Comcast appeals FCC traffic-blocking ruling

Comcast is appealing a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that found the broadband provider had illegally blocked some customers' Web traffic.

The appeal, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, challenges the FCC's ruling on August 1 that Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent traffic last year was unlawful--the first time any U.S. broadband provider has ever been found to violate Net neutrality rules. The FCC issued a cease-and-desist order and required the company to disclose to subscribers in the future how it plans to manage traffic.

"We filed this appeal in order to protect our legal rights and to challenge the basis on which the (FCC) found that Comcast violated federal policy in the absence of pre-existing legally enforceable standards or rules," Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen said in a statement.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he was "disappointed by Comcast's decision to appeal."

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. Comcast had said that its measures to slow BitTorrent transfers, which it voluntarily ended in March, were necessary to prevent its network from being overrun. 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."

Consumer groups were incensed by the tactic, and the FCC investigation ensued over whether Comcast had violated any of its Net neutrality principles.

Since that ruling, Comcast announced plans to reduce Internet service to customers it deems to be using too much bandwidth. To keep service flowing to other customers, Comcast plans to impede Internet speeds to its heaviest users for up to 20 minutes, Mitch Bowling, Comcast's senior vice president and general manager of online services, told Bloomberg in an interview.

The company also announced it would set a data cap of 250GBs per month for its residential customers beginning on October 1.

[Lerianis]

This isn't going to fly at all. As soon as the FCC comes back into session, they will realize this cap on internet bandwidth per month for what it is: a backdoor attempt at getting around Net Neutrality precepts.
I really expect Comcast to be slapped down by the courts as soon as this case is heard by ANY sane judge.

[Pete Bardo]

I'm still glad I don't have to use Comcast, but this is an interesting question. Congress failed to enact a bill on net neutrality. Does that give the FCC authority to rule on it?

This might have better been pursued by FTC on the grounds of false advertising or even breach of contract. I have no first hand knowledge of Comcast's user agreement, but it seems that there was no stated limit to the amount of data the user was allowed to download.

[inachu]

It isn't about so much about the amount of data but the fact that COMCAST has used the man in the middle attacks to prevent communication at all.

I have experienced this tcp/ip packet reset with not just bit torrent but also with online gaming such as world of warcraft. Then the only way to get back online is to reset the cable modem and router.

[tpobrienjr]

Why is this a net neutrality question anyway? Comcast needs to sell bandwith with pricing based on maximum speed. Bandwidth is a commodity, isn't it? Without such contract terms, Comcast is cheating its customers. Net neutrality has little or nothing to do with it. Asking the FCC to intervene is giving it an imaginary authority. In any case, the FCC is a political organization, not a technical one. Don't expect anything from the FCC except politics.

[mjb5406]

The problem with Comcast is that they continue to build its customer base and refuses to spend any money on network improvements. Their idea for dealing with an increased load is to reduce services to existing customers. I spoke with a Comcast customer service rep who initially had no idea of a cap being put into place Oct. 1st, but, upon further investigation, confirmed that it was true. In the meantime, she was obviously prepped by her superiors, since she had, all of a sudden, a plethora of information about how many web pages emails, photos, and high def movies I could stream or upload or download with 250GB per month. Of course, Comcast is not providing any tools for its users to even monitor their usage, and there is no such thing as an extra charge if you exceed the cap... they simply terminate your service.

I've already filed a complaint with the FCC claiming Comcast violates its agreements by signing people up for "unlimited" service then, somewhere down the line, changes their terms of service to their (Comcast's) advantage. False advertising and a breach of contract.

[ckurowic]

I have one of the fastest business class connection available at 8 MBps...I have never experienced the speeds promised, and uploads from my servers are insanely slow compared to download speeds. Also, bit-torrent and other torrent traffic seize up within 20 seconds of initiating the file sharing process. This tells me Comcrap is still throttling connections.

[Lerianis]

Man, I hear you, ckurowic. I have Comcast's 6Mb home connenction.... I have NEVER, EVER gotten over 3MB speeds for some reason, which I don't understand because I am in a rural area where almost no one is on Comcast's network.

[jessicas89]

Boo-hoo evil Comcast is preventing us poor people from STEALING MOVIES AND MUSIC. Boohooo!!!

[ckurowic]

You are obviously ignorant. I am a business class user (with a legitimate business by the way) whose connection is constantly throttled down. Please go away if you have no idea what you are talking about.

[ddesy]

There are more uses for large amounts of bandwidth than "STEALING MOVIES AND MUSIC." What about legally streaming movies from sites that allow it? Watching television online? Things like these could be the next to go with Comcast wanting to "prevent its network from being overrun."

Upgrade the network or get out of the business.

[Lerianis]

Just ignore this.... well, I'll say it: *****! She is just a troll who is, most likely, a paid shill for the MPAA and RIAA.

[educateme]

I wrote to Comcast, and to the FCC several times last year about the unfair pricing on those who want Internet service but do not buy TV cable service, Comcast charges $15 more per month if you dont buy TV. I find this trick is also harmful to consumers and warrants a second visit to the courthouse. They are a Monopoly, or close enough to being one that they should serve the customer without placing caps on use. Brian Roberts and Comcast are crooks, pretty much proven by the way they take the law into their own hands whenever they feel like it. The fact that they are going back to court on Appeal is proof they took a page from Microsoft's playbook, claim innocence, and ignorance.

[ckurowic]

Your definitions of monopoly are faulty, but I generally agree with your comment. A monopoly in and of itself is NOT illegal.

[pctech07]

The real issue is - if comcast, verizon, roadrunner or who ever your isp happens to be can throttle your internet based on what ever protocol they feel is using to much bandwith, then what is to stop them from throttling your skype or vonage phone or instant messenger or online game. Mabey your vonage is competing with their digital phone service. They throttle it a little bit, you think the vonage service sucks you switch to their service. if they cant provide the bandwith advertised dont sell it. Don't sell it then tell you what your can or can not use it for. The FCC should absolutely slam them. If they continue to use this practice the every other isp will be able to use to limit competition for similar services. They are claiming its all about bittorrent and its illegal useage but thats just their way of getting public justification.

[whybother65]

There is a reason why movie studios cannot own movie theaters. This was to prevent obvious antitrust behavior. The content provider and the delivery need to be separate.

It is funny how this established precedent is not being applied to new technology. Comcast is rigging the game to favor their streaming content (no cap) versus iTune's, NetFlix, YouTube, and the younger start-ups. If this is not illegal, it should be.

[inachu]

My sentiments exactly!

[Gayle Edwards]

"See..! See..!" Screams Comcast...

Now... we have to implement "caps", and "throttling", and will, soon, have to move to "tiered-pricing"...

...All because we werent allowed, to block, arbitrary content we dont like (or control), and because our customers actually expect to use the service they are paying for.

Although... Perhaps, Comcast is right... We [consumers/citizens] DO need, hard, clear, enforceable, "Net-Neutrality" Laws, in place, that absolutely guarantee that ISPs cannot monitor, intercept, unfairly-manipulate, or otherwise control consumer-access to such a basic communications-medium.

...And, a little REAL competition, probably, wouldnt hurt either.

[Lerianis]

I have to agree. There is little or no real competition in cable internet or broadband as a whole in most areas.

[joetesta70]

The real reason they want this is they want to sell you TV service for $55 or $70/month. Bandwidth throttling limits you to 2 hours of HDTV per day and most people have 2.7 TVs in the average US home, so you can see this protects their TV revenue by preventing people from just "buying" episodes of 30 Rock directly from NBC.

[jrm125]

This comment makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

People aren't buying TV shows to the point they aren't buying cable...besides the fact your example is network over the air anyway.

And besides, bandwidth for internet is different than for HD content. If they did that, it'd be anticompetitive to the point of no return.

[Lerianis]

Bingo! Frankly, I don't watch TV anymore. Everything I watch, I watch online (excepting a few Disney network shows that aren't online yet).
This is anticompetitive, and jrm125..... THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT. Having ANY bandwidth cap is uncompetitive. Why? Because it limits the amount that someone else can use non-Comcast services, which you KNOW Comcast is going to remove from the bandwidth cap at some time in the future.

[tekwiz4u]

OMG!!!!.....Comcast is really getting old with this crap. Everyone, just dump them NOW!!!!

[amijs]

If comcast cut P2P traffic, they should not have the 250GB Cap.
One of my chinese friend said he only pay less US $20 dollars for all the cable channels and high speed internet with no cap, no traffic limitation.

[jrm125]

China filters their internet.

Pass.

[Lerianis]

Big deal. China filters their networks ONLY for illegal stuff like free speech and child porn. They do NOT limit the services that you can use as long as you are not going to a site that advocates Tibetan freedom or something similar.

[cmstratton]

I don't see the Comcast cap as net neutrality. Pretty much any other service, you pay for what you use. Cell phones are a good example. You pay for how many minutes or how much data you use - although providers do offer "all you can eat" plans now as well.

If you go over your limit, you're charged extra. Some people have argued that Comcast doesn't count access to their services against the cap, which is basically trying to harm its competitors. Well cell phone companies do the same thing. If you call someone on their network, you get those minutes for free because it's on their network. You're only "charged" minutes if you call someone on another provider.

If people are up in arms about this Comcast plan, shouldn't they be going after the wireless providers as well?

[Penguinisto]

So where can I have Comcast turn off OnDemand and have the bandwidth it uses applied towards an increase in my cap?

Maybe you can tell me where I can buy additional bandwidth 'a-la-carte', instead of having to wonder if I'm going to get cut off or not (trust me, I'll leave for Verizon --contract be damned-- long before that happens).

--

If Comcast wants to charge extra for going over the limit, fine - but there is no such language in the contract. If they change the terms on that scale by doing what they've done, then the contract becomes invalid. I'm betting that they don't see it that way.

[Lerianis]

Actually, they SHOULD be going after the wireless phone networks as well. They should mandate that, since the technology is 'mature' now, that the price should be dropping and that the only service you are allowed to sell: unlimited, for 4 wireless phones, no more than 50 dollars a month, period and done with.

It is time to realize that the American people have been being GOUGED for countless YEARS now by greedy phone, internet and cable companies.

[clumpkin]

Declan,

you have repeatedly reported that Comcast's throttling was what got them in trouble with the FCC. AFAIK most ISPs do some form of network "modeling" which is what throttling is. Comcast wasn't throttling bandwidth it was inserting packets directly into existing data streams to cause them to fail completely. Basically they pushed the reset button on the network connection causing all traffic to stop completely until communication was reestablished. It would be like a telephone operator was listening in on a phone call and if she heard something she didn't like would disconnect you. If you want to know more the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good technical breakdown for you.

http://www.eff.org/wp/packet-forgery-isps-report-comcast-affair

[tremorfireheart]

well finally they are going through putting a bandwidth clause in their contract now. it use to be that if they just deemed thou has used too much they would cut your service off or throttle it into the ground. Happened to a couple of my coworkers. We sometimes use generous amounts of bandwidth in the contracting jobs that we take.

[[RR]Macavity]

Dear Comcast:

CRY ME A RIVER.

You did the crime, you pay the fine.

Sincerely,

[RR]Macavity

[ralahinn1]

I don't have a home ISP yet, but I do know that when I do get one, it won't be Comcast^_^

[pursacat]

This is kind of upsetting since I have Comcast. Makes me wonder how private internet really is here at home.

[Loaded4th]

I use an isp similar to comcast, and over a year ago I cancelled their low res TV service, that had over 50% of streaming adverts and use a simple antenna that picks up over 70 HDTV stations in the LA area even though I'm about 40 miles from the transmitter. I'm tired of these isp and cell phone companies nickel and diming the consumer.
The antenna design is at http://efficiency-tech-loaded4th.blogspot.com/2009/07/simple-low-cost-hdtv-antenna.html