Peer-to-peer traffic management was a hot topic at this year’s NXTcomm convention in Las Vegas, as keynote speakers and telecommunications industry panelists highlighted new methods for handling P2P traffic crunches.

Internet service providers’ methods for managing P2P traffic have come under intense scrutiny in recent months after the Associated Press reported last year that Comcast Corp. was actively interfering with P2P users’ ability to upload files by sending TCP RST packets that informed them that their connection would have to be reset.

Because the RST packets did not appear to be sent directly from the company, critics accused Comcast of deceiving its customers and actively blocking their ability to share files online.

Although Comcast has said it doesn’t actively block any P2P protocols and merely “delays” P2P uploads during times of heavy congestion, the company has agreed to change its P2P traffic management policies and stop targeting traffic such as that of BitTorrent. Read more »