Verizon Communications appears to be working toward a more friendly relationship with the peer-to-peer Internet file-sharing community. The company today is scheduled to showcase test results that prove how service providers can use creative connection and routing methods to help speed up downloads by an average of 60%. Verizon reportedly worked with Pando Networks and others in the P4P Working Group last summer to develop a more intelligent system for connecting P2P users with other nearby users.
The interest Verizon has in working on solutions to improve file-sharing comes not long after TV network NBC said it would work with Pando to do the same. Could this be the first break in the stance that most telcos and other broadband service providers have held against file-sharing?
"Verizon does not accept the role of network police agency," company officials say in an Associated Press story today. It is good to see a broadband service provider actually wanting to work with an ever-growing community of users, rather than against them. It's not clear yet that other service providers will follow.
For more:
- here's the story from the Associated Press
- Dan