uTorrent, udp and throttling

The people behind uTorrent have decide to make the application udp enabled for the reason of bypassing various throttling methods used by ISP's.

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=49813

In a period where more and more ISP's are testing and looking into caps, usage charges and other means to limit people who "overuse" there connection they choose the low road and give companies more reason to act.

I predict a "bandwidth bubble burst" as ISP's take a step back from the "tick toc" network speed upgrades to try and keep up with there competitors and realize that providing a 50meg stream to little joey who thinks its his ingrained right to download movies that haven't been released yet or music that he hasn't paid for just isn't in the best interests for them.

Right now ISP's work on the basis that customers are, well stupid! When the average customers VOIP isn't working they don't go down the hall and check if little joey is downloading porn, instead they call there ISP and start complaining!

The fact is the average customer has no clue when something isn't working so they call the ISP.. QOS and selective throttling help with these issues... Throttle streams that don't require "real time speeds" and let VOIP run free.

As ISP's fight tooth and nail to ensure good performance for all a point will come when they realize its useless, someone will always find a way around target/protocol based throttles.

The end result leaves them with 2 options.

1. Server like usage caps and pricing.. Instead of paying for a 20meg connection you will pay for 20gigs of bandwidth per month.

2. Generic throttling that ensures all customers have access to the same/reasonable amount of bandwidth.

Each of these has there highs and lows...

Method (1) means you have to track your bandwidth usage or risk facing an extreme bill (You think an Iphone overseas can rack up a bill fast).

Method (2) would most likely mean a more "Powerboost" like setup where your speed is dynamically adjusted based not only on your usage but the overall network usage as well. Instead of 50megs you would get a "promise" of 1meg with boosts of up to 50megs as bandwidth is available. This means users will need to be more aware of what little "joey" is doing if they want there VOIP to work reliably which isn't exactly a bad thing.

Regardless the current direction of things just can't continue, at some point this bubble will burst and we will see a change, uTorrents recent actions just push us further down the path.