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Vuze Petitions FCC To Restrict Traffic Throttling
mrspin writes "Vuze, an online video application that uses the peer-to-peer protocol BitTorrent, has petitioned the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to restrict Internet traffic throttling by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Vuze has been keenly aware of Comcast and the "bandwidth shaping" issue. Vuze filed its "Petition for Rulemaking" (PDF) to urge the FCC to adopt regulations limiting Internet traffic throttling, a practice by which ISPs block or slow the speed at which Internet content, including video files, can be uploaded or downloaded. As readers may remember, back in May, Slashdot discussed the issue of packet shaping and how ISPs threaten to spoil online video."
I'm glad to see that someone out there is willing to take on Comcast to put an end to this kind of garbage. They may be doing it to protect their product, but the end result is good no matter who you are. Bravo I say!
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
that this company thinks that this company thinks that removing P2P throttling will help streaming video?
And yes, I did RTFA and saw that they're delivering streaming media via the bittorent protocol. I say it's they're own damn fault for using a protocol which is well known for huge bandwidth use and no latency requirements to deliver media with critical latency requirements. If you don't want the ISPs messing with your video stream try not making your video stream look like a file download.
I think this is a better way to attack this, someone who is hosting legal bittorrent files needs to step up and sue comcast for forgery. there is no reason why creating a fake packet with my mac and ip and sending it to someone to cause them to drop my connection should be legally treated any differently than making a fake check with my banks watermark and my signature and using it to get a teller to give you my money. this cognitive disconnect between how the internet and everything else are treated absolutely astounds me.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
Vuze is correct in thinking that protocols and the Internet connections as a whole shouldn't be throttled, in theory, however in practice ISPs are limited in how much available bandwidth they have. As much as I don't like it, there is often a requirement that ISPs throttle some of the more bandwidth intensive protocols so that everyone on their network can have an enjoyable Internet experience.
Now, ideally, I think that the ISPs should be actively lighting up lots of new fiber between each other (peering) and lines out of their DSLAMs and Headends but it does take time and as we all know, since they are profit driven, they need to be making lots of money to keep their investors happy.
Lastly, there is a difference between throttling (normal for most ISPs) and what Comcast is doing, actively blocking/sabotage. Comcast deserves to get smacked down hard for what they are doing.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Now this company might actually have some standing to say their product is being blocked.
Think about the grander scheme though. Vuze comes out discussing Comcast having, essentially, hampered the service for all users of the service. Remember, Comcast isn't throttling the bandwidth, they're shaping packets to drop connections on both ends of the pipe...Comcast customers and non-Comcast customers. If someone that participated in a service with, oh...let's say 9.3 million subscribers with each individual being able to prove that Comcast is likely to be impairing their ability to use a service provided by a third party... Vuze probably isn't suing because they don't have the revenue to sustain a lawsuit. Other companies do.
It would be in Comcast's best interest to stop now. Since that's not likely, it'll be interesting to see what some intelligent lobbying and/or lawyering can get done.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
(1) FCC gets petition to prohibit bandwidth throttling
(2) all bandwidth is "unthrottled"
(3) all (at least US-based) ISPs have lack-of-bandwidth issues
(4a) all ISPs revoke any claim to "unlimited bandwidth" in a revised agreement notice upon which you have no say, and begin charging per-kb.
(4b) all ISPs actually perform the service upgrades for which they were already paid years ago.
Methinks that if 1 leads to 2, then it leads to 4a. 4b is there just for giggles. They'll never actually do that, of course.
Completely off-topic, but what the deuce is going on with tags lately? To the adjectives absurdly long, meaningless, and obscure, now we can add obscene.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
If Gieco sold their insurance with "unlimited English muffins with butter and jam" , they damn well better provide all the muffins and jam I want. Even if it is more then what they want to give away.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What the feds should NOT do:
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If we all complain, "Comcast is sending RST packets!" and then eventually Comcast says, "Okay, fine, no more RST packets," and then goes on to do other forms of extreme traffic shaping, then what? No, we want to nip this in the bud: no ISP, Comcast or not, should be allowed to unilaterally decide, "Hey, we don't like this traffic, so I just won't carry it." or "This is for The Good Of The People to Prevent Piracy" (or "Prevent Undermining Our Glorious President" or whatever).
Moreover, people need to know the implications of traffic shaping / net neutrality / dearth of ISP competition. I was very frustrated about how BitTorrent has been marginalized as "something that only pirates would use". The more we show the lay public the many versatile uses for a protocol like BitTorrent (or any other protocol, really), the more we get a public response.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I would like to propose for a minute that if everyone has faster connections, and everyone uses p2p protocols to transfer some of their content, that bandwidth peering will go up, and ISPs won't really have to pay a lot more for the OC48s. I realize that a lot of that is in upkeep/exotic hardware.
I guess what I'm saying is that this is a possibility, and a study should be done to see what the REAL effect of p2p is. If I'm connected to 10 other people in the Boston area on Comcast's network, would I REALLY be costing Comcast more money in bandwidth, aside from the fact that I'm using a lot of "last mile" throughput (which yes, I know, costs money to maintain).
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I reserve the right to be completely wrong *shrug*
when popular Linux distros get released there is no way in hell the servers can keep up with users wanting the new distro that just got released, and BitTorrent is the only way to get a copy, not all BitTorrent users are downloading music & video. and not all music & video is copywrite infringement, and how dare the ISPs tell customers how they use the bandwidth they are paying for!!!
i hope the FCC accepts and enforces this petition...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Interesting. So you're saying that if some company, say, a record label, sues a person that potentially caused them loss of revenue by, for instance, posting their songs on the Internet, they would only get actual proven damages? Whew! That's a relief. Here I was afraid that they could walk into court and get a jury award for something like $200,000 by saying that a bunch of people *might* have downloaded the songs that otherwise *might* have actually paid for them.
Thanks for straightening me out.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia