RSSComcast opens up negotiations with BitTorrent on bandwidth
By Ed Oswald | Published March 27, 2008, 11:42 AM
In a surprise announcement, the BitTorrent and Comcast will partner to address issues of network management and architecture, as well as content distribution.
BitTorrent could be described as the bane of the cable industry's existence when it comes to high-speed Internet services.
Users of the file-sharing service routinely consume a large percentage of the available bandwidth, and Comcast has throttled some connections. Approximately half of the Internet traffic through its network is BitTorrent transfers, it claims.
Talks are ongoing and the two sides say there have already been amenable results. By the end of this year, Comcast will migrate to a capacity management system that its protocol agnostic. This is essentially the closest the cable operator has ever come to publicly admitting it targeted the P2P format.
At the same time, BitTorrent says it also agreed with Comcast on the need to limit the bandwidth of some users during peak times, although it also said that it believed the cable operator and others could have used other options.
"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 CTO Eric Klinker said.
Comcast and BitTorrent plan to open up their work in the media delivery sector so that other providers can benefit from their work. BitTorrent also plans to maximize its software to make better use of Comcast and others' networks.
Both urged the government to stay out of the discussions, and expressed confidence that they will be able to work out any differences on their own.
FCC commissioner Robert McDowell seemed to agree. "Government mandates cannot possibly contemplate the myriad complexities and nuances of the Internet marketplace," he said in a statement . The private sector is the best forum to resolve such disputes."
McDowell said that the agreement negated any need for the government to step in on the matter.
First, I was amused to read:
"By the end of this year, Comcast will migrate to a capacity management system that [is] protocol agnostic."
The stupid people will yell "hurray!" as if the above statement actually means anything. But the highly intelligent ppl will see straight thru the PR, and will read between the lines. What it means practically is that in 2009 Comcast will castrate your internet connection not because you used the bittorrent protocol, of course, but because you used "ANY" type of bandwidth-draining-protocol (encrypted sh_t comes to mind). In other words, if today 90% of your bit-count to/from Comcast is for bittorrent xfers, then in a year they'll throttle you down just because of the bitcount, not because they were "bittorrent" bits. And if you didn't understand by now that it don't mean JACK SH_T, then I'm sorry but I tried my best to educate you on that point.
Next, this whole chit-chat sounds to me like a way for Bittorent Inc to reclaim its old-day glory and PROBABLY make protocol enhancements that won't be free. It'll PROBABLY be licensed open source with some built-in mechanism to generate ad revenue for Bittorrent Inc regardless of actual client you use (theirs, or some licensed 3rd party).
This is nothing but a Comcast-Bittorrent branded p4p project. Read my highly futuristic even prophetic remarks on p4p and my prediction how ISPs in the future will promote cheap-bandwidth usage (inter-ISP, physically closer destinations) over expensive-bandwidth (intra-ISP and to other expensive packet destination). It's quite obvious that the new bittorrent protocols will auto-detect cheap-destination-IPs and move more data to them, possibly at much higher ISP-provisioned rates than to expensive-destination-IPs...
http://www.betanews.com/...ogy/1205535534#c1511792
"It's pretty obvious that eventually ISPs will "encourage" users (actually their software & OS) to transfer as much data as possible from/to "cheap" destinations (lowest hops) by increasing the upstream/downstream rates to those physically nearby destinations only. [...] Another example, let me super-quickly upload to a neighbor that torrent file so I maintain my mandatory 1:1 share ratio on that private torrent site, instead of uploading much much slower to someone in a diff country."
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|Glad I dumped Comcast almost a year ago. I have Yahoo DSL and it's lightning quick and no throttling.
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|I knew it. I just F*CKING knew it. Halite here I come.
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|Remember that the original Bit Torrent gang sold out to the RIAA/MPAA entertainment mafia. No wonder the old guard is cutting a deal with Comcast.
Some sites have banned the original Bit Torrent clients. You're encouraged the switch to idependents like U Torrent (encrypted) and Azerus instead; so who cares now?
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