Webware

Starting October 1 customers of Comcast's residential data services will have an invisible barrier on their monthly data usage. Under the new guidelines of Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy announced Thursday, that cap will be set at 250 gigabytes per month, per account.

Users who go over the limit will get a courtesy call from Comcast's customer service for the first instance. However, under the new policy a second-time offense means the service is immediately suspended for an entire calendar year.

Surprisingly the company is not providing any tools to help users monitor their current usage. An FAQ on Comcast's support site simply suggests that customers do a "Web search" for bandwidth metering software that will track this amount for them. Going forward there may be plans to set up alerts over certain thresholds, or bundle some official tool as part of the company's starter software.

Comcast notes that the median usage for most residential customers falls somewhere between 2GB and 3GB, a number that is regularly broken within a matter of hours and sometimes minutes by customers taking advantage of streaming HD video and online backup services. The company breaks down basic usage numbers similar to what's seen on the marketing materials on a consumer hard drive:

* Send 50 million e-mails (at 0.05KB/e-mail)
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4MB/song)
* Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2GB/movie)
* Upload 25,000 high-resolution digital photos (at 10MB/photo)

A far greater problem may be the slighting of cloud storage services that offer file transfer and backup. Services like Carbonite and Mozy let you back up and transfer the entirety of your computer's storage several times per month, which on many standard consumer machines can be in the hundreds of gigabytes.

Apple, too, is just at the beginning stages of MobileMe, a service that offers sync and file backup to multiple devices. Additionally, the rumored all-you-can-eat iTunes could drastically change how much downloading users are doing on a monthly basis.

So what do you think about this new limit? Let us know in the comments and the poll below.

At a hearing in Cambridge, Mass., the five FCC commissioners question Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen on his company's practice of delaying peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic during congested times.

(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com )

Update at 3:10 p.m. PST: CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Federal Communications Commission chief Kevin Martin on Monday targeted Comcast's contention that delaying peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic serves user interests, appearing to sympathize with the cable company's critics.

Through pointed questioning at a public hearing at Harvard Law School here, Martin, a Republican, seemed to be pushing a two-pronged agenda: Internet service providers like Comcast should be as transparent as possible about manipulating network traffic, and consumers should have the freedom to, in effect, get what they pay for.

But at the end of the event, which, all told, lasted nearly six hours, Martin told reporters he still hadn't made up his mind about whether Comcast had done anything more than "reasonable" network management.

The chairman was also unable to predict when the Commission would reach a decision on Comcast's conduct and the broader question of constraints on network operators' traffic-shaping practices, except to say, "I think it's important we try to act very quickly."

The FCC convened Monday's hearing as part of an investigation into Comcast's practice of stalling uploads to BitTorrent protocol clients. It's considering two petitions--one from public-interest groups and one from the peer-to-peer video-sharing service Vuze--that ask the FCC to forcibly stop Comcast's BitTorrent throttling and to make new rules defining what constitutes "reasonable" network management by Internet service providers.

The whole debate is an extension of the years-old tussle over whether Net neutrality regulations, which would prohibit network operators from prioritizing traffic as they wish, are necessary to safeguard the Internet's historically open architecture.

Congress is also continuing to consider such moves. Democratic Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), whose district lies near the site of Monday's hearing, has proposed a new bill that would discourage, though not outright prohibit, Internet service providers from engaging in "unreasonable discriminatory favoritism" of content on their pipes. He warned commissioners in a speech at the start of Monday's event to take with a grain of salt any broadband providers' professions of "reasonable" network management in the interest of consumer welfare.

Martin has said in the past that he doesn't believe there's any need for new regulations, be he warned at the outset of Monday's hearing that the commission was taking the allegations against Comcast "very seriously." (Martin has been known to clash with the cable industry on other issues, namely the idea of offering channels "a la carte," in his day.)

Earlier in the day, Martin first asked a series of questions to Gilles BianRosa, the chief executive of Vuze, a video-sharing Web site, in an apparent effort to establish that the service involves transfer of lawful content and does not hog bandwidth.

Then, after hearing from a panel of academics, public-interest group representatives, and Comcast and Verizon executives, Martin asked a series of questions designed to determine whether consumers are getting enough information about the quality of Internet service they're getting and its potential limitations. (None of the panelists, for the record, has ever managed networks, though a second panel in the afternoon consists of people with such expertise.)

He then turned to Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and asked why his company "thinks it's necessary to block" peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic when its customers "are acting within the constraints you sold them."

"Doesn't that undermine the arguments you're making?" Martin asked.

"It doesn't undermine the argument," Cohen replied. "I don't think we're restraining the customers from using the service in accordance with the way we're selling it to them."

Cohen went on to read from a list of frequently asked questions for customers, which he quoted as saying, "Comcast may on a limited basis temporarily delay certain P2P traffic when that traffic has or is projected to have an adverse effect on other customers' use of the service."

Martin questioned whether that sort of disclosure is detailed enough to give both Internet surfers and application developers the information they need.

Definitely not, said Marvin Ammori, general counsel for the public-interest group Free Press, which has petitioned the FCC to declare that degrading any Internet applications is a violation of U.S. broadband policy.

"It's not clear when the high periods of congestion are, what they mean by delay, and if I were trying to design software to that...I'm not sure how I'd do it," he told Martin.

Democratic commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, who have called for nondiscrimination rules, also pressed the Comcast executive to justify his company's practices.

"Comcast does not block any Web site, application, or Web protocol, including peer-to-peer services, period," Cohen responded. "What we are doing is a limited form of network management objectively based upon an excessive bandwidth-consumptive protocol during limited periods of network congestion."

Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate came the closest to voicing reservations about new antidiscrimination rules for Internet service providers. She indicated barring broadband operators from managing their networks for any purpose much beyond defeating spam and viruses, as some public-interest groups have suggested, would be unprecedentedly broad and could be better addressed by greater transparency by the companies.

Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican, like the others, didn't indicate whether Comcast's behavior is acceptable network management. He did, however, suggest the company's techniques may raise separate questions about competition for video content delivery.

"I think if Comcast did not also provide video services," he said, "we would not be here having this debate."

Martin ended the question-and-answer session, which lasted more than two hours, by asking whether the FCC even has the authority to go after Comcast, should it decide the company's network management violates its broadband policy principles. The FCC declared in 2005 that customers have the right to use the content, lawful applications, and devices they wish on the networks they use.

Comcast's Cohen said he doesn't believe the FCC has the power to fine his company. But as for whether the regulators can force the cable operator to stop treating file-sharing traffic the way it does, he said, "I'm not 100 percent sure; I'll get back to you."

Martin told reporters after Monday's hearing that he continues to believe the FCC already has sufficient power to crack down on incidents of Internet discrimination without the enactment of new laws, just as it did a few years ago when a small North Carolina telephone company was accused of degrading a rival's VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) traffic.

Comcast, AT&T, and other network operators would be expected to refrain from "unreasonable discriminatory favoritism" of content on their pipes under a recrafted Net neutrality proposal introduced Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rep. Edward Markey

(Credit: U.S. House of Representatives)

But this time around, the new bill (PDF) sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of a House Internet and telecommunications panel, isn't directly forcing Internet service providers to follow specific rules. The new bill is an apparent effort to be less prescriptive than his previous efforts, which failed in a Republican-dominated Congress two years ago.

"The bill contains no requirements for regulations on the Internet whatsoever," Markey said in a statement upon introducing the bill. "It does, however, suggest that the principles which have guided the Internet's development and expansion are highly worthy of retention, and it seeks to enshrine such principles in the law as guide stars for U.S. broadband policy."

Rep. Charles "Chip" Pickering (R-Miss.), who has argued against Net neutrality regulations in the past, is now co-sponsoring the rewritten measure, which is being called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act.

The modified approach is an apparent attempt to address the howls of protest from network operators, who have argued that previous Net neutrality bills in Congress amount to unnecessary Internet regulations.

The old bill decreed that broadband operators have certain duties: not blocking or degrading content, not prioritizing some applications over others, and not imposing "surcharges" for premium placement, to name a few. Violators would have been subject to penalties. A pending Senate bill, which hasn't yet seen any action in this session of Congress, takes a similar approach.

The new Markey-Pickering bill, by contrast, proposes adding four broadband policy statements to existing federal communications law. Those statements build upon a set of broadband policy principles that the Federal Communications Commission adopted years ago, including recommendations that the government allow consumers to reach the lawful content and applications of their choice and hook up whatever devices they please, provided that they don't harm the network.

Violation of those principles would not carry any penalties under the new bill, according to a Markey aide. The bill does, however, leave open the possibility of tougher rules later. One principle dictates that the government should adopt and enforce "baseline protections to guard against unreasonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degradation of, content by network operators based upon its source, ownership, or destination on the Internet."

The bill would direct the FCC to study broadband providers' current practices and whether "enforceable" rules governing Internet openness are necessary. The FCC would also be required to stage at least eight public "broadband summits" at "geographically diverse locations" around the United States to discuss the state of competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice in broadband.

The bill's introduction arrives amid a recent stepped-up focus in Washington on network management practices. The FCC for companies to slow down peer-to-peer traffic on their networks, as Comcast has admitted to doing in what it argues is an attempt to keep all its subscribers surfing smoothly.

The same consumer advocacy groups that support Net neutrality legislation have asked the FCC to declare that such practices aren't, in fact, "reasonable," and should be forcibly stopped.

The FCC also announced on Tuesday that it's holding a February 26 public hearing at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass., to hear from experts on network management issues.

Fans of Net neutrality laws--including Amazon.com, Google, and a number of consumer advocacy groups--support Markey's latest proposal, heaping praise on the new language before the congressman had even formally introduced it. They have long argued that without strong Net neutrality principles enshrined in law, there will be nothing to stop network operators from, say, charging YouTube additional fees to be delivered to consumers faster than a rival video-sharing Web site.

The Markey bill is "an important step in ensuring the Internet remains open for consumers and innovators," said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition, whose members include major search engines, electronic retailers, librarians, and public-interest groups.

Network operators, by contrast, have long opposed Net neutrality regulations because they argue that they need the freedom to manage their networks as they see fit and that new obligations could discourage investments in building out their pipes.

Scott Cleland, the chairman of NetCompetition.org, a group whose members include all the major cable, telephone, and wireless companies, said Markey's new approach doesn't blunt those concerns. While the "letter" of the new Markey bill may not include those new regulations, he said, the "spirit" of it does, creating the same heartburn for opponents as the earlier version.

Updated at 9:53 a.m. PST: Comcast declined to comment on the measure, and cable industry representatives were not immediately prepared to comment.

The U.S. Telecom Association, which represents large Internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon Communications, blasted the new bill. Group president Walter McCormick said it would "blindly legislate a new national broadband policy, without regard to its implications, and then require the FCC to spend the next year determining whether the Internet is being constructed, managed, and operated in conformance with this new government mandate."

The pro-Net neutrality lobby hasn't seen much action on legislation billed as necessary to "save the Internet" this year. But a key congressional Democrat says to expect a new push in 2008.

Rep. Edward Markey

(Credit: U.S. House of Representatives)

Rep. Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads a key House of Representatives Internet and telecommunications law panel, had previously said he planned to revive his anti-discrimination bill from last year this December.

But a spokeswoman told CNET News.com on Wednesday that life for her boss has been hectic in recent weeks with pressing other issues, such as the Federal Communications Commission's recent move to relax media ownership rules.

The plan now is to introduce a new bill in January. The language is likely to be similar, although not identical, to an effort that was twice defeated by a Republican-dominated Congress in the last session.

Net neutrality, of course, is the idea that broadband operators shouldn't be allowed to charge content providers extra fees for premium placement or delivery, nor should they be permitted to prioritize or discriminate against content.

Markey's previous bill, which drew backing from consumer groups and prominent Internet companies like Google and Amazon.com, would have required, among other things, that a network operator "not discriminate in favor of itself in the allocation, use, or quality of broadband services or interconnection with other broadband networks." "Interference and surcharges" on outside content and applications would be prohibited, as would installation of "network features, functions, or capabilities that thwart or frustrate compliance with the requirements or objectives" of the law. Violations would have resulted in fines or other punishments.

The jury's still out, however, on whether a bill like Markey's would prevent behavior that landed Comcast infamy in the blogosphere in recent weeks--the prominent cable operator's reportedly aggressive management of BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic.

If elected president, Barack Obama plans to prioritize, well, barring broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast from prioritizing Internet content.

Affixing his signature to federal Net neutrality rules would be high on the list during his first year in the Oval Office, the junior senator from Illinois said during an interactive forum Monday afternoon with the popular contender put on by MTV and MySpace at Coe College in Iowa.

Sen. Barack Obama

Net neutrality, of course, is the idea that broadband operators shouldn't be allowed to block or degrade Internet content and services--or charge content providers an extra fee for speedier delivery or more favorable placement.

The question, selected through an online video contest, was posed via video by small-business owner and former AT&T engineer Joe Niederberger, a member of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. He asked Obama: "Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to reinstate Net neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint FCC commissioners that support open Internet principles like Net neutrality?"

"The answer is yes," Obama replied. "I am a strong supporter of Net neutrality."

He went on to explain the issue briefly: "What you've been seeing is some lobbying that says that the servers and the various portals through which you're getting information over the Internet should be able to be gatekeepers and to charge different rates to different Web sites...so you could get much better quality from the Fox News site and you'd be getting rotten service from the mom and pop sites," he went on. "And that I think destroys one of the best things about the Internet--which is that there is this incredible equality there."

Obama added that companies like Google may not have gotten started without a "level playing field" and pledged to make sure Net neutrality "is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward."

Obama's revelation wasn't exactly jaw-dropping. After all, when debate over enacting Net neutrality laws was raging in earnest last summer, he devoted a podcast to touting the need for regulations and denying the Bells and cable the ability "to change the internet as we know it." He also signed on as a cosponsor of legislation proposing Net neutrality regulations for broadband providers.

He's also not the only presidential candidate to voice support for the rules. On the Democratic side, so have Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), former Democratic senator John Edwards, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), and Democratic New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

Among the Republicans, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has also reportedly given a thumbs up to the idea, although some opponents of Net neutrality laws contend he was blindsided in a conference call with bloggers and questioned whether he was familiar enough with the issue to take a real stand. With only a few exceptions, however, Republicans have generally rejected proposals for Net neutrality regulations, arguing the market should be left to sort out complaints of discrimination and that new regulations will stifle investment in new broadband networks.

If nothing else, Obama's remarks are noteworthy because they seem to affirm that Net neutrality is alive and well as a political issue. His decision to promise "concrete steps," as MoveOn.org called them, at a public forum could create a ripple effect, eliciting similar pledges (or opposite ones, as the case may be) from rivals and becoming a defining issue in the campaign.

Still, I don't know about you, but as polarizing as the proposed regulations may be, I'm just not sure I can picture Net neutrality becoming a make-or-break issue akin to healthcare, immigration or the Iraq War.

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?