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AT&T Patents System To "Fast-Lane" File-Sharing Traffic

Posted by samzenpus on from the greased-lightning dept.

An anonymous reader writes Telecom giant AT&T has been awarded a patent for speeding up BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer traffic, and reducing the impact that these transactions have on the speed of its network. Unauthorized file-sharing generates thousands of petabytes of downloads every month, sparking considerable concern among the ISP community due to its detrimental effect on network speeds. AT&T and its Intellectual Property team has targeted the issue in a positive manner, and has appealed for the new patent to create a 'fast lane' for BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic. As well as developing systems around the caching of local files, the ISP has proposed analyzing BitTorrent traffic to connect high-impact clients to peers who use fewer resources.

1 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's a trap! by walkerp1 · · Score: 1, Funny

    Trinity: You always told me to stay off the freeway.
    Morpheus: Yes, that's true.
    Trinity: You said it was suicide.
    Morpheus: Then let us hope that I was wrong.