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Comcast Admits Delaying, Not Blocking, P2P Traffic

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the oh-yeah-thats-fine-then-nevermind dept.

haibijon writes "The executive declined to talk in detail about the technology, citing spammers or other miscreants who might exploit that knowledge. But he insisted the company was not stopping file transfers from happening, only postponing them in certain cases. He compared it to making a phone call and getting a busy signal, then trying again and getting through."

3 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Re:it's against the TOS by m2943 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Whats your definition of a server?

    They don't rule out "servers", they rule out "public servers". And even there, they give you some leeway. They simply do not guarantee that you can run servers.

    Pretty much everything sends data in both directions, even HTTP so is that a server when it connects to /. to download a page and it has to get the get request?

    No, an HTTP client is not a server.

    What about games, Comcast advertises how great gaming is on their network ... many people playing games have to run a server to play. Thier TOS is in direct conflict with their advertising.

    I see no conflict. There are many gaming related uses for which their network is good, and some others for which it isn't. In general, you can run gaming clients and servers, but it's at their discretion.

    Although data is both sent and recieved from BitTorrent clients, and clients connect to each other, the trackers are really 'the servers' which allow the clients to exchange information.

    File sharing is explicitly and separately forbidden, so whether BitTorrent is a "client" or "server" is not relevant.

    Again, if you don't get the service you like, change providers. Comcast will not, and cannot, give you full bandwidth maxed out service.

  2. Re:it's against the TOS by m2943 · · Score: 0, Troll

    They can kick me off anytime they like and apparently from the ToS, for any reason.

    Yes, they can. Works well for me.

    If you don't like it, pay more and get a business line with TOS that let you use full bandwidth 24/7.

  3. Re:it's against the TOS by m2943 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Are the concepts of "explicitly not allowing any form of server to be run" and "running a server for gaming" not *mutually exclusive*?

    (1) You don't need to run any server (public or private) for "great gaming".

    (2) Comcast doesn't rule out "any form of server", they rule out public servers (in addition to BitTorrent, P2P, file sharing, etc.).

    (3) The fact that the TOS say that something is prohibited doesn't mean that you can't do it, it means that it is at Comcast's discretion whether they terminate the contract because of it.

    So, no, there is no conflict between their advertising and their TOS.