FCC chief plans to recommend sanctions against Comcast

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin will recommend sanctions against cable company Comcast for allegedly blocking access to file-sharing traffic, the Associated Press has reported.

"The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumers' access to the Internet," the AP quoted Martin saying. "We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles."

The AP said Martin would circulate the order to his fellow commissioners on Friday, who will vote on the measure at an open meeting on August 1.

Comcast has been sharply criticized in recent months for slowing down peer-to-peer traffic on its network. The cable company said that traffic was using too much bandwidth, and caused degradation across the rest of its customers.

The FCC held hearings on the topic in February.

Martin's order would require Comcast to cease blocking the traffic, and give the Commission and consumers details about the practice, as well as detailed information on how it planned to manage its network in the future, the AP said.

I'm trying to figure out what this is supposed to mean "Martin's order would require Comcast to blocking the traffic". Should it be "Martin's order would require Comcast to stop blocking the traffic"? You might need to update that part.

[ittesi259]

Pretty sure there should be a "stop" or "discontinue" there that was omitted.

[jamalystic]

I think this is a much welcome move by the FCC and one which will definitely boost its image again. Many users have accused the FCC over the years of failing dismally to protect the privacy of users. Some even call for the abolishment of the FCC becaus eof their gross incompetence: Abolish the FCC!(http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=466&doc_id=140252&F_src=flftwo)

[humanssssss]

The Internet, like public roads, is too important to let private companies control access. It is the free unfettered access to the Internet that induce the growth of the 21st century.

Comcast can increase their price but do not block access or filter content. Don't be like China Great Firewall.

[zeroplane]

Comcast it's Craptastic!

[McPlot]

What is up this guys $%&. I mean really, look at what he is doing. He keeps nailing cable companies with everything he can. Not just Comcast. Then letting companies like Dish and Verizon do anything they want. The rules should be the SAME for both. Not favoring one over the other.

As for the bit torrent issue, GO COMCAST! Slow people down from stealing copyrighted material. Claim you use it for legal reasons all you want, but face it, 99% of Bit Torrent users were downloaded copyrighted material. Games, movies, TV shows. As for TV shows from other countried such as Animee, there is no such thing as Grey material. It is still stealing it. If the only people using it were using it for legal reasons, Comcast would not have done anything as it would not of caused problems for the network.

[Michichael]

The reason this is such an issue on cable networks as opposed to dish or dsl is the mode of transmission. Cable uses burst transmission/recieve whereas DSL uses ATM. Meaning you can have a constant streaming connection on DSL which is harder to regulate and "interrupt" or slow down than it is on cable. Alls cable has to do is increase the delay between burst transmissions and decrease the amount that can be contained in each packet.

Meaning you can go to speedtest.net and still get 15-20 MBPS with a 5 MBPS upload, however that's burst. Establish a connection that needs to stream (such as P2P, or host a game, or host a video) and your true throughput drops to an average 2.5 MBPS.

That's why FCC is hammering them - the mode of transmission and inherent micromanagement that can be used on it.

[whatisequality]

Comcast should learn that telling lies is very much like eating fish; you have to be very careful. What sort of authority do you think they would be in enforcing ethics (such as the "viewing channels from other countries" that seems to have your pants in a twist) when they themselves have wasted millions on promotions for a 50 Mbps broadband that doesn't yet exists. If the purpose was to raise capital then they should have invested some of that capital in management because now they have an overloaded system that does not provide what it promised [TechNewsWorld Talkback Re: Comcast Goes Full Throttle With Experimental Wideband Roll-Out
Posted by: ernestboyd 2008-04-03 20:12:03 In reply to: Chris Maxcer ] and it is forced to control system traffic however it can, even if it means sporadically crippling a few thousand customers here and there. It's not doing it to control Bit Torrents or any other "moral agenda" that only resides in the minds of elitest, right-wing conservatist who are responsible for the deregulation that is responsible for crippling agencies like the FCC from doing their job. A great deal of "Copyright" should be termed Copy wrong. Allowing a private entity to control something as public as the internet, especially if an ethical tag is attached, which in this case it is not but you think it should be, is a very dangerous precedent to set. It is a sure way of returning to the Dark Ages rather then sprinting forward like we should be doing with the technology that we now have. With the help of certain people and their ethical convictions, concerning the control of whether I should be allowed to access my wife's Music file at home from my office" will gaurantee that China and India continue get closer and closer to having the power to make these ethical decisions for us when we all end up working for them.

[aka_tripleB]

The problem was Comcast slowing file sharing programs, but actually inserting false packets to terminate transfers. That's fine to do on NON-copyright material; however, there is a provision in Title 17 that prohibits altering copyright material. So inserting false packets is illegal anyways, and Comcast can't give proff that it was stoping copyright infringement without confessing to infringement itself. And because Comcast won't incriminate itself, the file sharers will get off scott-free, because it will be cheaper for Comcast to take it up the rear from the FCC than pay for infringement for each time it interfered with a transfer of copyright material.

[catbutt5]

Here's a question for the FCC to ask...
What are the legalities of a company that oversells it's capacity to such a degree that, as Comcast puts it, a "few" users can disrupt service for all?
Wouldn't it be illegal for say a concert promoter to sell one million tickets to a stadium they know will only hold 10,000 people?
It's not like people are demanding anything more than what Comcast is supposedly selling them.

[baisa]

CHARGE A FLAT CONNECTION FEE PLUS METERED RATE FOR CONSUMPTION.

Sheesh.... WHY is this so difficult for ISPs to get through their skulls? What other substantive utility (saving perhaps water in some places) is unmetered????

[Michichael]

Yes, except that in doing so they would be liable. Why? Most cable companies and ISP's hold some stake in advertising.

They would basically be charging consumers to download spam and ads. There's no way of fine-graining the data sources without raising hell about privacy laws.

They would be sued because "**** the content of the webpage was only 32kb and the ads by this company, OWNED BY ISP, were 250 kb which results in .10 charge.