Comcast to stop hampering of Internet file-sharing
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - March 27, 2008 Since user reports of interference with file-sharing traffic
were confirmed by an Associated Press investigation in October,
Comcast has been vigorously defending its practices, most recently
at a hearing of the Federal Communications Commission in February.
Consumer and "Net Neutrality" advocates have been equally
vigorous in their attacks on the company, saying that by secretly
blocking some connections between file-sharing computers, Comcast
made itself a judge and gatekeeper for the Internet.
They also accused Comcast of stifling delivery of Internet
video, an emerging competitor to the cable company's core business.
Comcast has said that its practices were necessary to keep
file-sharing traffic from overwhelming local cable lines, where
neighbors share capacity with one another. On Thursday, Comcast
said that by the end of the year, it will move to a system that
manages capacity without favoring one type of traffic over another.
"This means that we will have to rapidly reconfigure our
network management systems, but the outcome will be a traffic
management technique that is more appropriate for today's emerging
Internet trends," Tony Werner, Comcast's chief technology officer,
said in a statement.
The company initially veiled its traffic-management system in
secrecy, saying openness would allow users to circumvent it. But on
Thursday, Werner said the company would "publish" the new
technique and take into account feedback from the Internet
community.
Comcast has been hampering the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol,
which together with the eDonkey protocol, accounts for about a
third of all Internet traffic, according to figures from Arbor
Networks. The vast majority of that is illegal sharing of
copyright-protected files, but file-sharing is also emerging as a
low-cost way of distributing legal content - in particular, video.
Peer-to-peer file-sharing "has matured as an enabler for legal
content distribution," Werner said. "So we need to have an
architecture that can support it with techniques that work over all
networks."
Comcast now says it is in talks with BitTorrent Inc., the
company founded by the creator of the protocol, to come up with
better ways to transport large files over the Internet. The
companies said they want to work out these issues privately,
without the need for government intervention.
FCC commissioners have indicated that they take the issue
seriously, and commission Chairman Kevin Martin has voiced
objections to secret traffic management.
For its part, BitTorrent acknowledged that service providers
have to manage their networks somehow, especially during peak
times.
"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," Eric Klinker,
BitTorrent's chief technology officer, said in a statement.
Verizon Communications Inc. two weeks ago announced the results
of a collaboration project with Pando Networks, another
file-sharing company. By sharing information with Pando, Verizon
was able to speed up file-sharing downloads for its subscribers
while reducing the strain on its own network.
AT&T Inc., the country's largest Internet service provider, has
been looking at similar collaboration.
However, phone companies are in a better position than cable
companies to deal with file-sharing traffic, since neighbors don't
share capacity on phone lines.
Time Warner Cable is experimenting with another way of managing
traffic, placing explicit caps on the monthly downloads for new
customers in Beaumont, Texas. Subscribers who go over their
allotment will pay extra, much like a cell-phone subscriber who
uses too many minutes in a month.
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Associated Press Business Writer Barbara Ortutay and Technology
Writer Peter Svensson in New York contributed to this story.
