Comcast and Vonage in Internet-traffic pact

Comcast Corp. today announced an agreement with Vonage Holdings Corp., the big Internet phone service provider, to develop ways to manage Internet traffic without damaging each other's businesses.

There will be no change in the billing rates for customers of either company, but Vonage officials say they believe that this will ensure high-quality Internet phone service for their customers.

Comcast, one of the nation's largest Internet service providers, operates a competing Internet phone service.

Critics have said that Comcast could gain a competitive advantage by interfering with Internet traffic - such as data traffic carrying Vonage voice conversations - over its system. The interference would degrade the voice signals.

Comcast's agreement with Vonage comes as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is considering fines or some other enforcement action against Comcast because of its once-secret actions to target heavy users of BitTorrent Inc.'s file-sharing software.

BitTorrent's software is used to stream TV shows and movies, many of them pirated, over the Internet.

Some believe that Martin could act as early as August on the Comcast complaint.

Critics have pressed the FCC to sanction Comcast to send a message to other Internet operators.

Comcast, the nation's largest pay-TV company and the second-largest residential high-speed Internet provider, previously announced cooperation deals with BitTorrent and Pando Networks to show Martin that the problem of managing the Internet could be solved with business arrangements and without new regulations.

BitTorrent and others have said Comcast interfered with BitTorrent because it viewed the online video streaming as a competitive threat to Comcast's pay-TV service.

Comcast denied that it actions were motivated by competitive reasons, saying the BitTorrent users hog Internet bandwidth.

"This agreement helps Vonage to ensure that customers have the best possible Internet experience," said Louis Mamakos, Vonage chief technology officer. "Although we're competitors with Comcast, this understanding helps our two companies work together to balance the needs of network management with consumers' ability to freely access the services, applications and content of their choice."