FCC finds Comcast in violation of net neutrality rules for BitTorrent blocking

[Josh]

The Federal Communications Commission has concluded its vote on Comcast, finding the cable operator in violation of net neutrality rules by a margin of 3-2, but it will not issue fines.

Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, as well as Republican chairman Kevin Martin were reported earlier this week to have voted in favor of taking action against Comcast for secretly degrading or blocking peer-to-peer traffic -- specifically that used by BitTorrent.

The FCC served Comcast with a cease-and-desist order, demanding it end its throttling of BitTorrent traffic, and requiring the cable provider inform subscribers of its traffic management policies. For its part, Comcast said it hasn't been throttling or blocking traffic since March, and only did so to protect the integrity of its network.

FCC Chairman Kevin Marin said, "Consumers deserve to know that the commitment [to stop arbitrary blocking] is backed up by legal enforcement."

More at source

[Deozaan]

Cool. I didn't know that Net Neutrality was backed up by law in the USA.

[lanux128]

lucky for you guys. at some places, not only bandwidth is throttled but the (paying) end-users are chided for making a complaint.

[wreckedcarzz]

I read about this issue some time ago, and I find it idiotic that because the traffic is being used for a purpose that the ISP doesn't find "fitting", they find the need to throttle it back to snail speed. Big deal, its data packets - if you don't want users using your service for such a task, then clearly state it somewhere. Not difficult.

[f0dder]

I read about this issue some time ago, and I find it idiotic that because the traffic is being used for a purpose that the ISP doesn't find "fitting", they find the need to throttle it back to snail speed. Big deal, its data packets - if you don't want users using your service for such a task, then clearly state it somewhere. Not difficult.

It's not really that they don't find the use fitting, it's that p2p generates a lot of traffic, and does so constantly. Many ISPs oversell their capacity, but it isn't that much of a problem with normal users who have relatively short bursts of traffic, and does the occasional large download.

But once many users start doing constant speed-saturated stuff like p2p, these greedy ISPs get into trouble because of their overselling, and thus they like to throttle p2p.

[wreckedcarzz]

So you sell more than you own and then turn around and punish the end user. What a load of bull.

[Renegade]

Wait a second... It sounds like you people actually expect to get what you were told you were buying and what you paid for!

Wow! Now do we ever feel stupid!

[Shades]

Well, I have worked on the other side (back in the days that dialup was king)....the ISP that employed me was not that big (200.000 customers) but each unit like modem bank, load balancer etc. costs serious money (as in brand new small class car) so you want to use them as efficiently as possible. Problem was then that there peak hours and slow hours.

Alcatel hardware was our favorite because it could do more with the same amount of lines. I'll guess they still do.

Nowadays the concept of peak and slow hours disappeared because of bittorrent, p2p etc. As a provider you want to run as long as possible with the same hardware as possible...prices of hardware on the ISP end did not fall that much and with the cut-throat margins it is hard to make enough money to add new hardware as users demand.

In our case it was not that we didn't want to expand our system...the money came in too slowly to do so.

So I can sympathize a little for not getting all the bandwidth all the time.

[Renegade]

The problem is that too many companies lie about their products. "Unlimited bandwidth" is just a fiction. If they were upfront and honest, it would be different.

[cthorpe]

All this is going to do is force ISPs to explicitly state that they shape P2P traffic.  Once they put that in some fine print somewhere, they will resume doing it.

[Ehtyar]

lucky for you guys. at some places, not only bandwidth is throttled but the (paying) end-users are chided for making a complaint.

That's nothing. Over here, you'll find your total downloads are limited per month. For $80 a month on 'cable', we get 20 GB of downloads and uploads (I get 40gb of data usable between midnight and midday because we have cable tv and phone with the same operator), after which you are speed-limited or charged a small fee per excess mb. Admittedly I'd probably be better off if i upgraded to ADSL2 or something, however you will not find an ISP that does not limit your total data usage.

Ehtyar.

[lanux128]

i had always thought that the monthly fees is for providing the bandwidth but sometimes it means a different thing altogether.

recently there was an operator who promoted 'unlimited' wireless connection for a certain fee (which was not cheap). but this offer was bound to the condition that the individual user does not exceed 3GB up/down a month. those exceeding this limit will disconnected from the service unless a written reason was given explaining their activities and this was all in 'fine print'.