AquaLab has released an open source plugin for BitTorrent clients, specifically Azureus. AquaLab's Ono Plugin's "main goal of this plugin is simple -- to improve download speeds for your BitTorrent client. "
Here is a press release summary I came across from ACM TechNews:
Northwestern University researchers have developed Ono, software that eases
the strain that peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services place on Internet service providers
(ISPs). Ono allows users to efficiently identify nearby P2P users and requires no
cooperation or trust between ISPs and P2P users. Ono, the Hawaiian word for delicious, is
open source and does not require the deployment of additional infrastructure. When ISPs
configure their networks correctly, Ono can improve transfer speeds by as much as 207
percent on average, the researchers say. Ph.D. student David Choffnes, who developed Ono
with professor Fabian E. Bustamante, says Ono relies on a clever trick based on observations
of Internet companies to find nearby computers. Content-distribution networks (CDN), which
offload data traffic from Web sites onto their proprietary networks, power some of the most
popular Web sites in the world, enabling higher performance for Web clients by sending them
to a server close to them. Using the key assumption that the two computers sent to the same
CDN server are near to each other, Ono can identify P2P users close to each other.
This aids two types of communities:
- Users: who can get faster downloads because P2P peers are closer and are therefore
prone to fewer errors and dropouts.
- Service Providers: traffic can be kept off high cost inter-ISP links. With traffic
kept internal, cost savings on carrier links could be realized.
On the negative side though, last mile links get more saturation with higher traffic
densities. If one is on a shared cable modem or a shared wireless access point,
ironically this isn't the best thing that could happen.