Q: Why are companies
such as
Vuze, Inc. and Skype so keen on P2P... and so intent on not seeing
protocols such as BitTorrent throttled or managed (much less blocked)?
A: Because P2P shifts the bandwidth and infrastructure costs which
they would otherwise have to cover to someone else: the
user's ISP. The user pays no more, because virtually all US broadband
connections are "flat rate," so the ISP bears the full brunt of the
cost shifting. And because of the nature of ISPs' infrastructure and
backbone links, the costs are not only shifted but multiplied in the
process. If regulations prevent ISPs from banning P2P or throttling the
bandwidth to it consumes, ISPs must either shift to charging users by
the bit (in which case larger providers will quickly force out smaller
ones due to the lower costs of their pipes) or simply quit business.
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