The FCC on Comcast: Confusion in spades

Hi there. We're here from Uncle Sam, and we want to help.

(Credit: Federal Communications Commission)

Let me see if I've got this right. Federal regulators determined on Friday that Comcast broke the law by slowing Internet traffic for subscribers using BitTorrent to swap large files with other people. But then the FCC decided it was enough to issue a press release declaring the victory of the rule of law and now it's time to move on.

Not a penny in fines was assessed and not the slightest penalty suggested.

(Credit: CNET News)

OK. Post-Enron, post-Bear Stearns, post the subprime debacle, I'm long past being surprised by big corporations trying to cover their posteriors for posterity. But what's really amusing here is that Comcast thinks even this rap on the knuckles is undeserved.

"We believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices," a company spokeswoman said in a statement.

But this is less about Comcast's ham-handed ways and more about the absence of leadership in Washington. The Federal Communications Commission, a notoriously political institution, is being forced to figure out federal Internet policy on its own. Pulled and pushed in different directions, is it any wonder that the FCC decision comes off as inconsistent?

Critics correctly note that Congress still has not given the FCC explicit authority to decide Internet policy. Even as the FCC issued its decision, Chairman Kevin Martin went on record writing that while Comcast had no right to prioritize Internet traffic, it's fine to prioritize voice over IP:

We do not tell providers how to manage their networks. They might choose, for instance, to prioritize voice-over-IP calls. In analyzing whether Comcast violated federal policy when it blocked access to certain applications, we conduct a fact-specific inquiry into whether the management practice they used was reasonable. Based on many reasons, including the arbitrary nature of the blocking, the lack of relation to times of congestion or size of files, and the manner in which they hid their conduct from their subscribers, we conclude it was not.

We do not limit providers' efforts to stop congestion. We do say providers should disclose what they are doing to consumers.

So it's OK to put individual data packets under a magnifying glass? But in its group statement--which Martin presumably signed off on--the FCC approvingly cited MIT professor David Reed, a respected Internet notable, who believes "that "(n)either Deep Packet Inspection nor RST Injection"--Comcast uses both to manage its network--"are acceptable behavior."

This takes Emerson's apercu that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds to an extreme. Maybe the private sector can figure things out without confusing itself over regulation from bureaucrats. But they first need clear rules of the road to follow. Otherwise, expect more of the same.

[MacReseller]

Is this part of President Bush's "every citizen left behind" effort. I have a very small business and use the internet for sales. I have a 16 meg catalog which I used to e-mail out every once in a while. A few weeks ago that was stopped by Comcast. No warning, etc. just stopped. Now I have to transmit it in three parts tot get around Comcast. So what does the FCC do? In a slight of hand approves of what Comcast is doing. Just watch soon we will be charged by the amount of bits we transmot just as the phone company use to charge by the minute. No more unlimited calling or data. Its time to gather together and file a class action lawsuit against Comcat.

Why in the world you email a 16M attachment?

Just send a link to the file on your website so people who WANT IT can get it and not be forced to wait through a download (and virus scan) of YOUR message in order to get to others in their Inbox.

[CalBubba]

That's a fairly ridiculous thing to do, MacReseller, because many e-mail systems have a limit on attachment size in e-mail. Let me propose a different approach:

1. Put your catalog on the free web space that Comcast provides as part of your account.
2. E-mail a link to your customers, not the whole catalog.

You will find that works fine.

[francissawyer]

What do you expect of the FCC, a grossly inept organization with a history of blunders and non-decisions. Look at the digital TV "standard" they've permitted: 18 different formats, and no requirement for actual quality.

Why on earth are we dealing with INTERLACED VIDEO today? One reason: The FCC is a gutless, witless council of tools.

[CevicheMan]

I applaud Comcast's effort to inhibit bittorrent file sharing. No matter how you slice it, file sharing program users want things that normally cost money,for free. If allowed to continue file sharing will destroy the incentive of talented people to earn a living using their talents. File sharers are hypocrytes and selfish; they would howl in protest if someone took the results of their labor, for free.

[ironcladmoose]

You my friend are an idiot. Bit torrents are not just used for pirates and illegal things. All Linux distros use this tool because it cuts down on cost of having central servers a lot of things use this for that purpose. I hope comcast restricts your internet because you go over bandwidth limitations, from all the pedo things I'm sure you look at.

[Relonar]

Bit Torrent file sharing is just a protocol used by many to offload bandwidth peer to peer instead of hosting large file on web servers. It's not just for pirates. If you ran a website for a community, and that community say, made a very large file, or large pack of files, and you needed this distributed to a large number of people, the best way is bit torrent. normal http transfers add up very quickly, where as bit torrent can support huge numbers of simultaneous downloads with substantially less impact on the initial seed server. bash the file sharing pirate all you want, they deserve most of it, but bit torrent is useful and helpful to many for legitimate purposes.

[Relonar]

seems some-one got here while typing this, anywho
Bit Torrent file sharing is just a protocol used by many to offload bandwidth peer to peer instead of hosting large file on web servers. It's not just for pirates. If you ran a website for a community, and that community say, made a very large file, or large pack of files, and you needed this distributed to a large number of people, the best way is bit torrent. normal http transfers add up very quickly, where as bit torrent can support huge numbers of simultaneous downloads with substantially less impact on the initial seed server. bash the file sharing pirate all you want, they deserve most of it, but bit torrent is useful and helpful to many for legitimate purposes.

I'm sorry CevicheMan but your argument is incorrect. Bittorrent file sharing is an argument on its own...to which the opinion of legality and morality is not the issue at hand. The issue here is Comcast spying on personal data transmissions. This is the issue...

[gr33nman]

There are any number of legitimate reasons for using bittorrent. For instance, downloading the latest version of a linux open-source distribution. I do that all the time. Any tool can be used for good or bad. You can't ban fire or cooking surfaces just because they might burn people. They also cook our food.

[ray-solomon]

Quote: "I applaud Comcast's effort to inhibit bittorrent file sharing."

Ha, your obviously not a Comcast user.

[Mr_Obvious]

I use Bright House ... They don't restrict BT ... I get plenty of bandwidth no matter what I am doing.
They cap outbound (uploads) at about 250k or so. Downloads I get about 6 meg.
If you are getting bad service; then, it probably says more about Comcast then BT.

[bheae]

What Comcast did requires a court order. Packet shaping equals wire tapping. The file sharing legality issues are best taken care of with undercover bit torrent detectives who find the people who do this in more legal ways. For the rest of us who use the internet for all sorts of things from video conferencing, game playing, renting movies.. etc ALL very high in bandwidth too we should be happy that we are not snooped on. Especially since we do two way communication so often on the internet ( which really is the new phone for most of us ) . So I say it again and everyone should repeat it . Packet shaping ( and sniffing our information) is equal to wire tapping and evies dropping on the old phone lines. It is against the law and should stay that way.

[BrettGlass]

Charlie, good for you; you're one of the few journalists who have pointed out some of the inconsistencies in the messages voiced at the FCC meeting yesterday. But there are more! Let's look at what the FCC said it was penalizing during its meeting today. It said that it's dinging Comcast for "discriminating among applications," even though this wasn't prohibited by their policy statement (which, in another inconsistency, was presented to the public as "unenforceable"). The FCC also said that it considers Comcast's bandwidth management to be "invasive." But in fact it didn't invade anything; it just pruned BitTorrent down so that it didn't overwhelm the network with too many TCP connections. Martin said that Comcast blocked users from accessing content, but this is simply untrue. No one has documented any Web site that was blocked. (In fact, Comcast allowed access to the sites of the lobbyists that were pushing the FCC to penalize it, even those sites contained falsehoods about it.)

The FCC said that Comcast's bandwidth management was "unreasonable," and yet ISPs and universities worldwide use the same equipment and techniques. (Is EVERYONE unreasonable, including the entire world of academia?) It said that there were economic harms, but failed to demonstrate any. (Its ruling, however, WILL cause economic harm, especially to smaller ISPs that compete with the cable and telephone companies.) The FCC claims that Comcast's behavior "contravenes Federal Internet policy," but in fact it does not. The Federal Internet policy is set forth at 47 USC 230(b), and says that the Internet shall be "unfettered by state or Federal regulation." In other words, it's the FCC -- not Comcast -- that is contravening Federal Internet policy.

And again, at the end, we have a second claim that Comcast was limiting users' access to content when it was not. In short, every reason that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin gave for penalizing Comcast is questionable.

The FCC's actions were flat out illegal, because it not only exceeded its authority but directly violated Federal law. The law, at 47 USC 230(b), says that the Internet must be "unfettered by Federal or State regulation." Yet, when the 3-2 majority quoted from the same section during their meeting, they INTENTIONALLY SKIPPED the part that forbids them to regulate.

This ruling was arbitrary, capricious, illegal, and bad for the public and would be struck down in a heartbeat by any court. But of course, Comcast has to litigate to get it struck down, because no one else would have "standing" to sue to overturn it. So, the agency declined to fine Comcast and ordered it to do what it was already doing, in the hope that this would forestall a court challenge. If there were none, it would lead to the agency exercising more power over the Internet in the future -- even though, again, this is illegal.

Hasn't our country had enough of portions of the Executive Branch exceeding their legal authority and defying Congress?

[tjmac3]

For those that are rallying around the injustice of FCC ruling against comcast could you answer the following questions.
If it "legal" for Comcast to break connections you have establed on the internet for the purpose of network management, what s the limit to network management techniques? At what point do these techniques abridge my right to transfer information on the internet through them?
What are Comcast resposiblities in communicating those techniques to me? Is fine print in a AUP(acceptable use policy) acceptable or do they need to tell me directly when they are limiting my connection that I paid for?
Is it Comcast and the gov't responsibility to subsidize the users who are using a large percentage of bandwidth and are paying the same as everyone else?
My conclusion: Given we are a capitalist country that is managing a duopoly. Let everyone transmit what they want and pay for it. Therefore usage based billing. Very unpopular with crowd that is leveraging the all you can eat model. But I do not see a fair (to the taxpayers alternative. (See fallacy of the commons)

[printe1]

Comcast Profit Rises on Digital Packages

Comcast is one of the most non responsive, inefficient companies in today's market place.
Only because they have monopoly status in many markets do they exist. As far as making a profit it is easy when you operate on a almost cost plus basis, waste tons of money and the rates are raised continually. So the customers continue to pay for the horrendous waste and boondoggles that they continually get into.
My complements to their PR staff for continually pounding their chests and proclaiming what a wonderful products they have and what a fabulous company Comcast is.

[Chobix]

Monopoly = only game in town.

Ever hear of satellite?

[maxlharris]

Satellite is a substitute product, not a competitor. In terms of cable, unless you live in FIOS land, a clearly inferior product. The Comcast Regional Monopoly rolls on, despite the many people who think the presence of satellite is a real competitor.

I hate comcast. I could ditch them and go with AT&T for DSL. Considering the selective throttling (they seem to drop my connection on about 20% of VOIP calls, probably because I use Vonage, not Comcast), I might be better off. *sigh*

[pulleeez]

I've been having problems for months uploading, downloading, sharing, etc. I was on the phone recently with a Comcast tech who told me, according to his numbers, my bandwidth was just fine, while at the same time I was getting efficiency readings from my Packet 8x8 test as low as 38%. His remedy was that I disconnect my router and plug my modem in direct. I told him I need the router for my VoIP. Then he suggested that I switch over to Comcast's VoIP.

So now I get it, these NGSOB's have been conducting an ongoing campaign of lies and deception, and they've got the FCC in their hip pocket . There obviously greed driven control freaks and will do anything to get you to switch over. They even have techs pushing sales. Like millions of other small business owners I rely on the net daily. Now I find out I'm being ripped off by these law breaking MA Bell reincarnates. Who the hell are they to be policing the online community when they can't police themselves? Screw the FCC too. And anyway. this is a job for the FTC. If this isn't a class action consumer fraud case, then I don't know what the hell is!

[Mr_Obvious]

Comcast's virtual broadband monopolies are being broken by overlapping services like high speed DSL, and DSL2 as well as fiber, WIFI, and Mesh. You may want to take another look at your options. Try searching online.

[ladyaspelenie]

This is precisely why we left Comcast for their competition. If their competitors are smart, they will capitalize on this by advertising price breaks for Comcast users to make a switch from Comcast to their company.

[Chobix]

What, and discriminate against all other non-Comcast would-be customers... yeah, that's well thought out.

[AryeDirect]

Around San Francisco the company is knows as Scumcast. They've earned the name because of their bait and switch tactics, skyrocketing fees, lack of service, and out and out lies one encounters when trying to deal with their promises. Scumcast deserves to be punished as severely as they punish those of us stuck with their company. Stuck is appropriate due to their illegal sweetheart deals with building landlords guaranteeing exclusivity with no alternative to
Scumcast.

May Comcast rot in Hell for all of eternity.

- Arye Michael Bendeer

[Mr_Obvious]

If you have a phone line, you can probably get DSL, landlords or not

[Chobix]

To those who've read this Michael Moore wanna-be's post.

Pay no attention to this amateur hack. Go read his posts on other subjects, like how he was "duped" by Microsoft into saying he liked the features of Vista, or as he might say, "Visa".

Dude, you even mis-spelled your own last name in your post. People like you, left to your own devices, would have a 1984'ish world. You preach hate against government and corporations, yet, if others don't agree with what you say, we're wrong.

Your writings are comical, and your issues are pointless. Go back to delivering pizza's you no-talent ass-clown.

[chicago5419]

I didn't really know what Scumcast was doing, but whenever I OPENED, my P2P filesharing program, the data in my original browser window either came to a complete halt or became so slow that I would restart the computer. My wife didn't believe me so I showed her. I went to my favorite news site using Firefox, pressed F5 and the window refreshed. The minute I opened my P2P filesharing application, without searching, without downloading, without doing anything except opening the program, I went back to Firefox, pressed F5 and voila, my news site would not refresh. I closed my P2P program, went back to Firefox, pressed F5 and everything refreshed immediately. What kind of stupidity is that . . . especially when I'm paying for my service and merely testing a P2P application.

[morrisocjatsbcglobal]

It's time congress disbanded the FCC. The FCC is too politically motivated to look after big business and not the common persons interest. The common people aren?t just users in the United States, the common people are all the billions of people around the world.

Freedom on the internet is freedom for the hundreds of billions of all users on planet earth, not just the users in the United States of America. The FCC is fouling up the worlds best communication system.



Respectfully yours,



Jack Morrison

275 Princeton Drive

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



714 540- 7676

It? time congress disbanded the FCC. The FCC is too politically motivated to look after big business and not the common persons interest. The common people aren?t just users in the United States, the common people are all the billions of people around the world.



Freedom on the internet is freedom for the hundreds of billions of all users on planet earth, not just the users in the United States of America. The FCC is fouling up the worlds best communication system.

[bmachine81]

You people all complain about the price of Comcast Ive had it for 6 years price has been the same the whole time and its 3 times as fast now. Yes p2p slows my internet some times but not for more than a few mins then it runs at full speed. People just wine so much FCC should keep out of it. Comcast is not a monopoly on anything there are very few places where dish or direct tv is not an option most places have dsl but the speed is not comparison 42.95 is not that expensive for broad band if you dont like it go with dsl enjoy the crawl. Dont get upset when they say signal is good and to remove the router and try again sometimes it is the router i had a speed prob once got real slow speeds less than a meg but my signal levels were fine removed the router speed shot up to 20 Mbps got a different router no probs since All i can say is my comcast is comcastic

[thinkpls]

Isn?t this great congress and the FCC are touting net neutrality and a blatant kick in the nuts to this ideal is met with a smile and a ?can I have another?.

For those that think everything is just fine I have a question for you. How many more internet providers are in your area than a year ago, 2 years, and 3 years ago?

How do you think our internet speeds and cost rank verse the rest of the so called developed world?

Google it.

Most likely you won?t have any new services and the services offered to you and what we have ranks poorly against most developed countries. No I am not blasting the United States of America. I am just pointing out we should want and expect better from our government.

Non filter traffic and competition in ISP providers equal more choices for quality phone services. More people able to work learn from home saving us gas and energy.

?You?re kids being able to compete in the world market to fuel your retirement?

[Chobix]

Bravo... well said. If you don't like the service that a company provides, don't use that company. Comcast isn't a monopoly for video or even internet, since the first subscriber of satellite services went live. Also, in MANY, MANY communities (in fact, the majority) Comcast has competition in the local telco's.

I don't think any company is perfect. But I do know that I have choices. If I'm upset with a company, and I don't move my service, it's my fault, not theirs.

Yes, I'm a Comcast customer... not trying to hide that. They have increased speeds over, and over, and over. Nobody seems to notice that their prices have stayed relatively stationary through that.

Also, as far as the increases in rates go, that DO happen from time to time for the video, I'd suggest that someone go check out how ESPN or BTN make their money. In my most humble of opinions, I do believe that every company has a right to make money any legal way they can. Fortunately for some of these broadcasters, they don't have the front-line interaction with their consumers, like the carriers do. If they did, I'd have to believe that they wouldn't be in that great of financial shape. Go learn for yourself how some of these big networks charge the carriers for the honor of carriage.

[Vespaboy2]

CevicheMan is obviously also not an author or creator of content that needs to be transferred to clients via ftp upload. File sharing or transferring large amounts of data is necessary for my business ...

[palewook]

"I applaud Comcast's effort to inhibit bittorrent file sharing. No matter how you slice it, file sharing program users want things that normally cost money,for free"

dude, seriously, stop believing everything you read. spend sometime learning about situations. Hulu, Joost, Rev3, Linux distros, etc are all valid, legal, and current uses of p2p. and comcast, rogers, at&t, mediasentry have all dropped, redirected, or plan dos'd legal packets on purpose.

[runswithscissorsXX]

While the Internet has many valid uses, it is the main tool for pedophiles and child-pornographers to ply their evil trade, so we must shut it down.

After reading that argument, can we stop declaring *all* torrents to be evil? Aside from the fact that 95% of *legal* and downloadable programs use torrents, what about Radiohead's recent album? How soon until Netflix "Watch Instantly" is throttled? Youtube?

Comcast isn't trying to stop piracy. They're trying to save money by crippling traffic.

In a few more years, when all you're able to do online is look at web pages with a minimum of graphics, don't blame me.

[Mr_Obvious]

Bit Torrent is a trackable protocol, use for illegal file sharing is NOT advised.
I know some people do that; but, sooner or later if they keep it up they will get caught.
Their are other protocols with stealth abilities that would be better suited to that sort of thing.
For legitimate sharing, Bit torrent is the way to go.

Blocking and/or restricting bandwidth of users that use a specific legitimate internet protocol is a violation of the promise to provide broadband service in exchange for the fees charged.

Anyone blocked in such a way would have every right to ask for their money back.

[kannuc]

Have lived in three countries, maybe 20 cities, and nothing compares to the terrible service of Comcast. Their arrogance is overwhelming but in my apt complex, we have no choice. It irks me when they insert their commericals bragging about their speed when I've given up trying to go online between five and eight in the evening because it just dosen't work. Ran a speed test a couple of times and the website gave up because there wasn't anything to measure.

[cmattrun]

I don't know why anyone is at all surprised by this. The congress has become the enforcement arm of the big businesses in this country. If you don't believe that, look at the recent law that allows the government to seize (indefinitely, and without ANY suspicion) your laptop or other electronic devices at the boarder so they can be examined. Are they looking for terrorist plans of attack, kiddie porn, (which I would understand and improve of if there was a suspicion) or are they checking for music or movies on behalf of the RIAA? What ever happened to the concept of civil liberties in this country? When did we as a nation just decide to concede our rights and let the government trample on the constitution? Don't get me wrong, I'm further right than Rush Limbaugh, but it's as though the government through greed or lethargy has become nothing more than a bought and paid for security subcontractor to special interest groups and businesses. It's high time we start reminding our elected officials that they work for us and not corporate shills. If we don't start standing up for our rights, before we know they'll be a thing of the past.

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