[opendtv] News: Comcast, BitTorrent Agree To Team on Traffic Issues

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6545384.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP&nid=2228

Comcast, BitTorrent Agree To Team on Traffic Issues
Cable Operator to Slow Traffic for Users Who Consume the Most Bandwidth; P2P Service to Look at Ways to Manage Traffic on Its Network More Effectively 

By John Eggerton & Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/27/2008 9:04:00 AM
Comcast and BitTorrent have agreed to find ways that BitTorrent's file-sharing application can be used by Comcast's high-speed-data subscribers without clogging up Comcast's cable pipes and impacting service for all customers.
BitTorrent and others had complained to the FCC about Comcast's network management techniques for the bandwidth-heavy file sharing system, which Comcast said were necessary to provide a quality Internet experience for all its customers.
While Comcast will look for ways to adjust its network management, a Comcast spokeswoman said that BitTorrent has also agreed to try and make their applications work better on the Comcast networks.
Comcast has pledged to migrate to a network managment system that is "protocol agnostic," the company said Thursday in announcing the agreeemnt. One of the complaints about its network management was that it targeted BitTorrent protocols. "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," said Tony Werner, Comcast Cable's chief technology officer (CTO)," in the announcement, "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."
BitTorrent CTO Eric Klinker, who has testified on Capitol Hill about the Comcast complaint, was sounding satisfied with the agreement. "While we think there were other management techniques that could have been deployed," he said in the joint statement, "we understand why Comcast and other ISPs adopted the approach that they did initially. 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."
The Comcast complaint, combined with an e-mail blocking complaint against Verizon, had helped spur a general FCC inquiry into what constitutes "reasonable network management, "which the FCC allows. It had also drawn renewed calls in Congress for mandatory "net neutrality," which means Internet-access providers can't discriminate against one form of Internet traffic over another.
The Federal Communications Commission. led by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, has told Congress in hearings about the Comcast and Verizon complaints and network management in general that the commission had the authority and the will to enforce its network nondiscrimination guidelines.
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who has argued for guidelines rather than enforced network neutrality via FCC rules or congressional action, praised the agreement.
"I am delighted to learn that BitTorrent and Comcast have reached a resolution to their dispute," he said in a statement Thursday. "Consumers will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this agreement. As I have said for a long time, it is precisely this kind of private sector solution that has been the bedrock of Internet governance since its inception. "Government mandates cannot possibly contemplate the myriad complexities and nuances of the Internet market place. The private sector is the best forum to resolve such disputes. Today's announcement obviates the need for any further government intrusion into this matter." 


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