In “An Open Letter to Comcast and Every cable/Telco on P2P” billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who was an early investor in P2P content distributor Redswoosh, financial supporter of P2P company Grokster’s legal battle, and once called P2P technology the “most bandwidth effective distribution solution” for various applications of digital content, complains that P2P users are the bane of broadband Internet. In his rant, Cuban advises all Internet Service Providers to ban their customers from using peer-to-peer applications.
Predictably, Cuban’s words have drawn harsh criticism. The comments on his blog entry are ripe with opposition, and the blogosphere is afire with rebuttals such as this one from Janko Roettgers’ P2P Blog. In a weak follow-up, Cuban clarifies his position: he is fearful of P2P slowing down his own broadband connection, and since he is not personally interested in any of P2P’s various applications, it is irrelevant and should be banned. I will give it to Mark — he is clever to make his point by portraying himself as an everyman with whom we can all relate. Unfortunately for Mark, just as being a billionaire does not make you an expert on technology, being clever does not make you correct.
If your broadband connection is unreasonably slow because neighbors are sucking up bandwidth on P2P networks, your issue is with your service provider, not your neighbors. You and your P2P-giddy neighbors purchase a certain amount of bandwidth from your Internet Service Provider. You are entitled to use whatever amount of bandwidth has been guaranteed to you in exchange for your money. If your ISP cannot provide that bandwidth, they have oversold their resources and are at fault for not having the capacity to fulfill the terms of your contract.
If the bartender can only half-fill your pint because the the bottomless pit sitting on the next stool over polished off the keg, would you not ask for a refund? Complain to customer service, not your neighbors, Mark.
