‘Skype: BitTorrent Protocol Change Might Kill Service (EBAY)’

by Jon Thompson on December 5, 2008

Silicon Alley Insider has an article on what a potential BitTorrent protocol change would mean for Skype.  Apparently, by rerouting their traffic to time a sensitive Internet channel BitTorrent might disrupt Skype’s traffic.  Let’s hope not.

But Skype insisted the BitTorrent change wasn’t really a problem, because it’s technically easy to distinguish VoiP traffic from P2P filesharing, even though it’s all on the same channel.

But didn’t the FCC recently rule ISPs weren’t allowed to make distinctions between types of Internet traffic? Nope, Skype says. “If you look at what the FCC said, they said you couldn’t disrupt P2P traffic, not that you couldn’t selectively identify it.”

Read on…

Leave a Comment