Talks on Broadband P2P Practices Expected to Involve Many Firms
Negotiations on how Internet service providers, content rights holders and peer-to-peer application providers should handle P2P file transfers on broadband networks (CD April 16 p6) are expected to include dozens of companies, said two officials who will be involved in the talks. Most of the approximately 60 members of the Distributed Computing Industry Association’s P4P Working Group probably will join discussions on a so-called bill of rights for P2P consumers, ISPs and content providers, they said. Comcast and Pando, a company whose product helps hasten P2P file transfers and save network capacity, said Tuesday they'll lead the talks and hope to have a finished document this year.
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Participants will meet under the DCIA’s umbrella, said CEO Martin Lafferty. “I would expect significant participation,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s a pretty important effort.” P2P application providers, ISPs and content rights holders are “essential” for “it to be a worthwhile work product,” he added. He expects most P4P members will participate. That group includes Alcatel- Lucent, AT&T, Cisco, Microsoft, Nokia and Yahoo.
An outline for the bill of rights, or perhaps even a draft of the document, will be complete by May 5 in time to be made public and discussed at the P2P Media Summit beginning that day in Los Angeles, Lafferty said. A “finished, published” document will be complete in two to six months, depending on its complexity, companies’ interest in taking part and other considerations, he said. “It’s too soon to tell.”
The first meeting is Monday at Pando’s office in New York, CEO Robert Levitan said. The meeting will include a limited number of participants, including Comcast, he said. Future gatherings will be “open to any ISP, any peer to peer technology company and any content owner or distributor,” Levitan said. “Comcast and Pando hope to lead this effort, but it is not our sole responsibility. We will just be two of many companies that will be sitting at the table. That’s the goal.”
Levitan was invited by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to the commission hearing in Palo Alto, Calif., Thursday on network management, but he said he can’t make it. “I'm flattered that a company as small as ours was asked to participate, but I do need more than one day’s notice,” Levitan said. Martin made the invitation hours after the Comcast-Pando deal was announced. He also invited Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner, but a witness list released midday Wednesday didn’t include him. (See separate report in this issue.) “Establishing a specific and clearly defined P2P bill of rights is an interesting idea with potentially important implications for all Internet users,” Martin said in a written statement late Tuesday. He said he invited Levitan and Werner to learn more about the effort.