Comcast Hijacks Bandwidth Management
Comcast, one of the US’s largest broadband providers, issued a press release today in which it said it would “undertake a collaborative effort” with BitTorrent ”to more effectively address issues associated with rich media content and network capacity management”. This is in response to their recently being caught with their ”hand in the cookie jar” of bandwidth management with the BitTorrent and eDonkey file sharing protocols. They have said that they will work to find new ways of managing bandwidth (while still creating an obviously tiered network).
Comcast has done a clever thing with this press release that I have yet to see anyone chime in on. The company has effectively shifted the focus of the debate on bandwidth management away from the core issue of network investment and on to the overlayed problem of file sharing as the source of their woes. The real issue is that they won’t upgrade the network, not that people are sharing files.
Comcast refuses to upgrade its network to meet the needs of its customers. This is the ultimate in turning “no press is bad press” into reality for Comcast. They have effectively said “we’re not the bad guys here, those file sharers are making you all pay” and put the onus on their own customers to change their behaviors. The customer is never right in this day and age with broadband service. The customer pays Comcast, but Comcast is apparently ceding it’s responsibility to give good service. In lieu of that they punish their customers for using what they pay for.
Where are the customer advocates? Who is yelling about this instead of regurgitating the press release and saying what good boys and girls these people are?
Wonder what this means?
http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/20483/?nlid=970
I’m yelling!
Just by way of re-introduction if necessary, I’m probably a key figure
as to why we’re all talking about Network Neutrality again. I was having a
problem uploading on Gnutella in early 2007. I tracked it down to
Comcast using Sandvine-injected RST packets and documented it. Blog
stories led to press stories which led to independent confirmation.
And here we are today.
Today Comcast and BitTorrent seems to have solved world hunger — and
I’d love nothing more than to be optimistic about it. But I cannot
be. As they say on Slashdot — show video, or it didn’t happen. This
deal is treachery, relies on how much we can trust the word of
Comcast, and leaves the public interests out in the cold.
I think it’s strange that anyone believes a word that Comcast says.
This is the Comcast that:
1. Told the FCC in 2005 that they would not degrade traffic in order
to convince the FCC that network neutrality regulations were not
needed. They told the Justice Committee the same thing in 2006.
2. Started degrading P2P traffic in 2006, and failed to
tell anyone what they were doing.
3. Used a system that utilized forgery, and successfully placed blame
on the other peer instead of Comcast.
4. Denied it when caught.
5. Then changed their story when the denials were not believed, but
still never came out and said what they were doing.
6. Then they justified their actions by throwing their other
Cable-Internet brothers and sisters under the bus with their “they do
it too!” defense
7. Then stealthily changed the AUP days before an FCC filing where
they referred to the new provisions.
8. When the changed AUP started getting press attention, they stated
that a prominent story on Comcast.net alerted millions of visitors of
the change and accused Marvin Ammori of crying wolf. (Google cache
proved that nothing alerted users to the changed AUP until the day
after the press started asking questions.)
9. Then they packed the Harvard FCC hearing.
This company has not demonstrated that you can trust its promises, nor
can you believe its assertions. Comcast just used BitTorrent Inc. as a
tool to try and defang the FCC.
BitTorrent Inc. is a content provider. Vuze, who actually DID make a
complaint and petition to the FCC, is a competitor. Neither
BitTorrent, Vuze, nor Comcast represents the interests of 12 million
Comcast users nor the The Internet Society nor the public. And this
middle-of-the-night deal was made without their input.
Nothing has changed. The RST interference continues. It was a wrongful
act. BitTorrent Inc. has no right making a deal with Comcast allowing
it to continue to commit wrongful acts until it finally decides it is
ready to stop. The correct relief is to stop the interference
immediately and to FULLY DISCLOSE what it did and to accept
responsibility for those actions. (Even today, Comcast’s Policy VP
refused to answer questions about the interference.)
Their word is worthless. Until the interference stops, I have no
reason to believe it will. Until either meaningful competition returns
to broadband, or until sufficient government regulation enforces
Network Neutrality, we have no reason to think that this agreement
will last through the night.
Robb Topolski
[...] Blogger Aaron Huslage says the agreement in essence is a PR ploy. The real issue is Comcast’s failure to upgrade its network. The company, he says, “has done a clever thing? by shifting the argument from the root issue, which is a lack of investment. In this view, P2P-related capacity issues are a symptom, not a cause , of the problem. [...]
[...] My friend Aaron Huslage points out this means is that they’re still shaping traffic. I agree with that assessment. On the other hand, they are deploying DOCSIS 3.0 to roughly 20% of their service area. Since that’s going to push more bandwidth to the end user, you’d think you’d think they’d have to upgrade their core by a commensurate amount–at least in those areas. Then again, they’ve cocked things like this up before. [...]
[...] Blogger Aaron Huslage says the agreement in essence is a PR ploy. The real issue is Comcast’s failure to upgrade its network. The company, he says, “has done a clever thing? by shifting the argument from the root issue, which is a lack of investment. In this view, P2P-related capacity issues are a symptom, not a cause , of the problem. [...]
[...] Blogger Aaron Huslage says the agreement in essence is a PR ploy. The real issue is Comcast’s failure to upgrade its network. The company, he says, “has done a clever thing? by shifting the argument from the root issue, which is a lack of investment. In this view, P2P-related capacity issues are a symptom, not a cause , of the problem. [...]