Verizon’s new CDN paves way for P2P

Verizon Communications’ announcement of a new content delivery network (CDN) for its users gives the carrier a strong path to using peer-to-peer (P2P) technology in CDNs. And because the carrier is using the CDN to serve its own customers, it gives Verizon a level of control unique in the CDN space.

A key reason for Verizon’s selection of the Velocix platform as the basis of its new CDN is the vendor’s native support of P2P technology, Verizon said, though the carrier is not yet using the platform’s P2P capabilities. The first consumer offering that Verizon is announcing as being delivered through the new CDN, the Starz Play on-demand offering, does not currently use P2P, for example.

“It’s not doing P2P for us about of the box,” said Doug Pasko, Verizon’s senior technologist. “Our intention is to support the ability to do [P2P]. If someone out there is looking to do a hybrid P2P solution, we don’t want to turn them away.”

However, Verizon has repeatedly talked about the potential for P2P in content delivery, even mulling the notion of harnessing customer premises devices such as set-top boxes as P2P nodes. And Pasko himself co-chairs the P4P Working Group, which focuses on developing new P2P architectures for more efficient content delivery.

UK-based Velocix is something of a P2P specialist in the CDN space.

“Velocix is unique in the sense that…their underlying technology, from day one, was built on top of P2P,” said Dan Rayburn, executive vice president of StreamingMedia.com, a publication covering online video technology. “[Aside from Velocix and another company, Abacast], everyone else [in the CDN space] is partnering with Pando or some other P2P company.”

At the same time, Velocix’s platform isn’t exclusive to P2P. It offers the option of more traditional CDN methods and even works with multiple P2P approaches. “It’s not like they only support the BitTorrent technology,” Rayburn said. “They’ll support any P2P company’s technology on their network. They’re very open that way.”