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."

Comments

Finally

[JCSoRocks]

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!

One Thing leads to Another

[Silentknyght]

(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.

Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe

[geekoid]

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.

Fair trade

[davidwr]

The courts, Congress, or a federal agency has the following responsibilities:

• Prevent fraudulent advertising
  
• Prevent unfair trade - if you throttle traffic because of some justifiable reason like bandwidth utilization, you must throttle all traffic on equal terms including your own. If you offer phone or video services you cannot give them preferential treatment.
  
• No discrimination based on the content of the data. A bit is a bit is a bit.
  
• No discrimination based on the port or protocol without a valid technical reason. "SSH triggers a bug in our routers that crashes our network" is a valid if very embarrassing technical reason. "SSH lets people hide torrents and torrents are big" is not.
  

What the feds should NOT do:

• Prevent shaping to enforce bandwidth-utilization. I may want to pay for a small bits-per-minute cap. My neighbor may want to pay for a higher cap.
  
• Prevent shaping to offer quality-of-service tiers, provided that any data was eligible to travel on any tier if the customer wants to pay for it. I may want to pay for guaranteed low-latency and throughput of all traffic. My neighbor may want to pay for that service but only for traffic from YouTube.
  

The issue isn't throttling... yet

[KWTm]

Actually, the issue isn't blocking or throttling, it's sending packets telling you to disconnect from the sender...

This has been repeated a number of times, and I recognize the truth in this, but you need to remember that the bigger picture is that an ISP is trying to change unilaterally how (and whether) it delivers traffic based on content.

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.