By Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica
Apr 10, 2008

Full Article

In their latest filings with the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T and Comcast argue that new breakthroughs in "P4P" network management lessen or eliminate the need for the agency to enact stronger net neutrality rules. Comcast's statement, filed with the FCC on April 9th, hails an announcement by P2P developer Pando Networks that its experiments with P4P technology on a wide variety of U.S. broadband networks have boosted delivery speeds by up to 235 percent.

This news, Comcast vice president Kathryn A. Zachem wrote to the Commission, "provides further proof that policymakers have been right to rely on marketplace forces, rather than government regulation, to govern the evolution of Internet services."

Are P2P users "elitist"?

P4P stands for Proactive network Provider Participation for P2P, a system of support for peer to peer protocols that allows tracking devices to communicate with network management systems about P2P flow. The objective, as four University of Washington and Yale scholars recently concluded in a paper on P4P, is to encourage "a more effective cooperative traffic control between applications and network providers." In short, the technology helps file-sharers pick each other in ways that contribute to a more efficient network.

Ars spoke with Verizon senior technologist and Distributed Computing Industry Association's (DCIA) P4P Working Group co-chair Doug Pasko in March, who reported 200 to 600 percent boosts in download speed in their experiments with Pando. Pando's April 9 release says that since late February it has now performed experiments in broadband video delivery to over one million people via networks that include AT&T, Bell Canada, Cablevision, Comcast, Telefonica, Time Warner, and Verizonall with positive results.

On April 7, AT&T filed comments with the FCC's net neutrality docket that included the U. of Washington/Yale study and a PowerPoint presentation on network management. Three top AT&T reps also met with legal advisers to Commissioners Deborah Taylor Tate, Jonathan Adelstein, and Michael Copps. The presentation observes that broadband networks are inherently shared and that "P2P is not necessarily an efficient technology in its present form." In addition, the AT&T trio warned that an FCC policy of "strict nondiscrimination" would only serve "the interests of elitist users," presumably P2P file sharers.

The presentation backs this claim with a chart that asserts that AT&T end-user bandwidth has been increasing by about 35 percent a year from 2001 through 2007. In addition: "heavy bandwidth applications such as streaming media (Web & Multimedia) and Peer-to-peer are driving approximately 80 percent of total bandwidth on AT&T's broadband network." The chart does not break down what percentage of that 80 percent can be attributed to P2P use.

P2P is upsetting

The AT&T presentation concludes that increased bandwidth won't help alleviate this problem, "because the need to managed shared networks doesn't go away as bandwidth increases." The filing claims that in the end there's no escaping the fact that certain P2P technologies have "upset network architecture assumptionsincreasing the challenge and complexity of network management."

AT&T's solution? The telco points to the DCIA P4P group's efforts as one solution. In the meantime, "resolve disputes as to what constitutes a reasonable network management practice on a case-by-case basis."

Pando's press release includes a comment by Comcast CTO Tony Werner praising "the applicability of P4P to cable ISP infrastructures." Comcast's FCC comments promise a collaboration with Pando "to ensure that all of us can continue to deliver ever-improving services to consumers."

AT&T and Comcast's remarks also indicate that P4P technology has already become politicized as the FCC prepares for its second hearing on network management practices, scheduled to take place at Stanford University on April 17. The Commission hasn't released a list of panelists yet, but it has disclosed the titles of the two panel discussions, one on "Network Management and Consumer Expectations," the other on "Consumer Access to Emerging Internet Technologies and Applications."
Full Article