Verizon: No 'need' to degrade P2P traffic...yet
WASHINGTON--Verizon Communications doesn't currently block or slow down peer-to-peer file-sharing applications like BitTorrent on its broadband network, but it can't rule out doing so in the future, a company vice president said Monday.
Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke
(Credit: Verizon)The comments by Verizon executive vice president Tom Tauke arrive as Comcast has taken heat for throttling BitTorrent traffic in the name of "reasonable network management" and as the Federal Communications Commission is studying whether Internet service providers should be permitted to manipulate P2P traffic. Consumer interest groups have asked the FCC to declare that "degrading peer-to-peer traffic" violates the FCC's Internet policy statement, which says consumers can generally use the applications and access the Web sites of their choosing, with an exception for "reasonable network management."
Tauke, for his part, said Verizon has "more robust" networks than its cable competitors, in part because its customers have direct lines to their homes, rather than sharing capacity with the rest of their block or neighborhood.
Because of that set-up, "we see no need at the current time to slow peer-to-peer traffic," Tauke said in response to a reporter's question during a roundtable discussion at the company's offices here.
Still, he also talked at length about the importance of what he variously called "legitimate" and "appropriate" network management in ensuring the network runs smoothly for all subscribers. If, for example, large file transfers were hogging bandwidth, Tauke said Verizon might choose for a time to prioritize voice traffic, which is quite latency-sensitive, over, say, e-mail traffic, which could perhaps stand to arrive half a second later without causing great inconvenience to the recipient.
In doing any network management, however, Verizon recognizes it has to be very careful not to interfere with the transfer of "legitimate" messages (as in, nonspam material) or alter the content of any packets being sent across the Internet, Tauke said.
Tauke is the same Verizon executive who, as reported by CNET News.com last month, said his company wants nothing to do with policing for transfer of copyrighted content on its network. That position was clearly meant to differentiate his company from AT&T, which has revealed plans to try to do just that..
Ever interested in setting his company apart from the competition, Tauke implied that if Verizon's practices were to change, it would let consumers know--a clear shot at accusations by consumer interest groups that Comcast hasn't been transparent enough about its treatment of peer-to-peer traffic.
"One of the most important things is transparency," Tauke said. "Any impact on consumers should be fully disclosed."
On a related note, Tauke said Verizon still believes there's no need for so-called Net neutrality regulations prohibiting Internet service providers from prioritizing content.
To my knowledge you would have to open it and look inside. This constitutes invasion of privacy and is illegal. This also would constitute censorship and that too is illegal.
Please feel free to enlighten \ correct me.
As the torrent packet is being transmitted, it's TCP port number is part of it's "label", so to speak..
Using the information printed on the label of the packet, the ISP could assign any priority they want to the traffic, without even knowing what the data contains.
There is no privacy issue here, just another episode of Johnny Consumer getting the short end of the stick...
To start with, I don't even know if looking at packets going across the connection is against any privacy laws at all. Some would argue we don?t even have a right to privacy. Those people are evil in my opinion.
However, my thought was if I look at what you are sending across it might violate privacy. If I just write a program to read the packet and to detect Bittorent, and I don?t actually look at the packet myself then it might not be a violation.
I am not sure about the law, but I think that is what is going on.
I would have to compare the current situation to trying to run all of the worlds' modern telephone lines off of the original system/design for telephones. It would be impossible to maintain modern traffic in such a situation with how popular phones have become. Of course DSL and Cable are by no means the original means for transfering data over the internet, but it goes to show it is time to move forward, as DSL moved us forward from Dial-up (which needs to be phased out as dial-up costs more than DSL in many cases).
- Great news for me
- by reechwuzhere February 11, 2008 9:59 PM PST
- Not that I use bit torrent or anything, but at least I can if I want to !
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- You may start.
- by Imalittleteapot February 11, 2008 10:15 PM PST
- More sites are using it as a legal method of download to save bandwidth on the server. Also, it provides the downloader with a download manager.
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(7 Comments)It wouldn't surprise me if the regular download link started disappearing off web pages. I've already noticed on some sites it has become easier to find the Bittorrent link than the regular link.