BitTorrent firms: Comcast throttling is anticompetitive
BitTorrent and other companies that provide bulk file distribution lashed out at Comcast on Thursday, saying the throttling of peer-to-peer connections is a naked attempt to harm video services that compete with cable TV.
Comcast's throttling "not only affects BitTorrent but also affects the hundreds of companies that use BitTorrent technology," Eric Klinker, the company's chief technology officer, told reporters on Thursday. Klinker's comments come a day after Comcast defended the practice in a lengthy filing with the Federal Communications Commission.
While the BitTorrent protocol has long been used for piratical purposes, the company formed to commercialize it has signed up a slew of business partners from the entertainment industry that use it to reduce their bandwidth costs while distributing video. Those partners include Warner Bros., Viacom, PBS, and Paramount Pictures.
What that means is that Comcast is slamming the brakes on perfectly legal television watching that happens to take place over the Internet--leaving it open to allegations of anticompetitive activity. As more TV watching shifts online, the argument goes, Comcast will lose its enviably lucrative position as the content gatekeeper for cable TV and become one of many providers of a commodity broadband service with slimmer margins.
"It becomes more troubling when the network operator is a competitor," said Jay Monahan, the general counsel of Vuze, which in part initiated the FCC proceeding. "Comcast is a competitor to all of us who deliver high-quality video content."
Vuze uses the BitTorrent protocol and a client called Azureus to distribute video from partners such as Showtime, A&E, and the BBC. (In an concession that BitTorrent means more than just transferring pirated material, Comcast's brief to the FCC this week doesn't even mention the word "copyright" or "piracy.")
From Comcast's perspective, it's merely trying to set some reasonable limits on its most bandwidth-consuming customers--thereby avoiding having all of its customers' connections grind to a halt because of BitTorrent's insatiable appetite. It notes that peer-to-peer applications can consume up to 80 percent of a network's capacity and says throttling represents reasonable network management practices.
Comcast admits that it targets BitTorrent, but it denies that it throttles based on the content of the BitTorrent streams. "It's all based on the amount of uploading traffic in the area," said Sena Fitzmaurice, a spokeswoman for Comcast. "We don't know what that traffic is. When traffic has gotten to the point that it begins to degrade the experience of other users in that area, we have to manage uploads." (Comcast says it doesn't manage--that is, throttle--BitTorrent downloads.)
An electronic arms race
The Comcast vs. BitTorrent battle is fast becoming a full-blown electronic arms race. One way to try to defeat throttling is to encrypt the individual Internet Protocol datagrams so a network provider may not even know that BitTorrent is being used.
"We've been able to successfully avoid any significant impact through our own evasive maneuvers, such as encryption," Monahan of Vuze said. But, he added, "I have no confidence that we and our colleagues in the space will be able to do this indefinitely."
Comcast's Fitzmaurice says this arms race is one reason her employer hasn't provided many details publicly about how it detects BitTorrent streams and how it throttles them. "They're constantly finding ways around the way the network is being managed," she said.
Another application that relies on BitTorrent, Miro, can automatically download videos from channels based on RSS feeds. Miro, previously called Democracy Player, has Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows clients. (Here's CNET's review).
Nicholas Reville, a co-founder of the Participatory Culture Foundation behind Miro, said on Thursday: "The filtering we're seeing from ISPs is directly affecting our users...We absolutely must have strong Net neutrality legislation."
That was a common refrain from BitTorrent-the-company and the constellation of start-ups that rely on BitTorrent-the-protocol. They're rallying around new legislation introduced this week by Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of a House of Representatives Internet and telecommunications panel.
At the moment, the BitTorrent alliance probably does not have the law on its side. The House of Representatives rejected extensive Net neutrality rules nearly two years ago, so the closest thing to formal rules are informal FCC broadband principles (PDF) saying consumers should be able to run applications they want--"subject to reasonable network management."
Which is, of course, exactly what Comcast says it's doing.
Markey's new bill (PDF) is not nearly as regulatory as previous Net neutrality efforts. It doesn't give the FCC unchecked authority over the Internet, for instance. Instead, it requires the FCC to initiate a "proceeding," hold public events, and provide a report back to Congress.
That may not be enough to satisfy the BitTorrent alliance--don't be surprised if you eventually see a Markey bill version 2.0 that's more regulatory--but from their perspective, it would help provide a far better experience than today's.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
I can't even watch HD some nights of the week. The picture
freezes, audio drops out every few seconds, etc. Since the
problem never occurs during the day it appears to me to be lack
of bandwidth.
If they actually delivered to their customers what they advertised
they probably wouldn't have been able to achieve a 54% rise in
fourth-quarter earnings. So give them a break, will 'ya.
Now, where's that number for DirecTV?
This is a very good article since competition from hand-picked downloaded content, legal or otherwise, clashes head-on with subscription TV's outdated model of pushing lots of inane content and selling advertising on bundled channels that few people would want otherwise. There's also the classical problem of oversold bandwidth, of which contention by heavy usage is a symptom, not a cause. These are the real problems, the rest is FUD.
This is why we are crazy laws when it comes to technology and the lawmakers have no clue how technology works. No wonder RIAA can't grasp why everyone thinks they are insane.
Can't you see what's going on? They're creating a false shortage to charge more. Supply and demand influenced by greed. They shouldn't offer unlimited if they can't hack it.
Idiot...
As far as I'm concerned, if they advertise "unlimited internet", it should be unlimited and perform at the speeds they advertise. If they dont have the network capacity to handle those speeds, thats their problem-- they shouldn't advertise those speeds.
By the way, what they are doing is not "reasonable network management". If it was reasonable, they would only throttle it down to like 20 k/s. Instead, as soon as you begin to seed a torrent, the upload rate drops to basically zero.
What really bothers me is how often they denied it. If they're throttling what I'm paying for, they should at least tell me about it and not try to pretend their not doing it.
Sorry to be rude, but the real problem is if they offered us both unlimited we should both get unlimited. If they can't handle it they shouldn't offer it.
They want to be able to throttle so they can steal a little of what they sold to you in contract, to get more contracts. Who better to steal from than people using a competitors product?
Why can't they accomidate the contracts they sold? Oh thats right they have more than just greed on their minds....they have their cable TV business to protect too....
BitTorrent aside I don't think they should be allowed to throttle traffic below contracted levels, for anything other than actual emergency real-time traffic, and only as temp fix, until new capacity is online. Which they better be working on.
If Comcast can't handle that, they shouldn't advertise the capability in the first place.
Roadrunner Extreme 20Mbps down 1Mbps up. I rarely watch
standard TV and of all the channels I watch, most of them are OTA
broadcasts I already get in HD and the only other channels I do
want don't come in HD. Discovery (not HD theater), NGC and
history channel. They need a better package I never even use the
phone.
Easy call.
IMO Comcast has every right to manage its networks this way. How about they just come right out and say that BT is not allowed on their service? That would cut it out all. They have the right to do that at this point, just like their residential service does not allow web, email and ftp servers, for the same reason, bandwidth.
untrue. It is paid for by the subscriber, it's not free. If I but
Internet service with 1mbs capacity, then I should be able to use
that 1mbps as I see fit. The Company providing me content pays
for whatever bandwidth that they need to support its customers
from it's own provider. Apple delivers content to iTunes users
over cable modems, but no one is asking iTunes to to pay
Camcast for the bandwidth they use. If that were the case, the
price for content would increase, and I would expect Comacast
to provide my service for free.
time. not huge files that take hours; rather just a number of MB
that I need to move around. What I notice is that they start out nice
and fast, and then they start dragging, as Comcast throttles them
down almost immediately. For those jerks to stand up in front of
congress and pretend they are not putting the brakes on almost
everything is laughable. What a bunch of liars.
What is really needed is more carriage choice, but until then the cable co's need to be under a magnifying glass for conflict of interest, and spanked when crossing the line!
If Comcast is having bandwidth problems that are affecting other customers, then they should start to charge LARGE fees for any bandwidth over a set amount. Then BitTorrent firms would still have the capacity available if they wanted to pay for it.
Don't throttle, but charge for the bandwidth. Use the extra funds being made to upgrade the infrastructure.
If the bandwidth limit before extra fees was set as a percentage, then when the infrastructure is upgraded to increase the total bandwidth, more would be available to BitTorrent companies.
They just have to make the fees high enough that they can pay for the upgrades in a reasonable amount of time.
There is nothing wrong with charging users who use more than their fair share of bandwidth.
If it was cheap and easy, the MSOs would already be upgrading their network to accommodate higher upstreams. The reality is that they're willing to take a beating in the press because the upgrade path -- move to DOCSIS 3.0, improve the plant to handle higher modulations, split nodes, and double the upstream carrier from 3.2 MHz to 6.4 MHz -- would have to be accelerated at a significant expense and those costs would be passed on to the customer. And when those costs are passed on, subscribers will move to DSL or fiber, impacting the MSOs quarterly revenues, etc.
Frank
trouble providing the bandwidth, they should charge more so only
those who REALLY want it will pay for it.
However those who are using up large portions of the bandwidth
are not using "more than their fair share of bandwidth" because
they are PAYING for the use of that bandwidth.
Comcast is playing word games. Your Download Rate is based on your Upload Rate. If you have pieces to share (ie: Upload) and do not do so (or do it slowly), your Download Speed is reduced since the peers who you request pieces from will stop talking to you. This means blocking uploads IS throttling downloads DUE TO the upload blocking even though nothing is being done DIRECTLY to the download.
Also they have been proven to be screwing with BT even when there is no load on their network.
If I setup a VPN or SSH or use SSL connections between my provider and my client I can sometimes get back to the original of about 6000Kb/s. But even then, the throughput seems to be blocked or severely throttled. You can't tell me that the network is degrading 24/7 because I have tested at different times of the day even at 4:00 AM on a Thursday morning. And yet all of my normal traffic seems throttled all the time.
I use it to download my new linux distributions in a
faster, more efficient manner. It can be a great tool.
As usual we are being strangled by the big corporations that are strangling innovation. This has got to stop.
For those who want high bandwidth users to pay more, we are. What is shocking is the fact that I pay $60 for my 20 MBit down and 2 MBit up. I do not pay for cable TV. Comcast offers their "stand alone" high speed service of a whopping 8 MBits down and 768KBits up for $67.95! It is a complete rip-off, but, if you want the highest bandwidth, Comcast is definitely already charging people for it!
If you are happy with your 4 MBit ($57.95 if you don't have Comcast cable) or 6 MBit ($19.99 FOR 6 MONTHS then $42.95 afterwards with Comcast cable) down and 384 KBit up, great. You pay a lot less for your service.
Comcast is just a money guzzling company doing the same stuff that ExxonMobile does. They throttle supply and charge more for EVERYONE to get less than they deserve. (Not to mention their reciprocal support of individuals in the government...)
That is all for my ranting. Let me know if you agree.
Comcast has been committing a crime agains it's customer base. They have been launching DOS attacks. This is a federal crime and a violation of the Patriot Act. Where are the prosicutors?
If you or I attacked Comcast's servers in this manner we would be in jail by now. Our servers impounded as evidence.
- As Long As I'm Not Paying for It
- by phrelin February 18, 2008 12:40 PM PST
- I want to get my email and browse a bit. If you want to use peer-to-peer connections, or download or stream HD content, great - just pay 4 times what I do for your bandwidth use.
- Reply to this comment
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- Are you serious?
- by Imalittleteapot February 18, 2008 8:40 PM PST
- Freeloaders? First, people that use Bittorrent pay for the bandwidth. The ISP can charge whatever they want. It's not the customers fault if the ISP isn't charging enough to make a profit. It isn't the customer?s fault that they actually use the unlimited bandwidth that was sold to them.
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(37 Comments)I get my TV from a satellite service. But if I got it from Comcast and they were unable to deliver because of some freeloading bandwidth user, I'd be angry.
I'm from the era when through regulation, we made sure everyone had equal access for the same rates for all "utility" services and extra benefits cost extra but also the same for everyone. I believe in that.
I'm an ISP customer Comcast inherited in an area Adelphia inexplicably installed cable service before going bankrupt. I'm fortunate that the bankruptcy court required Comcast to accept my area with the profitable areas. The "new" AT&T does not offer DSL in my area because it would not be profitable enough. And they charge more for a poor quality land line than they do in nearby urban areas for a high quality land line. Someone decided cell-phone service should include sending videos in urban areas, but no basic signal in or near my rural area home. I don't like it but it's an unregulated pay for what you use world, guys.
I too would like to go back to the days of "the phone company" when taxes, business rates and average-income-and-above urban customers subsidized univeral access to electric and telecomunications utilities for everyone. But that isn't going to happen. So it's time to acknowledge that the high-speed internet world is the same. We should pay for the bandwidth we use so the infrastructure can be funded, or permit the private ISP's to limit usage without complaint.
If you think Bittorrent is only about piracy you had better learn real quickly that Bittorrent has plenty of lawful purposes.
If they want to charge Bittorrent users four times as much, well that?s fine with me. I will be glad to pay it. However, if I?m paying four times as much, and my transfer is getting slowed down because there isn?t enough bandwidth then I would fully expect them to throttle all your web browsing activity and email usage so my transfer could go through.
If I?m paying four times as much obviously my transfer would be four times more important than your email -- would it not?
I would also like you to explain to the world exactly why your emails and web usage are so much more important than everyone else?s. What makes little Phrelin so darn special huh? Just because you are not using as much? I payed for unlimited. Please explain to me why I shouldn't be using what I payed for?