Cable Execs: We Won't Throttle P2P

Written by Steve Donohue

Tuesday, May 20. 2008 at 04:25 PM EDT Post a comment

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NEW YORK -- STREAMING MEDIA EAST -- Following some tests showing that P2P delivery can be optimized within their networks, Comcast and Verizon say they won’t block or throttle Internet traffic delivered via peer-to-peer networks.

Verizon and file-sharing firm Pando Networks shared the results of a trial that Verizon ran with Pando and other firms in February in which they tested how P2P files are delivered if an ISP teams up with a P2P company.

Pando CEO Robert Levitan said before February’s test, 98 percent of the data delivered to users in the P2P test came from outside Verizon’s network. During the P2P test, the amount of P2P content delivered to Verizon subscribers from inside its network grew from 2 percent to 50 percent, Levitan said.

The data appears to indicate that network providers can "manage" or optimize the P2P traffic without hitting the user consumption. Executives from the major high-speed Internet providers said it shows that ISPs need to work with P2P companies to improve content delivery and manage network traffic.

“Network congestion does present a series of unique challenges. It’s critical for the industry to recognize those challenges and have collaboration across all of the interest groups,” Comcast vice president of Internet services Barry Tishgart told attendees at a panel here Tuesday afternoon.

Tishgart acknowledged that P2P networks could help Comcast and other broadband ISPs improve the delivery of video to subscribers. “Video on the Internet has the potential to provide tremendous customer benefits. Obviously P2P plays a very large role in that, and the future growth of video on the Internet,” he added.

In the Pando test, the hop count -- or the distance data had to travel on Verizon’s network -- was reduced by 80 percent, from 5.5 hops to 0.89 hops, Levitan said.

Comcast plans to run a similar P2P trial next month, Levitan said. The fact that Comcast and Verizon are partnering with P2P firms -- a sector once denigrated by major ISPs -- is significant, Levitan stressed.

“If you told anybody a year ago that the largest ISPs in the world would be sitting down with P2P companies and talking about how to improve P2P delivery -- nobody would believe you,” Levitan added.

But while ISPs are beginning to collaborate more with P2P companies, convincing major content providers to use P2P technology to deliver programming to consumers remains a challenge, Comcast’s Tishgart and Verizon senior technologist Doug Pasko said.

“A lot of big issues are still out there on digital rights management,” Pasko said when asked why more major content providers aren’t relying on P2P networks.

Levitan said the damage to the reputation of P2P companies will impact content providers.

“There’s certainly been some reputation damage that’s gone on. Enterprises and certain content companies might have some bias towards it,” Tishgart said. “I think that’s going to be a challenge, and finally some of the technical challenges to overcome.”

Also Tuesday: