Bandwidth Hogs and the iPhone 3G

A couple of weeks ago I purchased an AT&T USBCONNECT 881 3G card and have been doing spot bandwidth tests where 3G is available. The 3G iPhone will use the same network so these spot tests will be a good indicator of the kinds of bandwidths we can expect. You can see my speed test results by location linked here. Coverage and bandwidth has been good so far in areas where I spend time including out on Cape Cod in North Truro, MA.
On the left is a screen shot (click to enlarge) sample - 1324 Kbps downstream and 334 Kbps upstream in the wilds of the Cape Cod National Seashore - pretty good for a PC and would be very nice on a new 3G iPhone!

A recent piece on Gigaom titled Is 3G Ready for the iPhone Stress Test? is an interesting read. Here's a quote from the post:

The original iPhone runs on the 2G networks using a technology called EDGE. Despite the slower speeds, the data usage on AT&T’s mobile network ballooned due to the original iPhone. According to Chetan Sharma, our favorite mobile data guru, iPhone users used nearly five times the data used by average AT&T subscribers, and nearly twice as much as other smart phone owners. About 55 percent of the data was carried on Wi-Fi networks, while the rest was on EDGE.

3G bandwidth on a small handheld device..... sounds very nice especially for YouTube and other mobile video applications. YouTube does run on the original iPhone over the EDGE network but it is slow. As a result, most are only watching YouTube videos on their iPhones when they are within WiFi range. If users can now watch elsewhere - will mobile video become a 3G bandwidth hog? I think so.

I'm also interested in how AT&T will handle the inevitable BitTorrent iPhone file-sharing applications (these are much bigger bandwidth hogs) that will be rolling out this summer. The AT&T 3G service I purchased for my PC card has a monthly 5 Giga-Byte (GB) data "soft cap". Will users get cutoff for the month when the 5 GB cap is hit?

It's not just AT&T that's going to have to deal with these issues - they'll just likely have to face them first with the 3G iPhone.....Verizon and Sprint also have similar caps in their 3G wireless contracts.

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing

[Here's a recent piece I wrote for my monthly technology column in La Prensa, a Western Massachusetts Latino newspaper. To read a few of my previous La Prensa technology columns go here.]

Peer-to-peer (commonly referred to as “P2P” or “PtP”) networks are commonly used to share music and video files on the Internet. Much of the illegal file sharing you hear about in the news is handled using P2P networks. These networks are also used for legal file sharing and, in some ways, they have got a bad name because of the sharing of copyrighted materials.

You may recall the early version of Napster, a software program developed by Northeastern University student Shawn Fanning in 1999. Napster worked using a variation of a P2P network (some call it hybrid P2P) that used a centralized server to maintain a list of who was online and who had which MP3 music files for sharing. Because Napster used a centralized server, it was easy to trace users and effectively shut the service down which the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) did in the fall of 2001, after filing a lawsuit against Napster.

As Napster was going through the legal battle, programmers were working to develop other file sharing programs that did not use a centralized server. The first of these new programs was named BitTorrent, and created by Bram Cohen in the summer of 2002.

Hundreds of additional P2P programs have been created and they are almost all based on the BitTorent model. Some of the more common BitTorrent type applications include Gnutella, Bearshare, Morpheous and FastTrack.

BitTorrent type programs are true P2P programs, using ad-hoc connections so there is no central server. Every computer running a P2P program provides storage space, bandwidth and processing. As more people install and run the P2P program, more files are being uploaded and downloaded and more computers are participating in the file sharing process.

Here’s details on how a P2P program works. Let’s say you want to download a song (let’s also say this song can be legally distributed) and you’ve got one of these P2P programs installed on your machine. You start the P2P program and type in the name of the song you want in a search box. The program then goes out and looks for other users sharing that song. As users are found the song starts to download to your computer. As more users sharing the same song are found, additional connections are made (each connection is often referred to as a torrent) and the download speed to your computer increases. Also, as you download the song, you start sharing the song with others connected to your computer.

Popular songs and videos can have hundreds of torrents involved in a single download.

If you use P2P programs, you need to be very careful to only download content that can be legally shared. If downloading illegal content, you can be caught and lately some huge fines have been given out to violators.

Also be sure you are running up to date antivirus software and scan your system for spyware weekly. P2P networks can be used to spread malicious software.

Traffic Shaping: BitTorrent and P2PTV

Lately there's been a lot of press about Internet Service Provider (ISP) traffic shaping with much of the discussion focused on BitTorrent based applications. Let's take a look at BitTorrent and how it is being used to distribute large files on the Internet. I'll use content from a Free Press piece published last fall to describe the steps involved for a user to start using BitTorrent:

Step 1: A user first downloads a program known as a BitTorrent client. Popular bit torrent clients (there are many) include uTorrent, BitComet and ABC. Once a BitTorrent client is installed the user can then share and download files.

Step 2: Once the client is installed, users can then search for interesting content. The user then finds a “torrent,” which is a miniscule file that serves to point a user’s computer in the direction of that file’s location. The torrent contains data that identify the file or files to be downloaded and a tracker notifying the computer coordinating such file distribution (many also utilize a trackerless system in which each connected computer acts as a tracker) that another user is interested in obtaining the file. All the rest of the BitTorrent users currently downloading or possessing the file (through keeping their application open, known as “seeding”) help transmit small portions of the overall file to the requesting user.

Step 3: As the user begins to acquire portions of the overall file, their computer redistributes the content to other users also requesting the file. The BitTorrent protocol differs from traditional point to point P2P networks where a central server distributes the information to each user, thereby putting all the strain on a single source.

Since it was released in 2001, BitTorrent has been the focus of some bad press because it can be used to illegally distribute copyrighted content. Things are changing though - BitTorrent applications also allow original content creators to not incur the entire cost of hardware, hosting and bandwidth - potentially providing huge savings to networks selling video content, record companies selling music, companies selling software.

One of my favorite BitTorrent "like" applications is Joost. Joost uses Peer-to-Peer television (P2PTV) to legally distribute content. We've all watched video streams (YouTube is a good example) where the video is streamed off a server - nice but relatively low resolution. Joost (requires an install of a separate application and does not run in a web browser) uses P2PTV to deliver high resolution video by having each client running it propagate the stream to more downstream clients. This moves the distribution costs from the channel owner to the user.

Later this week I'll write about technology that can be used to shape this kind of traffic on a network.

Internet Traffic Control Conflict

Yesterday, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin announced the Commission will investigate complaints that Comcast interferes with file sharing application Internet traffic. These BitTorrent based peer-to-peer file sharing applications are commonly used to exchange large video and audio files on the Internet. Here's a quote from an Associated Press release:

A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars asked the agency in November to stop Comcast from discriminating against certain types of data. Two groups also asked the FCC to fine the nation's No. 2 Internet provider $195,000 for every affected subscriber.

The complaint filed by Free Press is linked here.

The Associated Press release continues:

"Sure, we're going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked," Martin told an audience at the International Consumer Electronics Show.

In an investigation last year, The Associated Press found that Comcast in some cases hindered file sharing by subscribers who used BitTorrent, a popular file-sharing program. The findings, first reported Oct. 19, confirmed claims by users who also noticed interference with other file-sharing applications.

The key word in Martin's statement is "blocked". Here's a piece from a DSL Reports release:

Martin's choice of words is telling. If you're a network neutrality supporter eager to see someone clamp down on application throttling, you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for the FCC. The policy statement (pdf) that guides the FCC's hand in matters of network neutrality is not law, and is intentionally vague enough to allow providers to get away with anything short of an outright traffic blockade.

The final footnote in on the FCC policy statement is most interesting:

Accordingly, we are not adopting rules in this policy statement. The principles we adopt are subject to reasonable network management.

I can see both sides of this argument: On one hand it is extremely frustrating to see my broadband data connection significantly slow in the evenings - I've often wondered how much of the slowdown is due to BitTorrent based file exchange along with streaming video, audio, etc. On the other hand BitTorrent is being used by companies that sell video and game content for distribution - if I've purchased a video online I don't want my ISP throttling the speed of my downloads.

I'm hoping the FCC can step in, mediate the disagreement and set a policy that works for all - BitTorrent based file exchange is not going away.