Comcast and BitTorrent: The Odd Couple

In a surprising move, Comcast is now working together with BitTorrent. Take a moment to let that sink in.

Comcast and BitTorrent are negotiating to allow BitTorrent's peer-to-peer software to run more effectively on Comcast's network. The Wall Street Journal today broke the story.

Comcast also reportedly hopes to utilize BitTorrent's technology so that it can transfer video files more effectively over its own network.

Comcast and BitTorrent have seldom seen eye to eye in the past. Comcast's tendency to block or slow traffic from people using BitTorrent led to a lawsuit and was discussed at an FCC hearing on net neutrality.

As part of the proposed partnership between Comcast and BitTorrent, Comcast has will "experiment with ways to more effectively manage traffic on its network at peak times," BitTorrent president Ashwin Navin told the Journal.

Comcast will also stop targeting file-sharing applications like BitTorrent, and instead slow traffic to users who consume the most bandwidth. This new plan gets around the Net neutrality issue by targeting high bandwidth users rather than specific applications and software. Comcast hopes to switch to this new policy as early as the end of this year.

I'm still a bit skeptical of how "collaborative" this partnership is. Are the Net neutrality hearings and lawsuits really enough to push Comcast this far from its original stance? Or perhaps Verizon helped it along, by announcing that it has a plan to work with P2P networks to help provide faster downloads and cut bandwidth costs.

But even Verizon was saying it wouldn't work directly with P2P companies like BitTorrent, which Verizon still accused of being a source of Internet piracy. Whatever the reasons for Comcast's switch from its "no P2P networks allowed" stance to working directly with a prominent P2P network, I can guarantee that this story is far from over.

UPDATE:

Public interest group Public Knowledge has just weighed in on the Comcast and BitTorrent partnership and (big surprise) is calling it "irrelevant."

In a prepared statement Public Knowledge states:

"Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen announcements by Verizon and now Comcast that the companies are working to make peer-to-peer technologies work more smoothly. We applaud industry discussions and collaborations, but neither of these developments has any bearing on the complaint and petitions pending before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on what rights users have on the Internet. They are irrelevant.

"The FCC has the responsibility to protect the rights of consumers against discriminatory network management practices. Any future agreements in the private sector do not change that reality, particularly if the companies involved reach agreements that work specifically with some technologies or network companies and not with others. Any arrangements made now would not cover any future developments in blocking, throttling or filtering that any other companies may use.

"The FCC should continue to reinforce its principles of Internet access and should continue to work for the benefit of consumers regardless of any particular arrangements made by the private sector."

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