[IP] Marketplace story on FCC and Comcast

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

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From: Dr. Lawrence Roberts [lroberts@anagran.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2008 3:08 PM
To: David Farber; Dr. Lawrence Roberts
Subject: RE: Marketplace story on FCC and Comcast

Dave,
Sure! I want people to start understanding the dynamics of the problem.
Please add me also if that,s ok so I can see comments.
Larry


At 02:44 AM 7/13/2008, David Farber wrote:
Can I repost to my IP list?

________________________________________
From: Dr. Lawrence Roberts [lroberts@anagran.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2008 11:43 PM
Subject: RE: Marketplace story on FCC and Comcast

Jeff,
Like George, I agree the DSL and FTTX ISP's will not shift, but there is another reason. The DSL companies have just as big or larger problem with P2P since P2P expands to fill any capacity. In fact, as I have been testing and modeling P2P I find it taking up even higher fractions of the capacity as the total capacity expands. This is because each P2P app. can get more capacity and it is designed to take all it can. In the Univerisities we have measured, the P2P grows to between 95-98% of their Internet usage. It does this by reducing the rate per flow lower and lower, which by virtue of the current network design where all flows get equal capacity, drives the average rate per flow for average users down to their rate. They then win by virtue of having more flows, up to 1000 per user. I suspect they do not do this on cable since the upstream capacity is only 10 Mbps and when it saturates, they must stop at about 80%. But raise the capacity per user and the capacity of the upstream choke point and watch out! P2P can consume virtually any capacity.
Larry




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