That's just the typical Bittorrent /client/, but the idea of using Bittorrent means the /protocol/. A special Bittorrent client could be written for ISPs with uploads disabled and Apple could also disable them on the update-downloading Bittorrent client for the phones. The clients (be it Bittorrent or not) would still download the MD5 hash after the download finishes to verify the integrity of the download, and Apple would still be able to measure the amount of downloaded images. For the ISP, this would mean minimal amount of effective downloads. On 09/23/2013 07:31 AM, Blake Dunlap wrote:
Bit torrent is a way to lighten the load on the originator, and to increase the speed of the acquisition from the receivers. It is not a tool to decrease network load, if anything it does the opposite most of the time.
Every now and then, a client will find a local network peer, but its usually an accident more than anything from the algorithm it uses to try to find the fastest senders with pieces it needs. This is most often a product of far end congestion and what pieces are completed, and rarely upstream related barring major issues. The algorithim is self greedy, not altruistic, and definitely not written with ISP load issues in mind.
I'd much prefer CDN content over bittorrent from the ISP side.