Verizon Unveils P4P Traffic, 2x Faster Downloads

Verizon may still be evil, that has yet to be confirmed or denied, but some of it's recently will make me a die-hard fan.... assuming they don't have a wide open back door for the Feds. News today from a recent company study points to even more things to love about Verizon.

Proving that you don't have to hate and hinder P2P traffic, Verizon teamed up with a few partners to try and find a productive way to handle the heavy P2P traffic on their network. In studying typical P2P traffic, they found that the current P2P protocols grab bits of data randomly, using no discretion in deciding whether it should grab a packet from a neighbors computer or from a computer across the globe. Because of this lackadaisical approach to file sharing, P2P protocols (like Bit Torrent) have unnecessarily bogged down networks. So Verizon posed the question: Instead of eliminating P2P, what if we just made it work better?

The answer: Making P2P work better reduced the traffic congestion on their network by 50%, while nearly doubling download speeds. This in turn saves Verizon money and improves the overall customer experience for both P2P-ers and non- P2P-ers.

The technology, which has been branded P4P, directs file sharing protocols to the nearest file, meaning that if I can get a packet of information from someone here in Chicago rather than someone in Beijing, than it'll grab it from the local source instead, only resorting to further distances when necessary. This technology was able to keep 58% of file sharing local, which increased the download speeds of users and reduced the network stress for Verizon.

So what do you know, a tech company actually worked to develop a win-win situation instead of immediately jumping on the harm-the-customer bandwagon? Are you listening Comcast? Maybe you should go talk to the guys at Verizon. Seems to me that they will be stealing all your business pretty soon if they continue to innovate like this while all you do is stifle your existing technology.

Verizon touts smart P2P software [News.com]