Comcast, BitTorrent Declare A Truce
Comcast Corporation and BitTorrent, Inc. say they have resolved their differences, and will work together to make Comcast a testbed for P2P-sensitive approaches to network management, with BitTorrent focusing on optimizing its software while Comcast fine tunes its network. The two companies are promising to expand the dialogue to include other ISPs and peer-to-peer services, and publish the results of their efforts.
"Rather than slow traffic by certain types of applications — such as file-sharing software or companies like BitTorrent — Comcast will slow traffic for those users who consume the most bandwidth," Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner told TorrentFreak.
Comcast called the new approach "more appropriate for today's emerging Internet trends. We have been discussing this migration and its effects with leaders in the Internet community for the last several months, and we will refine, adjust, and publish the technique based upon feedback and initial trial results." Comcast is upgrading its network to DOCSIS 3.0, which can help speed cable modem infrastructure and has been deployed in some international markets.
Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent traffic has been a hot-button issue in recent months. "While we think there were other management techniques that could have been deployed, we understand why Comcast and other ISPs adopted the approach that they did initially," said Eric Klinker, BitTorrent's Chief Technology Officer. "Recognizing that the Web is richer and more bandwidth intensive than it has been historically, we are pleased that Comcast understands these changing traffic patterns and wants to collaborate with us to migrate to techniques that the Internet community will find to be more transparent."
BitTorrent and Comcast say they will work with other ISPs, technology vendors and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) on new distribution architecture for rich media content. Ashwin Navin, co-founder and president of BitTorrent, Inc., said it will enhance its client software to optimize it for the new architecture, and publish its work.
Comcast's Werner said the new architecture will be based on an open, non-discriminatory framework that could support multiple P2P technologies. "We believe that P2P technology has matured as an enabler for legal content distribution, so we need to have an architecture that can support it with techniques that work over all networks," said Werner.
The new architecture will be of great interest to content delivery networks (CDNs) who have been sorting out the best way that P2P can be used to assist in delivery of large files. Yesterday Velocix announced a hybrid streaming service combining traditional caching with P2P delivery for live events.
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By Rich Miller 
March 27, 2008 | Permalink | >Get Posts By E-mail
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