• CNET News.com, Thursday, January 24, 2008 12:15 PM

Peer to peer file-sharing networks, over which music and movie files are illegally traded, have long been the scourge of media companies, but the technology has many legitimate uses. P2P was originally developed to help the research community share huge files over the Internet, but purveyors of video and other sites that require high-bandwidth applications are now turning to the technology. Two good examples are the BBC's iPlayer and the Web video startup Joost, which both deploy P2P technology to deliver higher-quality streaming video.

"Peer-to-peer has entered the mainstream," says Cynthia Brumfield, president of the media consultancy Emerging Media Dynamics. "It's a very efficient distribution technology. But it has to be managed, and that's what needs to be figured out. " Emerging Media Dynamics is publishing a P2P market report next week.

Internet Service Providers like Verizon and AT&T are also researching the technology to help ease the burden heavy bandwidth consumption places on their networks. Researchers now claim to have developed a way to reduce consumption by 60 percent, while speeding up P2P downloading by a third. This month, Verizon and P2P tech firm Pando will start testing the new system. It could be a very significant development, given the mounting fears over a clogging World Wide Web.

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