Managing Open P2P Traffic

Upstream Congestion

P2P traffic has a huge impact on shared last mile infrastructure such as cable and wireless broadband networks. These infrastructures were designed for asymmetric traffic patterns where the majority of traffic, such as http, email, ftp, etc. flows downstream to the subscriber and relatively low volumes of data, such as page requests, is transmitted upstream from the subscriber. P2P traffic breaks this asymmetric pattern: subscribers are concurrently downloading and uploading files thereby creating symmetric data streams that the networks were not designed to support.

Reportedly about 80% of upstream capacity is now being consumed by P2P. The impact of upstream congestion in these networks is ever more significant because 100s of subscribers share limited common upstream bandwidth. A few users generating heavy upstream P2P traffic will substantially impair the experience of their neighbors on the same segment. Adding upstream bandwidth via traditional approaches of node splitting and adding upstream ports on CMTS is very expensive.

By employing UltraBand’s upstream caching solution remote Internet users are served from the cache instead of the ISP’s subscriber computers, without impacting or congesting the upstream network segment.

Most P2P protocols employ and maintain incentive schemes to reward and encourage uploading. As a result, subscriber’s download speeds are based on its upload contribution.

For example, in a session between ISP subscriber A and remote peer B, the cache intervenes and sends (uploads) data to B, appearing as A. Therefore, all data delivered from cache counts towards subscriber A’s credit. The UltraBand solution at least retains an existing rating of ISP subscribers, or boosts it. The more bandwidth the cache generates, the better the rating of the subscribers is. Moreover, UltraBand’s technology enables a very high hit ratio on upstream traffic for Bittorrent and eDonkey P2P protocols. The result is a virtual elimination of P2P upload traffic congestion from the last mile network segment, while retaining or improving subscribers’ network rating.

At a minimum, Cable Operators and Wireless Broadband operators can postpone any upgrades to their expensive upstream infrastructure.