Comcast Stumbles, Vuze Leaps

Vuze enjoys considerable growth (2 million users per month) especially now with Comcast busy facing accusations

The popular P2P startup which advertises itself as "the world's most popular entertainment platform for DVD-quality and HD video content," Vuze, wants to impress with its allegedly 17 million subscribers. Moreover, it claims that the number of its subscribers growths with 2 million each month.

The competitiveness between conventional cable entertainment providers to the home such as the giant cable TV service Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA), and their rivals who provide online peer-to-peer content services, mainly BitTorrent, has obviously increased but nevertheless the market for online movies and other forms of content continues to grow apace. Consequently, applications like Vuze can only profit from the aforementioned growth. Azureus, now one of the biggest BitTorrent client software released Vuze last year.

Vuze is determined to keep its edge and has thus taken action against the attempt of Comcast to reduce traffic on its network which involves big file-sharing programs, especially BitTorrent. About 50% of all Internet traffic in the United States is due to this single network. The step that Vuze decided to make on Nov. 14 was to appeal to the Federal Communications Commission with the claim that the commission should set rules concerning the traffic management involving big Internet service providers. Vuze demanded transparency from ISPs regarding their policies related to traffic filtering and "shaping."

According to InformationWeek.com, Comcast has been facing accusations lately because its inequitable strategy of restricting or slowing some high-traffic applications, namely BitTorrent downloads. The cable company replied that though it does not practice this kind of blocking against any form of traffic on its network it still preserves its right to choose the proper and most beneficial management for its users and control some forms of traffic at certain high-volume times of day.

The issue of "net neutrality" has surfaced once again and its promoters labeled Comcast’s targeting of BitTorrent traffic as discriminatory.

In concordance to Azureus’s new policy to offer access only to legitimate, licensed content, Vuze has joined forces with several important media providers (among which cable broadcaster Showtime and PBS), signing copy right agreements.

However, cable providers are not letting go so easily - Comcast CEO Brian Roberts during the International Consumer Electronics Show held this month, announced the launch of Comcast's own high-speed download service called Fancast. The service is intended for TV episodes downloads as well as other content excepting full-length films.

Forced into adjusting their market strategies "in this new age of interactive media where entertainment is available everywhere," cable-service providers are looking for ingenious ways to keep their customers and their revenue. In this respect, Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media talked about Fancast’s orientation to meet the needs of consumers across multiple platforms.

For the time being the term "multiple platforms" seems to exclude Vuze. This is, ultimately, a to be continued story as Comcast and other important access providers have engaged in a counteraction against the P2P offensive.