P2P Speed Tests on Cable Networks Approach Verizon Results
Network protocols for speeding peer-to-peer transfers worked nearly as well on U.S. cable networks as they did with Verizon, managed P2P service Pando Networks said. Pando and Verizon lead the Distributed Computing Industry Association P4P Working Group, which is working on ways to get P2P traffic to consume less bandwidth. Verizon reduced P2P traffic from outside its network by more than half, slashing transit costs, in Pando’s tests (WID March 21 p1). Data released Wednesday highlighted results at U.S. cable networks and international broadband networks, to show that Verizon and U.S. telcos aren’t just a P2P speeding fluke, Pando CEO Robert Levitan told us.
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Pando ran tests on 3,000 ISPs in the U.S. and abroad, delivering a video over the Internet to about 1.25 million users divided into three groups, Levitan said. A third got the video through “native” P2P transfers with no management, a third used P4P protocols and “ISP-supplied topological data” and the rest used proprietary Network Aware technology by Pando. Verizon and Telefonica were the only ISPs to supply their network topologies and use P4P, Levitan said. Other participants included Comcast, AT&T, Cablevision, Time Warner, Cox, BT, Bell Canada, Orange and Tiscali.
Delivery speeds rose as much as 235 percent for U.S. cable networks and 898 percent for international broadband networks using Pando’s technology, the company said. In the U.S., Pando managed to route data internally for each cable network 43 percent of the time, up from 2 percent with no management. Inter-ISP data transfers fell 34 percent worldwide -- up to 44 percent in the U.S. and 75 percent internationally, Pando said. DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty said field test results “exceeded our expectations coming out of preliminary simulation tests.” Pando Chief Technology Officer Laird Popkin said the company will help ISPs deploy “carrier-grade P2P technologies.”
Telefonica will be the next ISP to release results, in a week or two, Levitan said. Other networks must consent before Pando makes their internal results public, he said. Comcast’s improvement in internal routing of P2P traffic was closer to the 50 percent that Verizon achieved than the 2 percent with no P2P management, Levitan said. A Comcast official didn’t immediately return a message to comment on its exact results.
Lafferty told us earlier that no P2P company would be kept out of the P4P Working Group, even those seen as capitalizing on copyright infringement, but Levitan predicted “natural self-selection” will keep tensions low. Any P2P company wanting to use the P4P protocols must get the network topology from an ISP, and ISPs won’t give that to companies known to aid infringement, Levitan said. Pando users may be swapping infringing files here and there, but the company can disable distribution once notified, he said: “We have a clean reputation.”