The New Way of Utilizing P2P Network

The future of the $100 laptop, in 2017

Description

The application of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology is booming and currently the preferred way of sharing and connecting to others in the Internet. Although the technology has existed for so long, the popular applications has begun only in the past few years with the introduction of music file sharing on the Internet. But now it's not only used to share songs on the net, P2P application has spanned towards sharing gigantic amount of data to Internet telephony and P2P radio.

In P2P network, there is no longer relying on queuing on one server to get a file. Instead every member of the network shares the file and allows you to download parts of the file from any sources and thus make the download faster. Two computers can also connect to each other without having to go through a server.

P2P network also works as any other network that is as a conduit of communication between two or more machines. So it is not only for file sharing but its application also expand to, for example, chatting or working together. An example of new utilization of P2P for voice that is successful would be Skype. But there is also a new trend of listening to a P2P radio broadcast provided by free radio stations on the Internet.

Perhaps the most popular and successful new way of using P2P technology these days is as the medium to share huge files. P2P (via Bittorrent or Gnutella and such) are used to share movies, softwares or songs whose sizes are often in counts of gigabytes.

This is what the $100 laptops will be relying on mostly for the communications. It will allow the laptops to connect to laptops around them with the built-in wireless network connection. The children will also learn a more advanced use of computer beyond mere word processing or drawing.

Enablers

• Broadband internet affordability
• Computer power increase
• Demand for faster and more efficient file sharing

Inhibitors

• Attacks on P2P network (virus, worms, spam)
• Insecure connections

Paradigms

• With the advent of this system, now companies are changing their new ways of distributing their contents. Software companies now have the options to let users download their software via P2P network. Film industries are also now working on how to effectively use the Internet to distribute their large files and have chosen P2P as their main consideration.

Web Resources

[Wikipedia on "Peer-to-Peer" Network]