Peer to Peer [P2P] traffic is the stowaway traffic of the net. It is latency and QoS insensitive, and happy to fill the unused capacity of broadband connections. The big growth rate on the chart below gives P2P the illusion of being important- the reality is it is just being efficient.
P2P is using the existing resources of the net more efficiently, and, unless it can be monetized, will never drive the deployment of more fiber to the home [FTTH], more transport bandwidth, and more switching hardware.
I’m convinced that the inflection point for FTTH deployment will come when a killer application requiring large upstream bandwidth arrives. On the surface, P2P fits this bill, as it is the only widely deployed consumer application that stresses upstream bandwidth. The problem is, P2P is a lunatic fringe application built on illegal activity. The nature of P2P’s popularity makes it impossible to monetize.
The frustrating reality for carriers is that as broadband connection speeds increase, the amount of peer to peer traffic grows disproportionately, an effect I wrote about while discussing network neutrality.
Related Posts
- P2P Throttling Company Says 44% of Traffic is P2P
- Peer-to-Peer Legal Woes Drive Traffic To Paid Download Sites
- Nokia’s P2P Traffic Control Solution
- HTTP Traffic Surpasses P2P Traffic
- Comcast to FCC: ‘Yes, We Throttle BitTorrent Traffic, but So What?’
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