NTL, the largest broadband provider in the United Kingdom, will be testing the file-swapping service that will let users purchase movies and music video more cheaply than traditional downloads.
The trial, which will also include another technology company from Cambridge, England-based CacheLogic Ltd., comes as BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen works to establish the software as a legitimate means of distributing content; it will add its data-caching technology to improve the network’s efficiency.
The deal is the first public step forward for BitTorrent’s hope to turn its technology, widely used for swapping illegal copies of video, into a tool used by movie studios and ISPs for legal services.
The free software is currently one of the most popular ways to share pirated TV and movies. BitTorrent traffic is estimated to account for roughly a third of all Internet bandwidth, and an even higher proportion on NTL’s network.
Cohen started BitTorrent Inc. last year — well after the software had become a hit with Internet users — and his company has entered talks with Hollywood and Internet service providers to find ways to use the peer-to-peer software to distribute legal, paid downloads.
We are working with rights-holders and ISPs because we view ourselves at the center of a lot of the activity going on here, said BitTorrent Inc. Chief Operating Officer Ashwin Navin.
Each country has a different dynamic around P2P, but I would say Europe is slightly more progressive than the U.S., he added. "There has been a lot of banter about video over the Internet this year, but for BitTorrent it is a few years old."
NTL has seen a huge percentage of their traffic in the BitTorrent protocol, said Navin. But in the past, neither rights holders; neither ISPs nor BitTorrent derived any economic benefit from it.
BitTorrent’s enormous use of bandwidth has been expensive for some Internet providers. In the trial, CacheLogic will store frequently downloaded files within the NTL network, speeding up downloads and reducing expensive interconnect-charges.
The technical trial will begin in April and will go through the summer, the companies said. Navin declined to say what content will be used in the trial, but noted that NTL is a cable company, and thus has rights to video content. NTL said the trial would initially involve less than 100 homes.
In November, the company struck a deal with the Motion Picture Association of America to remove copyrighted material from the BitTorrent.com search engine.