Contentinople - Ryan Lawler - Comcast P4P Results 'Better Than Anyone Expected'

Written by Ryan Lawler

Tuesday, November 4. 2008 at 01:40 PM EST Post a comment

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In the most recent network trial of the P4P Working Group, cable company Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) blew away expectations for network efficiency and file transfer speeds using new peer-to-peer (P2P) technology.

Comcast was one of four ISPs to participate in the trial, which took place in early-to-mid July and was conducted in conjunction with Yale University and P2P technology firm Pando Networks Inc. While Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), and BCE Inc. (Bell Canada) (NYSE/Toronto: BCE) also took part, it was the cable company that showed the most dramatic improvement in network usage and download speeds.

Despite some early questions about the ability of its asynchronous architecture to benefit from the technology, Comcast's network showed dramatic gains by introducing P4P into its network.

Comcast reported that P4P technology increased download speeds in its network by more than 80 percent from a P2P control group that was unaided by P4P. The control group showed average download speeds of 254 Kbit/s, compared with downloads that averaged 464 Kbit/s using P4P technology.

At the same time, P4P technology improved network efficiency in Comcast's network, heavily reducing the amount of inbound and outbound traffic. By localizing P2P traffic and trying to connect peers within an ISP's network, the P4P technique reduced outbound P2P traffic by 34 percent in Comcast's network. Meanwhile, inbound traffic on the network dropped a staggering 80 percent when using P4P technology.

Referring to the data from Comcast's trial, Pando CEO Robert Levitan said, "I think it's safe to say that the results were better than anyone expected, including executives at Comcast and Pando."

Surprisingly enough, Comcast's network outperformed other ISPs that took place in the trial. Compared with Comcast's control speed of 254 kbit/s, the average download speed of other participants started at about 144 kbit/s. Even with P4P technology, average speeds on non-Comcast networks improved by about 13 percent, to 163 kbit/s.

Comcast vice president of Internet services Barry Tishgart says part of that difference in download speeds can be attributed to recent upgrades that the MSO made in the bandwidth available to its end users. At the time of the trial, Tishgart says that downstream bandwidth available to end users included in the trial was no lower than 6 Mbit/s, with upstream bandwidth no lower than 1 Mbit/s.

Pando's Levitan said Comcast was also aided by some tweaking that Pandy applied to the P4P protocol, which he believes helped improve network usage and download speeds.

The P4P Working Group was founded by Pando Networks and Verizon, to develop and test technology that would enable P2P applications to improve efficiency of file transfers by sharing information with ISP networks.

This is the second trial to be conducted by the working group in conjunction with ISPs. Earlier this year, Verizon announced that initial trials of P4P technology reduced traffic moving across its network by 50 percent.

Tags: Comcast, P2P, Technology, Video

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