PEER-to-peer networks, touted as the future of video distribution on the internet, face a critical problem: many users download lots of data but refuse to repay the compliment by uploading more content for others to see. The overall effect of this one-way traffic, or “leeching”, is to slow down everybody’s internet access.
Now researchers at Harvard University and at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have created a program, called , that turns net bandwidth into a commodity akin to a currency. The idea? You can only spend it if you earn it.
In Tribler, users have to “earn” credit by uploading data before they can “spend” it by downloading. As well as ensuring fair play on the part of users, trading bandwidth in this way could relieve traffic jams on the net as online video proliferates.
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