Comments on: Bittorrent Advocates are Stupid http://burrowowl.net/wordpress/200802/bittorrent_advocates_are_stupid/ Sat, 11 Feb 2012 04:13:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Burrowowl http://burrowowl.net/wordpress/200802/bittorrent_advocates_are_stupid/comment-page-1/#comment-71223 Burrowowl Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:02:46 +0000 http://burrowowl.net/wordpress/200802/bittorrent_advocates_are_stupid/#comment-71223 Ah, but aggregated over thousands of users, a 3mbps uplink is pretty cheap -- assuming that people use the connection like normal people -- so you can offer it at a substantially lower price than an actual dedicated link. Most broadband subscribers use significantly less than 5% of their maximum throughput, averaged out over the course of a given month. This means you could get 200 such customers onto 36mbps of actual capacity without really having to sweat the congestion too much. In practice you'd want to keep an eye on the actual peaks as you provision customers onto that backhaul, but these are some made-up numbers. Now, with a 20:1 ratio of sold bandwidth to available bandwidth, your overhead is pretty low. Now pile eight guys onto that same backhaul with a penchant for running Bittorrent full-tilt 24/7. They'll tie up 24mbps of that pipe, leaving the other 192 customers with 8mbps of spare bandwidth. The ISP has to get a bigger pipe to avoid congestion. Cost to the ISP goes up, so the price for everybody's got to go up. Compare the price of an OC3 to your monthly connectivity bill. Then ask yourself if you're subsidizing your neighbor or if it's the other way around. I know what the answer is if you've been pulling down packets as fast as you can. Are you really paying for that 3mbps connection? Everything works better when we all try to play nice. Ah, but aggregated over thousands of users, a 3mbps uplink is pretty cheap — assuming that people use the connection like normal people — so you can offer it at a substantially lower price than an actual dedicated link. Most broadband subscribers use significantly less than 5% of their maximum throughput, averaged out over the course of a given month. This means you could get 200 such customers onto 36mbps of actual capacity without really having to sweat the congestion too much. In practice you’d want to keep an eye on the actual peaks as you provision customers onto that backhaul, but these are some made-up numbers.

Now, with a 20:1 ratio of sold bandwidth to available bandwidth, your overhead is pretty low. Now pile eight guys onto that same backhaul with a penchant for running Bittorrent full-tilt 24/7. They’ll tie up 24mbps of that pipe, leaving the other 192 customers with 8mbps of spare bandwidth. The ISP has to get a bigger pipe to avoid congestion. Cost to the ISP goes up, so the price for everybody’s got to go up.

Compare the price of an OC3 to your monthly connectivity bill. Then ask yourself if you’re subsidizing your neighbor or if it’s the other way around. I know what the answer is if you’ve been pulling down packets as fast as you can. Are you really paying for that 3mbps connection?

Everything works better when we all try to play nice.

]]> By: logtar http://burrowowl.net/wordpress/200802/bittorrent_advocates_are_stupid/comment-page-1/#comment-71222 logtar Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:25:42 +0000 http://burrowowl.net/wordpress/200802/bittorrent_advocates_are_stupid/#comment-71222 I am not sure what is considered abuse, but limitation is really stupid. If you pay for lets say a 3 mgb pipe, that is what you should have access to the WHOLE time. I don't care what the bandwidth is used for. I am not sure what is considered abuse, but limitation is really stupid. If you pay for lets say a 3 mgb pipe, that is what you should have access to the WHOLE time. I don’t care what the bandwidth is used for.

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