Cox Announces P2P Traffic Throttling

January 29, 2009 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Cox, the U.S.’s third largest ISP announced the new policy the company will follow henceforth which includes a discriminatory treatment targeting traffic that involves downloading files online, CNET reports.

The company divides Internet traffic into two categories: time-sensitive and nontime-sensitive, with the former taking the priority during the congested hours.

The time sensitive category includes:

Web (Web surfing, including web-based e-mail and chat embedded in Web pages)
VoIP (Voice over IP, telephone calls made over the Internet)
E-mail
IM (Instant messages, including related voice and Webcam traffic)
Streaming (Web-based audio and video programs)
Games (Online interactive games)
Tunneling & Remote Connectivity (VPN-type services for telecommuting)
Other (Any service not categorized into another area)

The nontime-sensitive category includes:

File Access (Bulk transfers of data such as FTP)
Network Storage (Bulk transfers of data for storage)
P2P (Peer to peer protocols)
Software Updates (Managed updates, such as operating system updates)
Usenet (Newsgroup related)

The practice didn’t do too much good for Comcast, it’s interesting to see how things will turn out for Cox. You might want to know about the most recent development (courtesy of Google) which can help file sharers find out whether their connection is being messed with.

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Google Helping out File Sharers

January 29, 2009 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Google offers a new tool which file sharers can use to find out if their local ISP is interfering with their Internet traffic

Google, well known for its favourable stanza when it comes to net neutrality, has launched a new set of tools – Measurement Lab (M-Lab) – created as a device for testing the speed of your Internet connection. A particular feature caught the eye of those who spend a lot of time searching and downloading stuff via Bittorrent (care to venture a numbe?). Its name is Glasnost, and it tells you if your tests P2P traffic has been throttled.

The media giant is currently working also on other two interesting projects, DiffProbe and Nano, electricpi.co.uk reports. The purpose of these tools is to verify is ISP is routing traffic from certain groups, locations and applications. Furthermore, the results can be actually seen by anyone.

The announcements are expected to make some noise in the U.S. where the issue of p2p traffic throttling has brought some companies to the public attention and made them notorious for their policy (Comcast for its past practices, Cox Communications for its recent announcement).

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Comcast: We Will No Longer Block File Sharing

January 9, 2009 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Comcast to Redeem Itself – The Cable Provider Now Practices “Reasonable Network Management”

Comcast wasted no time and started to meet those new year resolutions already. The company has respected its pledge to introduce a protocol agnostic network management policy by the end of 2008, consistent with requirements by Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC received a letter on Monday from the cable company in which the latter said that it has changed its past practices and is now treating p2p Internet sites fair and square.

Comcast’s new system of network management is in accordance to the policies the company detailed in a comprehensive guide released in September.

“Comcast will continue to refine and optimize these congestion management practices to deliver the best possible broadband experience for our customers, and we will continue to provide our customers with clear, concise, and useful information about the services we provide,” Comcast stated in the letter to the FCC. “We will continue to work hard to deliver a world-class service that gives all of our subscribers access to the content, applications, and services that they demand.”

The hubbub that surrounded Comcast (especially) last year culminated with the company admitting to interfering with P2P traffic during peak time. Battered for its discriminatory policies towards peer-to-peer users (and sites) and in spite of filling an appeal against the FCC demand, Comcast finally accepted the terms dictated by the FCC.

The announcement quickly raised praises – Washington-based interest group Public Knowledge, the one behind the FCC complaint against Comcast with Free Press expressed their immediate approval:

“We’re pleased with the development and hope Comcast will respect the concept of the open Internet,” Art Brodsky, communications director of Public Knowledge, commented.

Well, I guess they’re not the only one happy with the change – that huge percent of Comcast customers using p2p sites can have a sigh of relief as they can finally enjoy their activity online just as any other user. And to be a tad theatrical (oh, how I love this!): Justice has been restored!

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Virgin Media Will Restrict BitTorrent Traffic Next Year

December 18, 2008 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology, Legal P2P News & Issues 

UK Internet service provider Virgin Media is working on implementing new technology to specifically monitor and limit BitTorrent traffic in 2009, what Wired calls a reversal of its support for net neutrality.

Currently, the company’s policy is to reduce the speed of those users with the largest volume of traffic at peak evening times. According to Virgin Media’s CEO Neil Berkett (whose words about net neutrality being “a load of bollocks” said it all at one time) the new practice will be operative starting the middle of 2009. Here’s a comment made by an official spokesman which, however, is rather vague:

“Broadband has become integral to delivering home entertainment services and with data consumption growing rapidly, we are exploring new ways to enhance our product offering. Part of this involves intelligent monitoring and understanding the way people use our broadband service.”

A few months ago following the purchase of a deep packet inspection technology used to monitor applications Virgin Media said it “does not discriminate internet traffic by application and we have no plans to do so.”

P2POn also kept his readers informed about Comcast’s controversial practice of throttling P2P file sharing traffic in U.S., which at first it didn’t admit to but eventually made public 3 months ago.

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Comcast Joins P4P Tests to Offer Better Download Speeds

November 5, 2008 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology, Downloads 

The reputation Comcast acquired over the last two years would not have anyone believe that the company is really participating in a test of new P4P file sharing protocol that enables considerably enhanced speeds. Moreover, they seem determined to quickly extend its use. It kind of makes you go…hmmm.

Basically, what this system does is localize p2p file sharing. Currently, when you access a torrent, you download and upload data from and to users worldwide. This affects the efficiency and this is where P4P steps in by prioritizing peers who are close to you (with respect to the network), thus improving the download process significantly in terms of speed and accuracy.

More info about how the system works is offered by ArsTechnica. This technology is based on iTrackers being installed on ISPs networks. There’s a direct proportion between the networks that run iTrackers, how well the P4P system will perform and how high speeds will get. Comcast is at the moment making efforts to set the iTrackers an Internet Engineering Task Force as standard, aiming at spreading and the software as quickly as possible.

So, will this mean happy end for everyone? I mean P2P users are beneficiating from improved speeds and the notorious company enjoys a lower volume of traffic. I think we just have to wait and see how this works out.

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