Crave

This Slingbox app for iPhone isn't out yet, but you are already no longer allowed to fully enjoy it on the go.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

For a moment, I thought AT&T Wireless' new Netbook offerings were good deals. As it turns out, not so much.

According to Publicknowledge.org, the company silently revised its terms of service on Monday, just a few days before it announced the new program to offer discounted Netbooks to its 3G broadband service customers in Atlanta and Philadelphia.

In the "Prohibited and Permissible Uses" section, the new terms of service explicitly state:

This means you are potentially no longer allowed to stream content from third-party Web sites, such as You Tube, and may not even freely use video-streaming applications, such as Slingbox (both the existing Windows Mobile and upcoming iPhone versions) anymore. In terms of the bigger picture, AT&T is now treating its 3G wireless data network differently from its wired high-speed DSL network, which still allows you to do whatever you want. This is probably because the company does have to pay for the wireless spectrum, in addition to other investments.

Our friend at Cox is about to get selectively friendly toward Internet content.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

Net neutrality fans, grab your chairs; I have some rocking news.

Cox Communications, the third-largest cable Internet provider in the U.S., announced Tuesday that starting February, it will begin testing a new method of managing traffic on its high-speed Internet network in Kansas and Arkansas.

This means during the times the network is congested the company will--to put it bluntly--discriminate between Internet content and regulate the bandwidth accordingly.

The company divides Internet traffic into two categories: time-sensitive and nontime-sensitive, with the former taking the priority during the congested hours.

Here's the company's break-down of these two categories:

The time sensitive category includes:

• Web (Web surfing, including web-based e-mail and chat embedded in Web pages)
• VoIP (Voice over IP, telephone calls made over the Internet)
• E-mail
• IM (Instant messages, including related voice and Webcam traffic)
• Streaming (Web-based audio and video programs)
• Games (Online interactive games)
• Tunneling & Remote Connectivity (VPN-type services for telecommuting)
• Other (Any service not categorized into another area)

The nontime-sensitive category includes:

• File Access (Bulk transfers of data such as FTP)
• Network Storage (Bulk transfers of data for storage)
• P2P (Peer to peer protocols)
• Software Updates (Managed updates, such as operating system updates)
• Usenet (Newsgroup related)

Cox says the new congestion management plan only kicks in when congestion levels reach a certain high. It also insists the company will ensure that its customers continue to have a good online experience.

Personally, I don't really mind this, because I live in California and games are categorized as time-sensitive. For those who are more concerned, you can learn more about Cox's congestion management plan here.

Update 10:53 a.m. PST: This blog was updated to add information about a third petition related to antidiscrimination rules for text messaging.

As foreshadowed at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, federal regulators this week took the first formal step into investigating complaints about how Internet service providers, such as Comcast, manage peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic on their networks.

The Federal Communications Commission late on Monday posted requests for public comment about two such petitions, both of which deal with the question of what practices constitute "reasonable network management"--and therefore jibe with the FCC's policies. The agency is also seeking feedback on how to handle a third petition dealing with wireless companies' policies for shuttling text messages.

One petition was filed in November by a collection of consumer advocacy groups that supports Net neutrality regulations, including Free Press, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, and Consumers Union. Responding to reports that Comcast was throttling BitTorrent traffic, they asked the FCC to declare that "degrading peer-to-peer traffic" violates the FCC's Internet policy statement, which says consumers can generally use the applications and access the Web sites of their choosing, with an exception for "reasonable network management."

Comcast, for its part, has maintained all along that it abides by those principles and that any traffic management falls within that exception.

The second related petition came from Vuze, a file-sharing application that specializes in videos. The firm asked the FCC to "clarify" what it means by "reasonable network management" and, clearly in an attempt to protect its service, "to establish that such network management does not permit network operators to block, degrade or unreasonably discriminate against lawful Internet applications, content or technologies."

A third petition, filed jointly by many of the same consumer groups that filed the peer-to-peer petition, asks the FCC to declare that text-messaging services are subject to a portion of federal communications law that bars telecommunications companies from engaging in "any unjust or unreasonable discrimination" related to charges, services, and other practices. The request, filed in December, appears to stem primarily from a situation in which Verizon Wireless initially refused to carry text messages from a prominent reproductive rights activist group.

Anyone who has something to say about the petitions will have until February 13 to do so at the FCC's Web site or by postal mail. After reviewing the comments, the FCC is expected to decide whether to grant what the petitioners are requesting.

"These inquiries will go a long way to setting out a road map for determining who will control the Internet," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge.

The petitions being addressed are fairly broad, but FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said at CES last week that the agency would also be looking into the specific situations involving Comcast Verizon Wireless. According to an Associated Press report from Monday, Comcast confirmed receiving a "letter of inquiry" from the FCC and said it looked forward to responding.

What will actually emerge from the inquiry--for instance, what sort of penalties would be imposed on companies found to have violated the FCC's principles--seems less clear.

"We don't comment on potential enforcement matters," FCC spokesman Clyde Ensslin said Tuesday.

The battle for net neutrality might be in its infancy, and already we're seeing casualties. There have been murmurs that Comcast has been capping bandwidth usage on its all-you-can eat high-speed subscribers that have simply used more of their connection than Comcast is comfortable with, along with evidence the ISP has been monkeying with people's BitTorrent usage. Last week GameDaily BIZ got in touch with Charlie Douglas, a spokesperson for Comcast Corporation who confirmed that the company was indeed capping monthly downloads of its "excessive" users.

The actual ballpark figure Douglas gave GameDaily BIZ was "30,000 songs, 250,000 pictures or 13 million emails in a month." This number might not seem like a more than you could use, but as Scott Gilbertson notes on Wired's Compiler Blog, that number amounts to about 90GB, assuming you're going by the typical industry-standard song size of about 3MB. Clearly this isn't a normal usage number, as most people aren't downloading 30,000 music files, but the fact that Comcast isn't providing a clear number that's been set in stone makes this mysterious cap all the more troublesome, especially for users of Web based back up and file transfer tools.

Related: Will Comcast cut you off?

The BBC's recently launched iPlayer, which allows eligible U.K. residents to download episodes of shows they missed on the telly, seems to be a magnet for complaints lately.

The BBC launched its iPlayer service in beta mode last month.

(Credit: BBC)

The Windows-XP only online service has already peeved Mac, Linux and Windows Vista users who can't, at least for the moment, get direct access (BBC has promised an upgrade this fall) and drawn protests over its use of Microsoft-produced digital-rights management technology.

The latest brouhaha is reminiscent of the Net neutrality debate that has raged here in the States. That controversy surrounds whether broadband operators ought to be able to charge content and application makers extra fees to deliver their content, particularly when it has the potential to consume loads of bandwidth.

In this case, major Internet service providers like Tiscali UK and Carphone Warehouse are reportedly threatening to restrict their users' downloading practices unless BBC foots part of the bill for shuttling the large files, the Financial Times reports.

A Tiscali representative told the newspaper that the new BBC service will undoubtedly clog its networks because it operates on a peer-to-peer network. Unless the ISP and BBC can come up with a "cost-sharing" arrangement, Tiscali will be forced to manage its networks by degrading the service of users who attempt to download large files at peak hours, FT reported. Tiscali is also reportedly considering creating a "two-tiered" system in which it would charge more to customers with higher-bandwidth appetites.

BT, another leading provider has been named in the reports as a "concerned" ISP, too. But a spokesman later denied being part of the extra-fee-seeking gang. In an interview with The Register that ran Monday afternoon, the company's chief press officer was quoted as saying, "We're not up in arms about iPlayer, we're not complaining to the BBC or discussing it with them."

A BBC spokesperson quoted in the service's own story was mum about the conflict, except to say, "We are in regular discussions with the ISP's and together are monitoring the costs associated with video on-demand."

But if the other concerned ISPs get their way, one has to wonder if the BBC's U.K. viewers will see a rise in the price of the license they already must pay to access the network on their traditional TV sets.