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Comcast, Pando to Work on P2P Bill of Rights

By Cynthia Brumfield

Two days before the FCC holds its re-do hearing (note the FCC still relies on either Word or PDF and not HTML for its announcements) on broadband network management practices at Stanford, Comcast has announced it is partnering with P4P pioneer Pando Networks to create a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" for peer-to-peer users and ISPs.

Working with other players, Pando and Comcast plan to spell out "what choices and controls consumers should have when using P2P applications as well as what processes and practices ISPs should use to manage P2P applications running on their networks." I'm not exactly sure what this means but I've got a note into Comcast seeking further clarification.

Just as Verizon and AT&T have done, Comcast will test out Pando's technology to see how it can best manage P2P traffic, although from the sounds of it, Comcast will simply use Pando's platform to measure traffic. Verizon and AT&T have tested Pando's P4P technology so that P2P bandwidth demands are reduced.

This is Comcast's latest act of contrition following the discovery that the nation's top operator interferes with P2P applications. The company forged a pact with BitTorrent to help devise ways of creating protocol neutral traffic management technologies.

Update: Consumer and public interest groups are, not surprisingly, skeptical that Comcast is capable of steering an initiative aimed at creating a consumer bill of rights. Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said in a statement:

The fact that Comcast is trying to come up with a Bill of Rights for customers is ludicrous. This is the company that not only lied for a year about the workings of its Internet service, but also created such ill will among its cable subscribers that one elderly woman busted up a customer service office with a hammer because she and her husband were kept waiting for hours in the heat.

On the other hand, the Distributed Computing Industry Association announced a call for participation in crafting the new bill of rights at its upcoming P2P Media Summit in LA. The Association represents a wide range of companies that use or supply P2P or some form of distributed computing technology.

Full post as published by IP Democracy on April 15, 2008 (boomark / email).