Comments on: Comcast really does block BitTorrent traffic after all
Comcast for months has denied blocking BitTorrent traffic, but new tests show that it takes aggressive filtering steps that AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision do not.
Most Popular
15 sites that went kaput in 2009
Web sites launch all the time, but they also shut their doors. We highlight 15 that bit the dust this year.
Top 10 news stories of the decade
Let the debate begin: Was the iPhone more important than iTunes? Was anything bigger than Google finding a great business model? CNET offers its list of the 10 most important stories of the '00s.
About Politics and Law
News at the intersection of technology, politics, and law, ranging from intellectual property to censorship to tech policy.
Add this feed to your online news reader
Politics and Law topics
That's where we'll be at the end of the day anyway. There are people there now.
.
I am ashamed of CNET's behavior of not pushing for fair practices but rather towing the line of these huge multi media corporations as they slowly strangle us.
Also if I'm paying for bandwidth, it's MY bandwidth to do with as I please. If I pay for less bandwidth, then I get less, if I pay for more, I get more. If I pay for more, I want to use that unfettered.
Comcast will never see me as a customer.
I shepherd three mirror sites that host files for the Star Trek New Voyages fanfilm project (stnv.net, stnv.us, stnv.org). CBS/Viacom and Paramount have graciously granted the project permission to create and allow access to these fanfilm files as long as the project remains a non-profit endeavor. But most of these files are multi-meg files and some of them exceed 1 or 2 gigabytes.
I've had FTP uploads throttled. And sometimes, FTP downloads are throttled, too. And lately, the New Voyages people have created an official site where high-res versions can be downloaded via torrent. However, while I've heard of a few complaints of throttling regarding torrent downloads, it didn't occur to me to ask the complainer for the name of their ISP. From now on, I will.
I do have other ISP options. Some are faster options but more expensive. Even so, if the throttling of FTP traffic continues ... and if torrent complaints end up being Comcast complaints overall ... I'll consider those options in a heartbeat.
MP3 files, in and of themselves, are not illegal. It depends upon what's in the files. The same is true of torrent files. This guilt by association trip being dumped on people who routinely transfer "legitimate" audio and video files is patently unfair. And if it continues at Comcast, my prediction is that they will not have to worry about it in the future ... a future where customers leave them en masse for ISPs who better respect their customer base.
Comcast has the RIGHTS to shape traffic so the rest of the people have decent speed. There is only a finite amounth of bandwidth.
Ya wanna watch movies?
Go to NexFlix and get one in the mail.
Music?
Buy a CD.
Don't like what you read here?
Find another ISP.
There are noting but choices, pick one.
Your closing comment that "there are nothing but choices" is also off. I live in a metropolitan area, and have 2 choices: DSL or Cable. Because of government granted monopolies, there is exactly one company in my area that offers those services: Comcast for cable, and AT&T for DSL. Although I do not support making network neutrality an issue for the legislature, the idea that we have choice depends on the government not creating monopolies.
The reality of the situation is that digital delivery of media is not a thing of the future. It is happening right now. Bandwidth needs must scale to meet this growing customer demand.
You are correct that Bandwidth is not limitless. However, if you get off of a shared bandwidth solution and onto something with dedicated user thruput (DSL for example) then you will atleast have some control over the bandwidth available to you.
Folks who buy the comcast hype and purchase a shared bandwidth solution will always be subject to these kinds of problems.
When's the last time you visited Comcast's website and/or watched Comcast's TV advertising regarding their high-speed Internet product? They first use access to high-speed high-bandwidth Internet as a selling point to attract new customers ... then turn around after the customers sign on and treat them like crap for USING that very same high-speed high-bandwidth access which they themselves advertised.
Even so, Comcast or no Comcast, the wave of the future is in high-speed high-bandwidth Internet access. In my last post to this topic, I mentioned that I shepherded mirror sites for the Star Trek New Voyages fanfilm project ... and that the files I upload/download are high-meg files or even gigabyte-sized files. What I didn't mention is that Star Trek New Voyages has been nominated by TV Guide to receive their 2007 Online Video Award in the Sci-Fi category.
Think about that for a second. Not only has the Internet reached a point where high-speed high-bandwidth "webisodes" of programs are made available to the masses. It's also reached a point where the television industry itself, via TVGuide.com, recognizes these web efforts as a wave of the future ... a wave that will affect ALL Internet providers, not just Comcast.
There was a saying that came out of the 1960s - "Either lead, follow, or get out of the way." If Comcast chooses to ignore the high-bandwidth future of the Internet, perhaps the best advice to give them would be to "get out of the way" and let ISPs that embrace the future take the lead - over ISPs that lack the foresight to embrace that future.
All you people who think our market-economy gives you all these options are the corporations favorite customers...Dumb, illiterate, and ready to buy the snake-oil.
Uh, no, they don't, unless it affects the QoS for the rest of the users. (Check the current discussions between the FCC and Congress...) Do you REALLY mean to try to convince me that torrent files, regardless of size, are affecting the speed of your email downloads? I can load up a DVD ISO onto my PC, send a link to my friend, and have him download the entire 4.7 GB image, whether it's a movie or just a data backup of a portion of my C: drive. That's okay, but if I send it up as a torrent, which is usually a compressed file, then it's not okay. Hrm....seems like the policy lacks a bit of forethought...
Consider this: Most ISP's incorporate a usage allotment: I get to transfer so much data each month, and if I go over that, then I have to pay extra. What does it matter HOW I use that allotment? Now, don't confuse that with bandwidth, which is how much data I can transfer at a particular point in time. If you don't want me using an 8MB bandwidth connection, then don't sell it to me. If you can't handle the total bandwidth on your global network, then don't offer to let the users claim such a big slice of the pie in the first place. Any ISP oversells their networks the same way most airlines oversell their flights--ISP's don't expect all the users to be using the network at the same time. In order to make you happy, webkruzer1, what Comcast really should do is mandate what timeframe I can log on and use my "always on" broadband so that they can schedule network usage.
Your frustration is misdirected by claiming "Comcast is correct." They AREN'T correct, because they are throttling by content, not by size. They already have the 2 necessary tools in place to limit my use if they want: A specific max bandwidth definition (8mb in my case) and a monthly usage allotment (haven't bothered to look up what it is for Comcast). So, since those are in place, please explain to me why they need to look at my IP headers to see what is actually in the legal data packets that I'm sending to ensure it didn't originate from a peer-to-peer network?
And before you post up again that someone's Netflix download is cramping your style, please take the time to understand the complexities of the Internet beyond logging into your NetZero account to go "webkruzing."
I have no doubt that they use QOS to throttle things like bit torrent. It isn't that huge of a deal.
People who have cable broadband have to share the network with many services and most need higher priority then what downloading needs.
People watching TV in your network need real time service.
People watching stuff on demand need real time service.
People using VOIP need real time service.
Then there are all the people surfing the net, some with real time needs.
All of these activities take place on the same network.
That is the problem with cable. Essentially it is a shared connection and for many of their services, comcast is able to perform QOS on the entire distance between you and where the content resides(cable, on demand). Why do you think VOD over cable is superior to VOD across the internet? But there is a cost to all this QOS, some services get throttled.
I don't know for sure, but I bet those that are experiencing bit torrent throttling live in areas where there are too many people, doing too many things over a distribution network and something has to give. Downloading is not high priority.
This is one of many reasons why I have DSL.
Slowing traffic and Resetting a session are completely different things.
You are right, however, DSL is the answer and always was.
The article states they tried sharing the torrent on 4 different cable networks with only the comcast network showing evidence of throttling.
Some further tests could have been done, such as testing the sharing of the file over Kazaa or through email, or through instant messaging, or through an ftp service, or from an http address, and honestly it should have been tested out to this degree, so as to really make sure that torrents and or p2p clients in general were being targeted by comcast.
But the initial results are not looking great, looks to me like comcast has some splainin' to do.
Blocking Napster was dead simple. Today's P2P protocols are far more robust, and now they are going to get even stronger. Simple evolution at work through natural selection.
In a court case of biblical proportions, God has passed judgment on the illegal sharing of his written word over the popular bit torrent p2p network.
In press releases given out by his Son and right hand man, Jesus told reporters early Friday that "bible pirates may find themselves in literally a hell of a lot of trouble if they do not cease and desist in unauthorized uploads of the bible either in whole or in part".
Asked whether any of these new revelations on intellectual property would be included in future editions of God's infallible word St. Peter said that "while there are not plans to add or subtract from the books of the Bible its author reserves the right to do so at anytime he sees fit."
Meanwhile advocates for the rights of free will were protesting this development, Judas if Iscariot said "This is exactly the sort of judgment and arbitrary decision making process that had me taking the 30 silver pieces and leaving the Gospel Corporation and Joining the 'Do as thou will' group these two thousand years ago.
The consumer base seems overwhelmingly split, while some believe deeply that the word of God should be freely available and distributable in every language around the planet, others point to the omnipotence and profound wrath of God when he is angered.
Some ISP's treat emails from certain email providers as spam by default.
Set up your own mail server and try to send email to a provider like hotmail, without properly configuring it for hotmail. Unless you alter some settings hotmail will block you.
Have him send an encrypted email to you from the account that was marked as spam and you will see that your paranoid, ignorant theory holds no water.
Fortunately I have a great ADSL provider, I'd be pretty disgruntled if my torrents were being throttled.
The fix is easy here folks, simply switch to a provider who does not mess with your bandwidth.
Do not give money to those who would unjustly attempt to limit bandwidth use, freedom of speech, or any of the other freedoms we enjoy through use of the internet.
It's your dollar, spend it wisely
move to Comcast after this PR mess they got into. I think the free
market is going to punish them for this, but it'd be on the public's
interest that Washington pass some laws about net neutrality.
Before anyone suggests, I am not a Comcast shill, I just don't like people missing the point and suggesting things like censorship when that is not the issue. Comcast is a private network, not really any different then the network at your place of business.
If you have read my posts here on CNET, you would never take me for a corporate shill. I am not anti-corporate either, just pro-corporate responsibility and think that corporate interests should never trump individual, environmental, etc interests.
http://tinyurl.com/yvjc99 (shortened URL)
I'm a Comcast subscriber in Portland, Oregon. And today, I searched around for a different provider. I didn't want DSL because I didn't want to be forced into maintaining a landline to get the service ... especially since I use a broadband phone (Packet8.net). So, wireless was my only option.
Well, as it happens, I found a wireless service right here in town that offers the same download speeds I experience with Comcast, faster upload speeds than I experience with Comcast, and after the initial startup costs are out of the way ends up costing me $11 per month LESS than Comcast ... even less if I pay their yearly fee upfront.
Mind you, I hardly every use a torrent utility. Most of my bandwidth use comes from watching online video streams and FTPing. But it just goes to show that no matter what kind of service you can think of, it can pay off handsomely if you "shop around" from time to time. And, I get the feeling this effort will pay off for me (grin).
Again, thank you Declan McCullagh.
Then he pasted a total BS headline to make people think that Comcast actually blocked BT packets.
Comcast and AT&T have been NEGLIGENT in failing to fulfill their oligarchical market duties, in many cases flat illegally acting to prevent the Telecom Act of 1996 from succeeding and rebuilding the Death Star; despite both MARKET and REGULATORY requirements to be OPEN and COMPETITIVE.
This was not at all unforeseeable. There were plenty of us as early as the 1990's saying BUILD THE OPEN ACCESS GIGABIT ETHERNET LOCAL LOOP. Even the IEEE ratified an Ethernet in the First Mile STANDARD! But the self-proclaimed visionaries of Sand Hill Rd. and Wall Street said, "what would anyone ever need all that bandwidth for?"
So, to cover their own short-sighted tracks, the game is calling Power Users and Leading Innovators "bandwidth hogs."
They aren't "hogs" ... they are POWER USERS ... you know, the kind of people who maximize utility of available resources to bring you the Next Great Things. Pretty soon, what was only for the power users is available to everyone. Killing that dynamic is killing innovation.
John Perry Barlow told us all about this in 1995. He called it Death From Above. http://tinyurl.com/2tuakm
This current assault on innovation is nothing more and nothing less than Local Loop Death From Above 2.0: Terror of the New Oligarchs.
The UK gets this and the US better wise up, right now. "The minister contrasted the UK's lack of broadband offering speeds of more than 20Mbps with South Korea, where he said 90 percent of homes now had broadband connections offering 50 or 100Mbps."
SOURCE: http://tinyurl.com/ywfvgz
Of course, the obligatory troll may tell me, "then move to Korea if you don't like America," but that's not the point. The point is, if the biggest economic power in the world can't also provide the best Universal Ethernet network in the world, it won't remain in that leadership position for long.
Nothing has changed since we started ranting this well over a decade ago: Massive Symmetric Bandwidth is not just the engine of the economy; it is the economic substrate of the next century.
Is Comcast limiting connections to ATT.com?
I called support and they send a "network engineer" over the phone to talk to me. I asked them about bandwidth cap, ATT.com, and legitimate p2p (bit torrent). He said that there is a bandwidth cap but from what he could tell, I'm not reaching it. He also denies Comcast blocking ATT or any p2p. However, when I asked him if this is just what the company allows him to say, he said," Yes." Then I ask him, "What would YOU say?" He replied, "I cannot answer that question."
This is the reason why we need Net Neutrality.
- bandwidth
- by bmullan February 28, 2008 1:14 AM PST
- you get what you pay for..?
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 2 of 2 pages (108 Comments)Folks that's what its all about.
IF you sign a contract with your Service Provider and it states say 8Mbps downstream to your computer/home and states that you can transmit say 768Kbps upstream to the internet.....
What Part of that CONTRACT is misunderstood?
By EITHER the provider or the consumer??
If I pay for 8Mbps down and 768kBps up... I DO NOT care and neither should the Service Provider care if that means 24x7... it should be priced appropriately based on competition and profit requirements.