A new file-sharing program hit the Net late Wednesday, posted by none other than Internet service provider EarthLink.

The software, hosted on an out-of-the-way corner of the company's research and development site, is aimed at showing that a technology commonly used in Internet phone calls can be adapted to create a peer-to-peer network.

The "SIPshare" program--the name stemming from the Session Initiation Protocol technology the program is based on--is part of a larger EarthLink drive to show the flexibility of peer-to-peer networks, the site says. On the research page, the company outlines a vision of creating voice over P2P, video services using peer-to-peer, and other applications, all based on the Net-calling standard.

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