Fixing the unfairness of TCP congestion control

But P2P technologies like BitTorrent don't use multiple connections to maximize bandwidth to a single server, they use multiple connections to distribute the load across many other hosts.

They continue to espouse the virtues of P2P applications as “efficient” but what they don’t tell us is that “efficient” means efficiency in bandwidth hogging.

If I want to download a 500MB movie, I NEED to use 500MB of bandwidth one way or another. The demand is there, the only question is how will it be met.

P2P networks are incredibly efficient in that they distribute the load across many many hosts and networks. Just because they use lots of bandwidth doesn't mean they're inefficient. Try distributing a popular torrent from a single server and watch it melt before your eyes.

They also don’t tell us that P2P is efficient at offloading the costs of video distribution to someone else.

Yeah, that someone else is me and all the other BitTorrent peers who are paying our ISPs for access to the internet.

The diagram below shows what happens when an application like BitTorrent uses the network continuously.

That has much more to do with the BitTorrent protocol than the TCP/IP protocols. It takes time for a host to discover other peers and ramp up, etc. Additionally, comparing BitTorrent to email, and even Skype, is a ridiculous comparison.

If it's really such a big problem, ISPs should shape traffic across the board, fairly. AND disclose to their customers what they're really paying for. But they certainly shouldn't filter or limit specific types of traffic.