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Comcast Invests in P2P

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the evil-until-it-saves-the-man-some-money dept.

AHTuttle writes to mention Comcast, recently under fire for throttling P2P traffic, has decided to invest in a P2P video-delivery startup called GridNetworks. "Seattle-based GridNetworks on Monday said that Comcast would make an unspecified investment in the company and collaborate on developing so-called peer-to-peer file-sharing techniques that are 'friendly' to Internet service providers."

6 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Neutrality, schmeutrality by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Insightful

    peer-to-peer file-sharing techniques that are "friendly" to Internet service providers. "Friendly" meaning, of course, that the customer pays the ISP extra for it.

    1. Re:Neutrality, schmeutrality by justsomecomputerguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, yes, there's probably that, immediate upfront scratch is not to be ignored...

      but I worried about the idea that they'll try to force subscribers to load their P2P software on any/all machines that want to connnect, even if you don't WANT to use ANY P2P. This is just pure paranoia on my part of course, unless I'm right.

      Why not "legally" turn ALL their customers into "bots" via the seducing promise of better video sharing on "their" P2P network. I'm just saying...

  2. That baby will be born dead. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Insightful

    An ISP will be stuck carrying traffic for whatever systems are deployed. It can't deploy one of its own and try to force people to use it (at least not without coming under fire on antitrust grounds).

    And the commercial product will not become widely adopted and displace the other P2P applications. To do that it would have to be about 10 times as good an application and there isn't that much headroom available. (As for slowing down the other P2P applications, see above.)

    Finally, it won't even be able to compete equally on a level playing field because it will certainly be hobbled with DRM.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  3. Antitrust by Bovius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This screams antitrust and conflict of interest. It screams it from every cell phone tower and internet backbone.

    No, we don't have a problem with P2P...as long as you're using ours. Yeah, I know, people will always find a way around it as long as there's a network somehow connecting two computers, but that's not the point.

  4. Re:Perhaps we should give Comcast a break by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Aren't they just trying to speed up their internet for the average user

          No, they're not. How does using method A vs method B change the amount of megabytes of data that user X wants to download? It's irrelevant, unless you can prove to me that their "method" uses less "overhead" (the amount of stuff in each packet that isn't actual data). But downloading 400MB via bittorrent, limewire, Kermit or a binary dump is still going to amount to a 400MB download.

          However you may have a bright future in either marketing or politics.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  5. Re:Meanwhile, I still have issues with BT... by joshtheitguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you have Comcast or Cox Cable, it is a good bet to blame the ISP first.