With researchers at Yale University and a group of companies that make file-sharing software, Verizon collaborated to enable faster downloads for consumers and lower costs for participating ISPs.

File-sharing accounts for one-third of all Internet traffic, according to Arbor Networks, a maker of traffic-management equipment, and some estimates are higher.

At a conference in New York, the Verizon group will present test results showing that when an ISP cooperates with a file-sharing software maker they can speed downloads an average of 60 per cent — though collaboration boosted some downloads six-fold on fast Internet connections.

“This test signifies a turning point in the history of peer-to-peer technology and ISPs,” said Robert Levitan, chief executive of file-sharing company Pando Networks Inc. “It will definitely show ISPs that the problem is not peer-to-peer technology, the problem is how you deploy it. It is possible to deploy P2P to their advantage.”

One of the problems for ISPs has been that file-sharing networks connect users more or less at random around the globe. Verizon shared details about the structure of its network with the researchers and Pando in the “P4P Working Group,” created last summer, and they together created a system that connected users not randomly, but to other users close by.

In a traditional P2P network, if a Verizon customer downloads a file, only 6.3 per cent of the data will come from another Verizon customer in the same city, said Doug Pasko, senior technologist at the company. In the “P4P” trial, 58 per cent of the data came from nearby Verizon users, vastly reducing the company’s cost of carrying the traffic.