The following comment has to be one of the most important comments in the entire article and its a bit disturbing.
"Right now somewhat more than half of all Internet bandwidth is being used for BitTorrent traffic, which is mainly video. Yet if you surveyed your neighbors you'd find that few of them are BitTorrent users. Less than 5 percent of all Internet users are presently consuming more than 50 percent of all bandwidth."
the heavy hitters are long known. get over it. i won't bother to cite cho et al. and similar actual measurement studies, as doing so seems not to cause people to read them, only to say they already did or say how unlike japan north america is. the phenomonon is part protocol and part social. the question to me is whether isps and end user borders (universities, large enterprises, ...) will learn to embrace this as opposed to fighting it; i.e. find a business model that embraces delivering what the customer wants as opposed to winging and warring against it. if we do, then the authors of the 2p2 protocols will feel safe in improving their customers' experience by taking advantage of localization and proximity, as opposed to focusing on subverting perceived fierce opposition by isps and end user border fascists. and then, guess what; the traffic will distribute more reasonably and not all sum up on the longer glass. randy randy