Report: FCC expected to rule against Comcast
The Federal Communications Commission is expected to announce this week that Comcast wrongly interfered with file-sharing traffic, according to a report Sunday night on The Wall Street Journal's Web site.
The commission is due to issue a ruling Friday that the cable giant violated federal law when it prevented some customers from swapping videos on file-swapping service BitTorrent, according to the report. Comcast has admitted "delaying" traffic to file-sharing sites. At a public hearing in February, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said, "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."
Late last week, three of the five FCC commissioners voted in favor of an item saying Comcast violated federal policy by dialing down peer-to-peer traffic over its network. The ruling, which won't include a fine, will require Comcast to stop blocking or slowing traffic to peer-to-peer sites like BitTorrent, explain to consumers and the commission how it has blocked such traffic in the past, and publicly disclose how it plans to manage its network in the future.
Comcast, the largest cable provider in the U.S., has been under fire for months after it was discovered the company had been slowing down peer-to-peer traffic on its network. The company claimed it had singled out peer-to-peer, file-sharing traffic, because it was eating up an inordinate amount of bandwidth, which caused degradation across the rest of its customers.
Consumer groups were incensed by the tactic, and the FCC investigation ensued over whether Comcast had violated any of its Net neutrality principles.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
BitTorrent is just a technology. That technology has lots of legitimate uses (and some illegal ones). For example I know of some software companies who will distribute patches using BitTorrent. This lessens the overhead required to host these updates on their servers and distributes the required bandwidth to the people who want/need the patch. It also allows the end user higher transfer rates to get the files they need. That is as long as Comcast or some other TeleCom isn't manipulating network traffic.
No, the government goes after Comcast for breaking the law. If Comcast affects the service it provides to lawful users in violation of Federal law, Comcast is breaking the law. It's really pretty simple.
A company is not allowed to break the law, even if it feels some other people are breaking the law.
Bittorrent usage isn't illegal. Many many many files are not illegal. 3rd parties have verified that Comcast hinders p2p without any targeting, nor at "peek times" it indiscriminately blocks someone elses internet business. Now, maybe tomorrow they'll decide to block Time Warner users from chatting with comcast users. Or maybe they'll decide to democratic websites? This is the heart of Net Neutrality. For the first time in my life, GO FCC!
Anyone who knows anything about data networks knows two things!
1) Peer-to-peer traffic is very aggressive in cliaiming ALL AVAILABLE bandwidth and therefore eats up 80-90% of operators' available bandwidth, if left unchecked.
If the operators add more bandwidth, then the file sharing protocols will just eat that up too.
2) What the FCC is about to do is make "traffic engineering" illegal (a practice which is actually healthy for the network, and done on most, private, enterprise networks to protect the delay sensitive Voice from the bandwidth-hungry data). Basically the FCC is saying, it's survival of the "strongest" (i.e. most aggressive protocols) on the Internet. Say goodbye to viable VoIP and real-time services.
No matter how much more bandwidth the ISP's add, the P2P traffic will claim it, because that's how those protocols are designed.
If anyone doesn't understand what I mean about traffic enginnering, consider this: If you are downloading a DVD, then you don't really care if your download takes an extra 2 minutes to download (i.e. 32 minutes instead of 30). Most of the time, you won't even be in front of the PC and won't notice.
Now consider you are using IP telephony (VoIP), if the operator is not allowed to prioritize traffic, your VoIP traffic (i.e. your voice) may arrive "2 minutes" later than it should (i.e. instead of taking 100ms, it could take 10 seconds) making the application totally useless because voice prioritization is about to become illegal.
Now consider this: A VoIP call uses around 12kbps, while a BitTorrent download will use as much as is available -- several Mbps probably -- totally smothering the VoIP traffic. If the operator were allowed to reduce the bandwidth consumption of the P2P traffic by 1% (assuming a very conservative available bandwidth of 1Mbps), the VoIP traffic could be prioritized and "protected" from being totally smothered. The VoIP applications would acutally work.
I sure hope Europe and the rest of the World don't follow suit. There are Smarter ways to «protect» Internet users' freedom.
(2) VoIP uses "around 12kbps"? not even close... I'll assume that's a typo (more like 128kbps or somewhat less)
What they can not do is lie. They can not advertise "we give you unlimited bandwidth" and then secretly cap the bandwidth; that's fraud. They can not advertise that their users will get a certain data rate and then secretly cap their users to a lower rate; that's also fraud.
The problem isn't network management. The problem is secrecy, deceit, false advertising, and contract violation.
If network traffic management is such a healthy, ordinary, and vital thing, then tell me this. Why does Comcast do it and then deny it? Why does Comcast advertise that users will receive one thing, and then give them something else?
One of the best ways you can tell that someone believes what he is doing is wrong is if he tries to deceive others about it. Comcast throttled their bandwidth in secret, failing to deliver the goods they had advertised. Then, when confronted about it, Comcast lied about it and for months denied it. Does that strike you as good, healthy management?
You obviously do not understand how this works, again P2P can not magically claim all available bandwidth of the ISP, only the available bandwidth of your connection. Of which they throttle because they can not actually provide the amount of service they claimed.
This should of course be disclosed, but it should not be illegal. I don't use a lot of bandwidth, but I do need my internet to work too, and not have the likes of GlenAllen use it all up. If he wants to use his fair share, fine, but not gobble up everything that isn't being used at the moment.
As long as Comcast clearly discloses their policies, and as long as they are "protocol agnostic", I don't see the issue.
If Comcast limits P2P traffic just because it is P2P, that is unfair. But if they choose to say "If you download X GB in a month, your connection will slow by 50%" it's not an issue.
If someone wants to hog tons of bandwidth, let him buy his own dedicated T3 line.
I have no high hopes that the FCC is going to protect our right to freely use P2P sharing. But I do suspect they will vigorously protect their right to be the sole gate keeper for all the policies being set up by Comcast and others.
It is bad network management that got you into this situation not the P2P croud. Comcast deliberately over sold their capacity, and have breached contract. You should have exactly what was stated in your contract, if that be 6mbps, then that is what you should get all of the time. Any other subscriber, even if using P2P with the same contract will be limited to this same amount, its not like P2P users are getting more than their stated contract bandwidths. The entire problem is that Comcast lined their pockets with ever more money and signed more contracts of service than they could provide. It is fraud plain and simple and has nothing to do with P2P users, they are simply Comcasts scapegoats, and an excuse to limit bandwidth they already sold, so they can sell it twice or three times over without investing in network expansion. Contact your local Comcast office and ask them where they are expanding their local network, chances are they are not. I see their vans doing lots of installs, but I don't see any more fibers being laid anywhere....
As part of my pro bono service I help out disabled persons in homes for the disabled keep their computers going. I show them alternatives to Microsoft and troubleshoot their connectivity. 90% of my calls are related to Comcast's providing a speed of only 17-25 Kbs. (1/3 to 1/2 of the old dialup modem speed) when downloading software such as OpenOffice.org. when they are actually paying for 6 Mbs. I have replicated this situation over time and during the same approximate periods of time in multiple locations. At the speed Comcast is providing poor people whom they are overcharging by at least 50%, it take over one hour to download Openoffice.org 2.4.1 as opposed to my "slow" wireless DSL connection, where it takes just a few minutes. TV picture quality invariably is poor in the economy channels, I believe also deliberately. In addition to deliberate cheating of their poorer customers, they have also deliberately over-loaded their cable infrastructure in poor geographic areas. Despite Comcast's knowledge that they are causing the problems, they continue to charge the customer for service calls by low paid not too bright idiots who are taught to proclaim "I know nothing about computers." Finally, in these poor homes, cable is NOT always ON! The signal is turned off for extended periods and requires the customer to call for a cable modem "reset". The FCC is really playing pattycake with Comcast and all large ISPs. That won't change without FCC restructuring and more effective new blood. After all, an incompetent President brews incompetency throughout the bureacracy.
- by sourceview July 28, 2008 9:29 AM PDT
- The FCC has only touched the tip of the iceberg regarding Comcast's unethical and unlawful behavior related to its gross and systematic abuse of customers. Notwithstanding their shady and deceptive advertising practices, and field technicians without a modicum of technology, Comcast also throttles down its promised and paid for download services based on the socio-economic status of its customers.
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(19 Comments)As part of my pro bono service I help out disabled persons in homes for the disabled keep their computers going. I show them alternatives to Microsoft and troubleshoot their connectivity. 90% of my calls are related to Comcast's providing a speed of only 17-25 Kbs. (1/3 to 1/2 of the old dialup modem speed) when downloading software such as OpenOffice.org. when they are actually paying for 6 Mbs. I have replicated this situation over time and during the same approximate periods of time in multiple locations. At the speed Comcast is providing poor people whom they are overcharging by at least 50%, it take over one hour to download Openoffice.org 2.4.1 as opposed to my "slow" wireless DSL connection, where it takes just a few minutes. TV picture quality invariably is poor in the economy channels, I believe also deliberately. In addition to deliberate cheating of their poorer customers, they have also deliberately over-loaded their cable infrastructure in poor geographic areas. Despite Comcast's knowledge that they are causing the problems, they continue to charge the customer for service calls by low paid not too bright idiots who are taught to proclaim "I know nothing about computers." Finally, in these poor homes, cable is NOT always ON! The signal is turned off for extended periods and requires the customer to call for a cable modem "reset". The FCC is really playing pattycake with Comcast and all large ISPs. That won't change without FCC restructuring and more effective new blood. After all, an incompetent President brews incompetency throughout the bureacracy.