Dear readers,

Since a few moths I have an ADSL Internet connection with Telbo. No complaints about that.

But for a few weeks I am trying to get peer-to-peer connections started. For some reason this is not easy as it is in an other country. I know it is possible here and I know Skype is working through the same principle and working fine, but DC++, Emule and Azureus are all working but all in slow speed, through a server and not directly through the TCP port.

Who has any experience with this and can give me some tips about it. I would be very grateful.

Joost,

Telbo's ADSL runs through NAT (network address translation), meaning that your modem is assigned a local LAN address on the ADSL network that Telbo operates - some programs which open connections to a central server and then keep them open can overcome that, but many P2P programs don't because of legal issues. Also, Telbo probably has blocked and/or throttled the ports used by known P2P programs in order to avoid excess usage of the bandwidth they so begrudgingly provide.

Jake

PS Moderators - should this be in Local Items instead?

thanks for the reminder Jake.

I think Jake has it right. Their central router maps your ports and IP addresses to another set visible to the outside world, and has the ability to police each individual port. If I were Telbo, I would certainly throttle P2P connections down to very low bandwidth to insure that legitimate uses still had some bandwidth available.

I am not in the assumption that I am doing anything wrong by trying to use a P2P connection. If that is what your tying to say Kevin.

Joost,

I think Kevin is saying that typically P2P connections are major bandwidth hogs and in a situation where bandwidth is scarce, P2P use significantly degrades system-wide performance. At least that's my opinion.

As P2P use is generally not mission critical, like e-mail is, it should probably be rationed a bit more strictly. Further, while there are legal uses for P2P, the most common uses are ones resulting in violation of international copyright laws. So, if you're using DC++, eMule, and Azareus for copying movies, games, and music which are not in the public domain, then yes, you are doing something wrong, Joost.

Jake

I am sorry but this is not the discussion I hoped for. I thank you both for you responds and gave me some idea about how it works on Bonaire, and I know this P2P thing has a down side.

The thing is that I am interested in what is possible on the internet and therefore want to know how it all works.

I installed the programs and I can’t get them to work that bothers me. I am not planning to download twenty movies a week and sell them on the black market.

A discussion about what is good and wrong is not what I intended.