In the UK, NTL is teaming up with BitTorrent to test a new high-speed movie download service. The company believes that the popular file swapping service can enable NTL to deliver video more cheaply than traditional downloads. Additional data-caching technology designed to further improve efficiency will be provided by another company called CacheLogic. The move signifies an intention on BitTorrent's part to move away from being seen as an application for swapping illegal copies of video, and into being a tool used by movie studios and ISPs for legal services.
"NTL has seen a huge percentage of their traffic in the BitTorrent protocol," said BitTorrent President Ashwin Navin. "But in the past, neither rights holders, ISPs nor BitTorrent derived any economic benefit from it."