection. That's a good thing. Or how about blocking downloading movies. After all, I don't do it. That will speed up my internet connection. That's a good thing. The logic holds for practically any service that uses bandwidth.
Posted at 2:59PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Fernando
13. Wonder how long this is going to stay up on the board.....I have really stopped reading Mark's view when he/his people started deleting posts that offered opposing viewpoints....
Mark, when the RIAA went after Napster, it fueled the P2P revolution. As stated before, Skype is P2P and I use it daily. If Comcast blocks my P2P through Skype, it will force me and thousands of users elsewhere.
Frankly Mark, I really don't get your ethos on this. This is the exact opposite behavior of what a business needs to do when confronted with a customer change.
Posted at 3:12PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Brian
14. With all due respect, Mr. Cuban...
*What will these ISPs do with the imminent TelePresence traffic?
*How will the prevalence of MMORPGs with excellent graphics affect your speed?
*Will you say the same thing about Virtual Reality?
*What will happen with IPTV?
*What about when YouTube begins streaming HD videos?
*What about non-asynchronous applications that engage users in many different ways at once - voice chat, video chat, IM, interactive content and other entertainment?
etc etc etc???
The issue isn't P2P, it's that we in the US simply haven't built out our infrastructure to deal with the demands placed on the network. Or, rather, the telcos haven't...
Case in point - HAVE YOU EVER HEARD ABOUT SERIOUS NET NEUTRALITY ISSUES LIKE THIS IN S. KOREA OR JAPAN?
No, and they only pay about $0.75 per megabit while we pay over $6.00
If we allow Comcast and cohorts to continually control the content of the Internet our Internet access will never be as complete as our friends in the far east. This mustn't happen.
Posted at 3:15PM on Nov 20th 2007 by devin holloway
15. Gotta jump on the pile here. Mark, I have a great deal of respect for you and your opinions and I usually agree with you but this post is horrid. You're falling for this mindset that the telco executives are pushing that you can somehow ride for free on other peoples' bandwidth. That's simply not the reality. Everyone that connects to the internet pays for bandwidth. If the MSOs aren't engineering their last mile to handle the bandwidth they claim to sell that's their own fault. You sound like the idiot from AT&T who claims that Google is using their bandwidth for free to reach their customers. Nevermind the fact that his customers are paying him already to access Google.
Posted at 3:19PM on Nov 20th 2007 by shawn
16. Cuban getting deservedly lambasted on Techdirt in 3... 2...
Posted at 3:30PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Ben
17. You post (mark) is so ignorant I am surprised you can even log on to a computer. When you take a stand, you should know what you are talking about.
What the hell kinda websites are you surfing that broadband isn't fast enough for you? Ones with videos that stream? Is the porn not coming down the pipe fast enough?
Sincerely,
Mike
Posted at 3:47PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Mike Scott
18. Mark, you just lost me. The bottom line is, as the government increasingly controls the internet, the P2P networks are going to be increasingly the only free-speech areas on the net. To call them freeloaders is wrong, as they pay for bandwidth like everyone else. Yes, I'm sure people are using P2P to violate copyright, but you're confusing a PROTOCOL with a CRIME-- you can't ban the crime by banning the protocol.
And you're desire for unilateral solutions like this puts you in league with every government thug who makes arbitrary laws because some small proportion of people are doing something wrong-- eg: The real reason is more power.
I used to think you were a capitalist-- now I see you are a socialist.
Well, I'm out, your feed hasn't been very interesting for awhile (who cares about dancing with the stars anyway?) and this one was over the line. I've unsubscribed.
Posted at 3:48PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Jay
19. Wow you really missed the mark on this one. I tend to agree with your views you post on this blog but this is just plain bad. You are forgetting that once you allow networks to be manipulated by providers they may not stop at P2P. You are essentially giving them the power to control what they want on their backbone networks.
You are putting the decision making in the hands of corporations. Who knows, maybe one day they will decide blogmaverick.com generates too much traffic and provides a 'useless' service and they begin blocking it. Maybe next time you go shopping for VOIP providers it will be at an extreme premium and offered by only a handful of companies who can control the backbones.
Posted at 3:51PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Mauricio Gomes
20. So, Mr. Cuban, you are seeming to agree with the notation that the entertainment industry (RIAA, MPAA, etc) holds that any digital use of their content not directly controlled by them must be something illegal. I personally only have MP3s (well, more appropriately, Ogg Vorbis files) ripped from CDs I own. But since I want to use this on my phone (without paying for the music again from Verizon) or on my Linux computer (where the DRM-enabled and freedom stealing software doesn't always exist), I must be a criminal. Even though I don't share my music with anyone else.
By the same notion, if I'm using P2P, I must be using it to share or steal their content. Never mind that I use it for downloading Linux distribution media, media that is distributed under a Creative Content license, etc. P2P can be used for legal and productive means, imagine that!
Saying that P2P traffic should be blocked by ISPs is analogous to saying that pick-up trucks should be banned from toll roads (even if the driver of said pick-up pays the toll) because they can be used for transporting illegal materials.
Blocking P2P traffic of paying customers is not a solution to the piracy "problem". I don't know what the solution is. But certainly whining about "those thieves are stealing my bandwidth" even though they paid for it themselves is just silly.
Posted at 3:54PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Travis B. Hartwell
1. Just what the world needs. Comcast and Mark Cuban making judgement calls about how individuals use their bandwidth. Somehow we're supposed to believe that every customer viewing IPTV and listening to their iTunes library from work is ethical overuse, but P2P is the devil's food. When I pay for internet access, it's just that, internet, not whatever subset you or comcast deem to be acceptable based on your business interests. You're right that there are better ways, they'll likely win on their merits without being shilled out by the likes of you.
Posted at 1:30PM on Nov 20th 2007 by Bryn