FCC To investigate Comcast Bittorrent Meddling 196
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."
Re:Are they doing this everywhere? (Score:5, Informative)
We need this in Canada (Score:4, Informative)
Rogers Cable has been doing this here for sometime. After people found that encrypted proxies could get around their blocking, they began to block all VPNs. Since that time, their policy has essentially been that only HTTP traffic is guaranteed to be highspeed. Ever since they decided to be a phone company with IP phones over cable, the quality of their internet service has suffered badly.
If Canada had the power to fine Rogers in amounts like Comcast is being threatened with, that would be a mighty big stick in the hands of the gov't and consumers. Unfortunately, we don't have anything like this as AFAIK so bandwidth throttling is practiced by most of the big ISPs
Re:Are they doing this everywhere? (Score:4, Informative)
Time Warner Roadrunner (Score:3, Informative)
NTC and Shentel (Score:1, Informative)
The difference is Comcast is huge, and no one cares if little NTC intentionally cripples its over-priced service and is the only available connection in all dorms, and comes pre-wired in all off-campus housing up to a few miles away.
Re:Has nothing to do with Republicans (Score:3, Informative)
If we have a democratic president, we'll start blaming (and whip out our brooms) him and the democrats if these shenanigans continue.
Re:Are they doing this everywhere? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Are they doing this everywhere? (Score:2, Informative)
when thinking ISP you need to think last mile. an last mile traffic has been for a very long time pull traffic ( while a web site is push ). P2P has upset the apple cart ( and has become a big thorn, leading to net neutrality issues ).
Peering agreements for a long time have been rather stale, last mile pays a percentage and web site host pay a percentage. Peering locations pushed and pulled rather balanced ( if it's off then someone had to pay), P2P tosses all those agreements right out the window, all of a sudden, a last mile location become a push, and web host are flat, peering gets out of billing sync, All the last mile ISP's have a right to be nervous, they really don't know what there push traffic is going to look like and they are worried about the bills.
Personally, I think that, throttling is a great idea. I also think local server's that act as a torrent data relay site should be created ( that's why we have web cache's ) to cover a large percentage of the "legal" file trading and software updates. we need someway for daytime business needs and night time file sharing.
Re:Has nothing to do with Republicans (Score:3, Informative)
They even introduce bills and when it gets to the floor, they block it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/washington/12cong.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin [nytimes.com]
The Democrats "taking back congress" isn't as succinct as you insinuate.
Re:We need this in Canada (Score:2, Informative)
I am not a Rogers internet customer anymore - but my parents are. They cannot subscribe to DSL in their area, and I hear all the complaints that they have with Rogers service.
Personally, I'm a TekSavvy [teksavvy.com] customer and could not be happier (other than even more speed or an ever cheaper price).