New software allows ISPs and P2P users to get along without getting too cozy

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services, which connect individual users for simultaneous uploads and downloads directly rather than through a central server, are reported to account for as much as 70 percent of Internet traffic worldwide. That level of use has led to a growing tension between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their customers’ P2P file-sharing services, and has driven service providers to forcefully reduce P2P traffic at the expense of unhappy subscribers and the risk of government investigations.

Now researchers at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science have discovered a way to ease that tension: Ono, a unique software solution that allows users to efficiently identify nearby P2P clients. The software, which is freely available and has been downloaded by more than 150,000 users, benefits ISPs by reducing costly cross-network traffic without sacrificing performance for the user. In fact, when ISPs configure their networks properly, their software significantly improves transfer speeds – by as much as 207 percent on average.

Ono, developed by Fabián E. Bustamante, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and Ph.D. student David Choffnes, has been deployed for the Azureus BitTorrent P2P file-sharing client.

"Finding nearby computers for transferring data may seem like a simple thing to do," says Choffnes, "but the problem is that the Internet doesn't have a Google Map. Every computer may have an address, but it doesn't tell you whether the machine is close to you."