Editing P2p mobile carriers (section)

== 12.7. A contract for faster Internet speed ==

Within a mobile network the maximum Internet speed that a customer can achieve is capped to prevent interfering with other customers. The only way to increase speeds is to buy a better data plan (if any are available) or purchase additional plans.

With a second plan the theoretical maximum resources available for downloads + uploads is doubled, but within the context of the web, most web servers (and most browsers for that matter) are only built to stream data down a single connection. Consequently, two mobile plans might allow a page with lots of elements to load faster but it won’t increase the speeds down a single TCP stream.

<blockquote>There is an exception though, and most people will recognise it: [torrents].
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Since torrents split up files into chunks, each chunk can be streamed down a different TCP connection over both mobile plans. So in this scenario its very easy to utilise all resources. But are most people willing to pay twice as much, for twice the speed in such a niche scenario? Probably not.

Fortunately, the service sharing contract offers the ideal primitive to build something for this niche. Consider a scenario where a person has unneeded data left on their plan and they would really like a faster connection right now. In this case, they can form a contract with a group of sellers to buy immediate access to their service plans in exchange for the buyers having access to their plan at some point in the future.
[[File:P2p mobile carriers 7.png|thumb]]

The service sharing contract allows bandwidth and other resources to be aggressively leveraged for a faster connection.

It’s quite interesting to note that the seller can define precise limits on speed in the buyers trusted processor. Meaning that plans become more fungible and can be created on demand to suite the needs of a buyer.

Note: multiple phones and good networking knowledge would be provided to utilise this contract, but I can imagine an app that would make this easier.

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