New uTorrent 2.0 Will Save Network Traffic
Bittorent Inc is about to rerlease uTorrent 2.0, a new P2P client software that will take advantage of the case μTP (micro-transport protocol), which eliminates the need for ISPs to throttle or stop BitTorrent traffic.
ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic for years arguing have that a high number of BitTorrent connections are slowing down other applications and traffic.
Comcast started to prevent its users from seeding content on BitTorrent, and many other ISPs took similar actions to throttle BitTorrent traffic.
BitTorrent's μTP protocol would eliminate the need for throttling entirely, solving the problem at its root, according to the company.
"μTP is a completely new implementation of the BitTorrent protocol with a major new design objective ? μTP is designed to be network friendly ? to not swamp network connections when there are other apps trying to send and receive ? and to resolve the key problem that ISPs use to justify interference with BitTorrent traffic," BitTorrent Product Management VP Simon Morris explains.
"If BitTorrent traffic volume is so great that it overwhelms end-users? connections (leading to service calls from consumers whose internet doesn?t work), then μTP eliminates this problem by being better at only using bandwidth when there is no other traffic competing, and automatically slowing or stopping BitTorrent transfers before network connections seize up," Morris added.
Legacy BitTorrent traffic uses the standard internet "TCP" protocol to govern when it tries to go faster or slow down. The problem with TCP is that it can only detect a problem by waiting to see if packets are dropped. Unfortunately, by the time packets are being lost, the problem is already acute and the consumers connection has already drastically slowed or stopped. TCP is a lot like trying to drive with your eyes closed. You only notice something?s wrong when you hit something.
"μTP is like driving with your eyes *open* ? μTP is able to see problems coming and make much more modest adjustments to ensure the problems don?t cause a car wreck. It does this by being able to detect congestion on a network based on how long a packet takes to be sent from one peer to the next. If things start to take longer, then μTP adjusts the rate of sending accordingly,"Morris said.
There are already a couple of hundred thousand people using Bittorent v2.0 beta client, and things seem to be progressing very nicely, according to the company. The new v2.0 client will initiate outgoing uTP connections by default whenever it can. "Previous versions of the clients will accept incoming uTP connections ? they just won?t initiate them," Morris said.
Comcast started to prevent its users from seeding content on BitTorrent, and many other ISPs took similar actions to throttle BitTorrent traffic.
BitTorrent's μTP protocol would eliminate the need for throttling entirely, solving the problem at its root, according to the company.
"μTP is a completely new implementation of the BitTorrent protocol with a major new design objective ? μTP is designed to be network friendly ? to not swamp network connections when there are other apps trying to send and receive ? and to resolve the key problem that ISPs use to justify interference with BitTorrent traffic," BitTorrent Product Management VP Simon Morris explains.
"If BitTorrent traffic volume is so great that it overwhelms end-users? connections (leading to service calls from consumers whose internet doesn?t work), then μTP eliminates this problem by being better at only using bandwidth when there is no other traffic competing, and automatically slowing or stopping BitTorrent transfers before network connections seize up," Morris added.
Legacy BitTorrent traffic uses the standard internet "TCP" protocol to govern when it tries to go faster or slow down. The problem with TCP is that it can only detect a problem by waiting to see if packets are dropped. Unfortunately, by the time packets are being lost, the problem is already acute and the consumers connection has already drastically slowed or stopped. TCP is a lot like trying to drive with your eyes closed. You only notice something?s wrong when you hit something.
"μTP is like driving with your eyes *open* ? μTP is able to see problems coming and make much more modest adjustments to ensure the problems don?t cause a car wreck. It does this by being able to detect congestion on a network based on how long a packet takes to be sent from one peer to the next. If things start to take longer, then μTP adjusts the rate of sending accordingly,"Morris said.
There are already a couple of hundred thousand people using Bittorent v2.0 beta client, and things seem to be progressing very nicely, according to the company. The new v2.0 client will initiate outgoing uTP connections by default whenever it can. "Previous versions of the clients will accept incoming uTP connections ? they just won?t initiate them," Morris said.
