> There is such a huge disparity between upload and download bandwidth that I fail to see any immediate future for decentralized or p2p replacements for things.

> There is such a huge disparity between upload and download bandwidth that I fail to see any immediate future for decentralized or p2p replacements for things. I believe there are valid technical reasons for this, at least for coax connections; fiber not-so-much. At the same time, I get what you are saying. ...and this is how they want it. In short, they keep the "last mile" from allowing true "peering". The best you can do - and this is to mainly get around the TOS statements that (technically) prevent you from running servers (as well as physically blocking you from running anything on port 80 and 25 mainly, plus probably others) - is to purchase a business plan instead of a consumer plan. Though I am sure they will try to (or do) block this if the installation address is for a home and not an office (then again, what about small home offices and such?). I don't know a good way around any of these issues, as it seems all high-speed providers do similar things (most are aimed at prevention of spam and other similar reasons). Even the WISPs I've seen in my area have weird terms (one seems really great for the rural area they serve - until you come to the clause about not being allow to run BT because of "multiple streams"; I tend to wonder if they only allow a single user to use a browser - on a single page - or what).