Peer-to-peer file-sharing makes up a significant chunk of Internet traffic and there’s not much that ISPs can do legally to stop that, nor should there be. In order to deal with this, AT&T has decided to create what is essentially a dedicated lane for P2P traffic such as BitTorrent that will not only speed up the transfer of data but will reduce the networking costs on AT&T’s side of things as well. A win-win by the looks of it.
Despite the growing availability of legal services, unauthorized file-sharing continues to generate thousands of petabytes of traffic each month. This massive network use has caused concern among many Internet providers over the years, some of which decided to throttle BitTorrent transfers. Interestingly, AT&T believes the problem can also be dealt with in a more positive way. A new patent awarded to the Intellectual Property division of the Texas-based ISP describes a ‘fast lane’ for BitTorrent and other P2P traffic. Titled “System and Method to Guide Active Participation in Peer-to-Peer Systems with Passive Monitoring Environment,” one of the patent’s main goals is to speed up P2P transfers while reducing network costs. While acknowledging the benefits of file-sharing networks, the ISP notes that they can take up a lot of resources.