Stop throttling traffic, Comcast ordered
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom:- Comcast must halt its practice of stopping its customers from sharing videos and other files online, says the US Federal Communications Commission.
It must also explain exactly how it went about ‘managing’ its Net traffic.
It isn’t, however, being fined for its anti-customer, anti-net neutrality actions.
“This is a bellwether case,” Bloomberg News has Marvin Ammori, general counsel of the group Free Press, which led efforts against Comcast, saying.
“It will send a public signal that phone and cable companies can’t interfere in Internet traffic.”
The FCC, “found it unreasonable for Comcast to discriminate against particular Internet applications, including BitTorrent, Martin said,” according to the story, which adds:
“The order said customers must receive adequate notice of network management practices. Martin said in a statement today operators must demonstrate they have ‘reasonable’ grounds to block legal content.
“We will look at whether it furthers an important interest and is carefully tailored,” he said.
Meanwhile, the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) today introduced Switzerland, an application designed to allow users to test the integrity of their Net communications, says a p2pnet story.
“When Comcast started tearing down BitTorrent connections, it didn’t tell anyone it was doing so,” says Free Press tech consultant Robb Topolski in a comment post.
“When Bell Canada started throttling wholesale customers, it also was an unannounced surprise,” he says, adding:
“Software like Switzerland will help Internet users worldwide determine if their Internet provider is delivering the real deal or if it might be secretly delivering something else.”
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.Stumble It!
Bloomberg News – Comcast Ordered by FCC to Stop Blocking Web Access, August 1, 2008
p2pnet – ‘Switzerland’ ISP integrity tool released, August 1, 2008
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August 1st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
For once the FCC proves itself useful.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:22 am
Hopefully this will send a strong message to ISP’s around the world and not just in the USA. What Comcast was doing is not a whole lot different from a phone company preventing it’s customers from making phone calls to folks who may be using a competing service. I sure hope the CRTC has the balls to do the right thing here in Canada, and not just with Bell.
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:08 am
“It must also explain exactly how it went about ‘managing’ its Net traffic.”
Hopefully we’ll get a legit explanation. It may be useful in dealing with other throttling ISP’s…
August 4th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Let me play devil’s advocate folks, and I think the above comments are off-base. I am mostly in agreement with the FCC here, so don’t go and rant and rave and sound stupid please.
What the original Comcast contract said, in typical tiny legalese, on the contract YOU agreed to (in America verbal contracts are legally binding), was that they retain the right to adjust your Internet speed based on network traffic and other network service events in order to maintain adequate access for everyone.
Understand that it boils down to having a single router servicing your entire neighborhood, and behind that router you are ALL sharing the common bandwidth pool. This is for security reasons and also for economics since it would be cost-prohibitive for them to give every customer an industrial router.
I don’t know about you, but I would be PISSED if the neighbor kid was running a p2p file-sharing super-node and sucking up 95% of available neighborhood bandwidth all the time, especially on the rare occasions that I need to download a Microsoft or World of Warcraft patch. That would lengthen my download time from a minute to an hour in some cases. No Thank You.
Note also that the contract you agreed to ALSO says that you are not allowed to run a “server”, and let’s face it, anyone who is allowing files to be shared from their computer is “serving files” under any definition, regardless if they know they are or not. Thus, they have FULL CONTRACTUAL RIGHT to throttle or even ban your connection for violating their terms of service (TOS) contract. Period. These are simply the facts.
Now, as far as the touchy-feely liberal mindset goes, yes, of course, it would be nice for them to call or email every one of their customers and tell them in plain words these things…but there is no legal requirement for them to do so, aside from the cost and personnel issues. Your morals are being called into play here, and it makes you uncomfortable, thus the angry and EMOTIONAL responses to this topic. but I digress…
Bottom line, the FCC decision is probably not the correct one but Comcast will adapt. Plus they will find a way to manage their network and accomplish the same thing, in a manner that does not run afoul of laws or the FCC ruling, thus you have just made it more difficult for people in the future by causing them to expend time and money on repairing holes in their contract wording and their advertising wording. Don’t kid yourselves, nothing has changed at all in the long run, and I expect that MY bandwidth will still be preserved for when *I* want to download large amounts at high rates of speed.
Ok, end of devil’s advocate. Thoughtful comments are appreciated, the rest aren’t.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
STFU. I dont give a shit about contractual basis for giving them a right to throttle people and try to dictate our internet freedoms. Shut up. FFC was right. Fuck your contractual basis and we dont care if you would be pissed if your neighbor “kid” is running P2P sucking up your fucking bandwidth. The “kid” pays to suck up his own bandwidth. You pay to suck up yours. Fuck off.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
*FCC
August 5th, 2008 at 6:19 am
I like the way Too Bad thinks.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Typical liberal emotional reaction lacking logic and reason. LOL–”but think of the children”!!
August 13th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
liberals lacking logic wasent it conservitives who decided to run headfirst into the middleeast saying they have weapons of mass destruction