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Competitors Ally With Comcast In FCC P2P Filings
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 19, 2008 05:10 PM
from the shoulder-to-shoulder dept.
from the shoulder-to-shoulder dept.
crocoduck writes "Right before the deadline passed for filing comments in the FCC investigation of Comcast's traffic-management practices, telecoms and other cable companies submitted a slew of comments defending Comcast's actions to the FCC. 'Just about every big phone company has filed a statement challenging the FCC's authority to deal with this problem. AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest all submitted lengthy remarks on February 13th, the last day for comments on the proceeding (parties can still reply to comments through the 28th). "The Internet marketplace remains fundamentally healthy, and the purported 'cure' could only make it sick," AT&T's filing declared. "At best, the network-management restrictions proposed by Free Press and others would inflict wasteful costs on broadband providers in the form of expensive and needless capacity upgrades — costs that would ultimately be passed through to end users, raise broadband prices across the board, and force ordinary broadband consumers to subsidize the bandwidth-hogging activities of a few."' P2P fans have also weighed in."
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Politics: FCC To investigate Comcast Bittorrent Meddling 196 comments
An anonymous reader writes "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Tuesday that the commission will investigate complaints that Comcast actively interferes with Internet traffic as its subscribers try to share files online. A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars asked the agency in November to stop Comcast from discriminating against certain types of data and to fine Comcast $195,000 for every affected subscriber. While known for months in tech circles, the issue wasn't given broad attention until an Associated Press report last year, in which reporters tested and verified the data blocking."
[+]
P2P Fans Pound Comcast In FCC Comments 306 comments
Not Comcastic writes "Two weeks after officially opening proceedings on Comcast's BitTorrent throttling, angry users are bombarding the FCC with comments critical of the cable provider's practices. 'On numerous occasions, my access to legal BitTorrent files was cut off by Comcast,' a systems administrator based in Indianapolis wrote to the FCC shortly after the proceeding began. 'During this period, I managed to troubleshoot all other possible causes of this issue, and it was my conclusion (speaking as a competent IT administrator) that this could only be occurring due to direct action at the ISP (Comcast) level.' Another commenter writes 'I have experienced this throttling of bandwidth in sharing open-source software, e.g. Knoppix and Open Office. Also I see considerable differences in speed ftp sessions vs. html. They are obviously limiting speed in ftp as well.'"
Firehose:Competitors ally with Comcast in P2P FCC filings by Anonymous Coward
[+]
FCC Considers Taking Action Against Comcast 181 comments
Presto Vivace writes "According to CNet the Federal Communications Commission is considering taking action against cable operator Comcast modifying peer-to-peer traffic, a subject we've discussed here in the past. 'It looks like Chairman Martin, and by extension the commission, sees Comcast as going beyond simply managing its network. But even if the FCC decides that Comcast has violated Net neutrality principles, it's unclear what the agency can actually do to Comcast. The principles are not agency regulation.'"
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Needless? (Score:5, Interesting)
The telcos can eat a bag of dicks.
Watershed Moment (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a step towards unrestricted bandwidth, build a new economy based on the innovative development of new business models using this bandwidth as a utility.
Or
Allow the telecommunications oligopoly to produce a network ghetto, stove-piped and metered, and watch the US economy stagnate, and fall behind the rest of the developed world.
Parent
Re:Watershed Moment (Score:5, Funny)
This has already happened =(
=Smidge=
Parent
Re:Watershed Moment (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Watershed Moment (Score:5, Insightful)
As the Internet becomes the delivery agent for more entertainment venues and other uses that have yet to be foreseen, implementing QoS becomes more questionable. Let's say a similar device to the AppleTV is created and released by a competitor to Apple. Let us also assume that Comcast is permitted to enforce QoS for various services. Comcast could then give preferential treatment for QoS to one content provider over another which puts Comcast in the position to either extort one or both companies or lock competitors out of the market (for Comcast subscribers).
By allowing ISPs to implement QoS to limit some types of use, we are allowing ISPs to dictate how data services are used. Depending on how draconian they are about QoS, this could reduce innovation for data services which will then cause this part of the economy to stagnate.
Right now we are mostly talking about movies, however in the future (maybe as little as 3-4 years) we may be talking about something a little more dear to you personally. Allowing them to do this to something you don't care about will set a precedence that will make it easier for them to do the same to something you hold dear later.
Here are a few example uses that I see today that could be impacted:
Rights and privileges lost are not easily obtained again.
Parent
Needless capacity upgrades? (Score:5, Insightful)
Shut up, cut your salaries for a couple quarters, and invest in the goddamn infrastructure.
Re:Needless capacity upgrades? (Score:5, Informative)
The United States has been falling behind on the capacity game for a long time now, so it only makes sense that the ISPs and telcos there are crying the blues about the need for upgrades. Had they been upgrading all the way along as other countries have, they wouldn't have the capacity shortfall that they do now.
I deal with SaskTel as my ISP. We actually get the full use of the provisioned bandwidth as promised, with no filtering, traffic shaping, or other artificial impediments. The downside? My internet connection costs $45/month instead of $22 for the basic "DSL Lite" subscription.
Parent
Re:Needless capacity upgrades? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Yep (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, it was no secret as to what Comcast was jumping into when they decided to get into the internet business. In fact it seems pretty obvious that they were quite clear on the fact that bandwidth would keep increasing to the point that people would just get their video directly from the source, instead of paying them to be a gatekeeper middleman. What they were hoping for was that they could use their monopoly power to stifle the internet so that their monopoly would not crumble in face of actual competition. So far they have been successful. Now that people are starting to cry foul, they are trying to pretend that they are the victims.
It always amazes me how many people will defend someone who is clearly trying to screw them.
Parent
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
That's ridiculous. About 10 years ago you could as an average person get at best a dial-up connection that might (theoretically) be able to download at up to 56kbps (actually 53). If you wanted a little better you could pay for ISDN. If you wanted better than that you could pay for a T1.
I know for a fact they were making a profit. Same old copper lines that had been in the ground since 1962, and I had to pay $100 for the connection!
Today you can get a cable modem or DSL for not much more than you'd have paid for dial-up and probably less if you had a second phone line dedicated to your internet access. Technology advanced. The providers improved their infrastructure. Costs came down.
No - this is bullshit. More bandwidth, sure. But it's more expensive, too, and we paid for it in myriad ways (check out the $200 Billion Ripoff [pbs.org] for example). I could get dial up for $10 a month (yea, plus phone line). Now I pay like $55/month, and it would be $15 more if I also didn't buy their "cable TV" service.
The sad fact is that what we have now is more or less what we can collectively afford. It's easy to point to more socialized states and say that a handful of them have faster internet connections. What you seem to fail to consider is that those faster connections were paid for. Most likely it costs the average person in one of those states a lot more for their internet connection, they just don't see it as a separate internet bill. If they do get an internet bill it's not really reflecting the true cost of providing the service.
Comcast alone makes about $1.2 Billion dollars in profit a year. Billion with a "B". Not revenue - *PROFIT*. I think they're doing just fine - maybe they should invest in a little more infrastructure instead of bitching about having to keep up with demand.
I'm no socialist - but Internet infrastructure needs to be either regulated or state supported. It's too critical to be left to these corporations that just want to slow everybody down!! If there was real competition, it might work to motivate these guys to make their customers happy. But there's not, so it doesn't.
If you can live with forcing everyone to pay several times what they're paying now for internet access we can do this too. But don't sit there and spout that we could do better without pointing out that it does actually cost more to do so. I personally find that my cable modem is fast enough and I don't want to pay more than I do per month. I especially don't want to have the money effectively hidden in a bunch of federal budget documents.
As if... Look - this is critical infrastructure we are talking about. Everybody says that when they talk about "security measures" to make sure anybody that tries to cut a trunk line will get put under the ground for the rest of their lives. But we have these clowns running it that think it's okay to just put the brakes on innovation and new business models and growth
Parent
Why Did They Wait Until The Last Day? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why Did They Wait Until The Last Day? (Score:5, Informative)
But... but...
Parent
Western countries' telecoms seem crotchety (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Western countries' telecoms seem crotchety (Score:5, Informative)
You're right, and it's not funny, it's sad.
The US is falling more and more behind, while the telecoms have the gall to say things like:
"The Internet marketplace remains fundamentally healthy, and the purported 'cure' could only make it sick," AT&T's filing declared. "At best, the network-management restrictions proposed by Free Press and others would inflict wasteful costs on broadband providers in the form of expensive and needless capacity upgrades".
This is what happens when 'free market' monopolies are allowed to continue unchecked by a corrupt FCC.
The money goes straight into shareholder's pockets [cnn.com], and almost nothing goes back into the network.
Parent
i've said it before and i'll say it again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lies, lies, lies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, if they were *just* throttling the connection, there wouldn't be a problem. They were basically "disconnecting" the file transfer. This is analogous to a telephone operator listening to your phone conversation & cutting you off if she doesn't like what you're talking about.
Can't stop the signal, Mal (Score:5, Insightful)
Expensive and Needless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe if they advertised lower peak speeds and limited their customers to those speeds and charged a premium for higher speeds, we wouldn't have this problem.
If I wanted AT&T's opinion... (Score:5, Funny)
Unlimited comments (Score:5, Insightful)
After the comment period ended, they should have announced that certain comments were rejected because they were too long (beyond an arbitrary amount determined after the comment period) or contained too much legalese, since they didn't want to have make the other commenters "subsidize the [resource]-hogging activities of a few."
Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
Its like this son... (Score:5, Funny)
Another car ananolgy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's outrageous that they can say that with a straight face! This seems like a perfectly obvious sign that their infrastructure is in a serious need of an upgrade in order to maintain competition with the up-and-coming technologies that are being, or are already, released. This has me fuming.
Selective throttling == CENSORSHIP (Score:5, Insightful)
Comcast unilaterally decides that some content is good and some bad - and that should just plain be illegal.
I know many are opposed, but I don't mind the actual *throttling* itself, if it were just protocol-neutral. I cannot accept, however, that Comcast gets to decide that I can't use the rated capacity of my line (you know, the number they tout in their PR) to download Ubuntu with a bittorrent client, while my neighbor can max out his identical connection downloading movies over HTTP or FTP.
(And, no, the actual *content* shouldn't matter either, of course, that's just a feeble attempt at highlighting the inherent stupidity of the method).
Requiring an ISP to have enough capacity to enable ALL its customers to max out their connections would be monumentally wasteful, no question. However...
What Comcast, and any other ISP should do, is actually tell you what you are buying, up front, so that it's possible to make an informed purchasing decision. E.g.:
6Mbps down, 1Mbps up. Rated bandwidth available at least 90% of the time. Minimum bandwidth of1Mbps down, 256kbps up (except in case of equipment failure).
The ISP can then throttle users with this connection in times of peak load, but still protocol (and content) neutral!
If they wanted to get really advanced, they could give their users the ability to use some kind of QoS feature, so that e.g. a user could choose to prioritize http and ftp over, say, bittorrent. Or to prioritize whatever port #s the user's favorite multiplayer game uses, so that using the internet connection for other stuff introduces a minimum of lag on gaming.
In any event, there's just no justification for saying that my downloading Ubuntu or whatever should be throttled in favor of some idiot streaming porn over HTTP. (OK, maybe if it's porn... bad example... you get my drift, though)