Peer-to-Peer Traffic: From Measurements to Analysis

We report in this paper measurements from France Telecom commercial networks carrying traffic generated and received by ADSL and FTTH customers. By adopting a flow-based approach to traffic analysis, we show that both types of customers experience similar peer-to-peer services in that the bit rates that they see is rather low. In order to understand the origin of these similarities, we develop a mathematical model, which could be seen as an abstraction of a file sharing process between peers according to the principles of eDonkey. This model allows us to exhibit a phase transition phenomenon which is nested in the file sharing principle. We believe that this phenomenon explains why both types of customers see a congested peer-to-peer network.