Inventor of the Internet Targets P2P

Lawerence Roberts criticizes 5% of users for consuming 80% of network bandwidth and he just he happens to sell the sort of equipment that allows ISPs to fix the problem.

It’s an odd juxtaposition to have created something essentially for the purpose of sharing data and then later try to inhibit communication between those who do it too often or share too much considering they pay for the privilege of doing so.

Such is the dichotomy displayed by Lawrence Roberts who, along with Leonard Kleinrock, Robert Kahn, and Vinton Cerf, created the ARPANet, which was the predecessor to the Internet as we know it. For at GigaOM’s Structure 08 conference he roundly criticized P2P traffic for consuming an unfair share of available network bandwidth – 5% of users consuming 80% of bandwidth.

Luckily though, he just happens to own a company called Anagran which just happens to sell “Fast Flow Technology” to ISPs that allows them to “effectively mange 100% of P2P traffic. It even supposedly is able to detect encrypted BitTorrent traffic.

From the Anagran FR-1000 specs:

With its unique BTC technology, the Anagran FR-1000 constantly observes all flows and recognizes bulk and P2P traffic based on real-time flow statistics. The service class parameters assigned to a flow can be changed based on this process. Since P2P traffic may likely be assigned a lower class of service than other more important traffic types, Anagran products can essentially meter the P2P traffic in favor of other traffic. This keeps the P2P traffic from consuming network bandwidth required by other more important interactive, latency-sensitive traffic types. This P2P detection and management capability is especially effective at network peering points, either between separate networks or between multiple regions within one large network. Note that P2P traffic can be limited to not exceed a certain percentage of transmission capacity, but can still be allowed to continue, with policy-defined limitations per how much network capacity it can consume.

Roberts was apparently quick to point out that he isn’t trying to punish file-sharers and is simply trying to more equitably redistribute bandwidth to other users. In fact he even says that P2P traffic should diminish over the next several years.

My question though is that isn’t the real problem ISPs offering you a 1Mbps connection speed for $50 bucks a month and then trying dictate how much or how often you can use it rather than so-called bandwidth hogs? Why should customers be penalized simply for using a service they purchased? If an ISP has trouble managing its network traffic then it should turn to other solutions like data caps where the user is able to pay extra to exceed the limit rather than having his connection continually throttled.

(CNet discusses the matter further below)