FCC grills Comcast over file share claims
p2pnet news | P2P:- In another glaring example of a major US conglomerate suffering from the delusion it can treat the people who keep it in business like dirt, Comcast figured it could get away with blocking hi-speed file sharing.
But that didn’t happen, and the company, the largest US cable provider, is now facing the Federal Communications Commission.
Free Press and Public Knowledge complained to the FCC saying Comcast interference hindered P2P sharing activities and now, “We look forward to responding to any FCC inquiries regarding our broadband network management,” Bloomberg News has Comcast executive David Cohen saying disingenuously, going on:
“Comcast does not, has not and will not block any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services.”
Riiiiight.
“Despite its strong denials to the contrary, Comcast is deliberately and knowingly impeding attempts by some of its high-speed Internet customers to share files online,” said Associated Press in October, going on:
The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.
If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) says in September, it had a few words with Comcast, “to try to find out what was going on in this case”.
Following the AP revelations, “we’ve been running our own tests” and, “Comcast is forging TCP RST packets which cause connections to drop (a technique also used by Internet censorship systems in China),” stated foundation tech expert Seth Schoen, adding:
“These packets cause software at both ends to believe, mistakenly, that the software on the other side doesn’t want to continue communicating.”
Some “management of network content” is needed, “to keep Comcast’s service running smoothly, ‘for the good of all customers’,” Bloomberg quotes Cohen as saying.
“The FCC hasn’t made any formal inquiries, Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said yesterday. ‘They haven’t formally issued a public notice of any kind’.”
Also see:
Los Angeles Times – L.A. grand jury issues subpoenas in Web suicide case, January 9, 2008
Associated Press – Comcast blocks some Internet traffic, October 19, 2007
Seth Schoen – Comcast and BitTorrent, September 13, 2007
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January 9th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
And because their system actually suck there is a lot of packet lost with th eComcast service fluctuating between few percent (normal rate) to 40% (defective rate deffective service!) even for browser applications traffic! At this time the speed is typically half but it has more serious side effect such as page freezing on download, video stream freezing xconstantly, and browser crash/freeze at least with IE that can not handle this crappy comcast Internet connection.
STAY AWAY FROM COMCAST!
January 9th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
And because their system actually suck there is a lot of packet lost with th eComcast service fluctuating between few percent (normal rate) to 40% (defective rate deffective service!) even for browser applications traffic! At this time the speed is typically half but it has more serious side effect such as page freezing on download, video stream freezing xconstantly, and browser crash/freeze at least with IE that can not handle this crappy comcast Internet connection.
Also Comcast is spying on his customer and are curently experimenting adding comercial into the web page you visit!
STAY AWAY FROM COMCAST!
January 9th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I hope Comcast will burn for this..
January 10th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I was gonna join Comcast business service ($100) for higher speeds and to run my webserver & email server but if they ever dissatisfy me or ruin my server they will pay and I’ll goto their competition.