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!

Re:Finally

[Sloppy]

but the end result is good no matter who you are. Bravo I say!

As much as Comcast sucks, it sounds like you're taking the position that the federal government should have the authority to regulate how networks work. I think that's awful, and endangers just about everyone.

Comcast should be bitchslapped (and probably at the state level) for fraud: they fail to supply what they lead prospective customers to believe they supply. And in states where there are laws against impersonation, that should be enforced as well (or else repealed).

But for feds to regulate-away throttling itself, is a nightmare. Networks need to be able to deal with congestion problems, even in cases where they are not overselling or otherwise engaged in fraud. Throttling large transfers to increase the performance of interactive stuff, is a perfectly sane (and fair) way to do it. FCC better keep out of this.

Also, remember we're talking about feds. Comcast's monopoly, AFAIK, is provided by local governments. That's who should be setting terms. Kicking it it so far up the hierarchy of government, just reduces The People's power in the decision.

Re:Finally

[kcornia]

I think the general reasons for desiring government intervention are twofold. One, no one wants to wait around for all the telcos to get sued and dragged through ten years of civil litigation before a decision is reached. Two, and IANAL or a telco buy, but I think the government has these guys on a leash somewhat because we the taxpayers essentially paid for the creation of the network they're now charging for you, and that money was given based on them being common carriers. The reference to ATT trying to exclude calls to Montgomery county illustrates this perfectly. They are common carrier internet access providers. Deciding what content you're going to provide vs. not provide takes you out of common carrier, or so it's being alleged by many.

That's my understanding anyway, could be completely off base...

Re:Finally

[JesseMcDonald]

Two, and IANAL or a telco buy [sic], but I think the government has these guys on a leash somewhat because we the taxpayers essentially paid for the creation of the network they're now charging for you [sic], and that money was given based on them being common carriers.

Comcast (the primary target here) is not a telco. It's trying to move into that market via VoIP, but it never received federal funds to do so; its network and equipment are privately funded and owned, and should remain so. Nationalizing the cable networks via regulation won't solve anything any more than doing the same with the telco's networks solved anything. The real culprits here are the local governments, and to some extent the states, due to their habit of handing out lucrative monopoly franchises and thus killing any possibility of intra-regional competition. Such merchantilist practices must be eliminated before any significant progress can be expected.

Someone with standing, ... maybe

[cdrguru]

A Comcast user isn't going to get much traction in trying to sue Comcast over services they were expecting and not receiving. I doubt Comcast has any more legal obligation to deliver "expected" service than Geico has to deliver "an English muffin with butter and jam" - in reference to their commercials.

Now this company might actually have some standing to say their product is being blocked. Unfortunately, I don't think anybody has Comcast (or others) over a barrel quite yet. Comcast never agreed to deliver this content, or any other specific content. What did they agree to deliver? Probably not much, and nothing specifically. You aren't guaranteed email, web browsing, VPN or any other service. They didn't define what services they are delivering, what quantities of these services or anything else.

I think the company already looked at suing Comcast and found out there isn't anything there. The only avenue would be rulemaking or legislation. Probably not much going to happen there either.

Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe

[moderatorrater]

Actually, the issue isn't blocking or throttling, it's sending packets telling you to disconnect from the sender, and these packets are constructed by comcast to look like they're coming from the peer you're downloading from. Since it's a fraudulent packet, they could get in trouble for that. I'm sure straight-up throttling would be less of an issue, although in that instance they're not living up to their speed claims on purpose. I guess the real problem is that Comcast promised more bandwidth than they could deliver, and now that customers are trying to use it, Comcast is in a bit of a bind.

I will say this about Comcast, they're a hell of a lot better than Cox.

Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe

[cromar]

Of course, there are the upload/download rates you are supposed to get. Otherwise, why pay for 10Mbps when they can just give you 1bps. It is a clear cut case of fraud. You pay for one thing and get another. If it's not one speed for every protocol, it's not any speed at all: it's simply their whim.

Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe

[AndersOSU]

They didn't define what services they are delivering, what quantities of these services or anything else.

Isn't it precisely the FCC's role to step in and say, "By being a telecom company offering a product labeled as Internet access, you must provide the following:..."

ATT couldn't get away with saying that calls to Montgomery county aren't included in phone service, Comcast shouldn't be able to get away with saying bit torrent isn't included in internet service.

Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe

[farkus888]

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.

Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe

[faloi]

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.

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.

Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe

[Curunir_wolf]

Courts don't recognize what might have happened. Your not getting a $100.00 payment from someone can't be parlayed into a $1,000,000.00 payment in court because you could have bought a hot stock with that $100.00 early on. You're stuck collecting what you would get plus any statutory damages.

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.

Is anyone else amused...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Is anyone else amused...

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

The question is more along the lines of 'why should it be fine for them to mess with file downloads but not streaming video?'

Who is Vuze? Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Vuze would be the Azureus guys.

Now remove the tag that prominently displays your inability to use Google, you apes.

I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice

[jdjbuffalo]

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.

Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice

[Chirs]

"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."

I know...how about they just make people pay for the bandwidth they use?

They could offer X GB/month packages, where bigger X means bigger monthly fees. They could even get fancy and say that traffic between the hours of 1am and 7am doesn't count, or counts less.

There are all sorts of ways for them to ensure they don't lose money while still giving unfettered access.

Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice

[Wesley Felter]

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.

No; ISPs could throttle the bandwidth-hogging customers while remaining ignorant of protocols.

Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice

[Volante3192]

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.

This practice is countered by the ISP's willingness to advertize bandwidth WELL in excess of what they have. Perhaps ISPs should just use real numbers, not mythical ones some marketing genius picked out of a hat.

It's the same with airlines and overbooking. It should just be illegal to sell more than you can reasonably provide.

Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice

[PhantomHarlock]

It's definitely an imperfect solution to a complicated problem. As a previous poster put it:

Also, remember we're talking about feds. Comcast's monopoly, AFAIK, is provided by local governments. That's who should be setting terms. Kicking it it so far up the hierarchy of government, just reduces The People's power in the decision.

The root issue here is the 'last mile' problem. A bunch of competing cable and phone providers would result a mass and tangle of wire going everywhere. A government enforced monopoly (which is what we have) is not much better, but it's more aesthetic. What we really need is a proliferation of secure wireless based services, much like how satellite TV competes with cable TV. Unfortunately, consumer grade satellite internet has horrible latency and other problems. I think the answer is some type of cellular or mesh solution. Some companies use long range wifi and other directional antenna based systems, and mesh networks are pretty awesome if you can get enough people to participate. There also needs to be enough competition among all of these services to foster innovation. So more than one wireless provider for any given service area.

Again we run up against the FCC, which allocates wireless frequency spectrums here in the US. There is a lot of artificial and real scarcity - with the most innovation happening on the unlicensed bands (2.4ghz and it's multiple 5.8 ghz).

Internet connectivity (fiber optic) as a public utility is interesting - but only if it is done on a local level. Anything bigger than that, say, statewide, is bound to become mismanaged and horrible. (just think of the DMV...)

Comcast is just trying to protect its bandwidth, but as the parent poster mentions, the way they are doing is potentially dubious.

Also, to correct a misnomer from another post, their principal purpose is not to -stream- video via torrent (although they are now experimenting with that using their internal player) but to allow downloads of very large video files that people then watch locally.

I am a Vuze / Azureus user and so far this is the only good solution I've found for hosting my legal original HD videos on the web short of running a legal torrent server myself, which wouldn't get as much exposure. Vuze has also set up a system where you can sell downloadable video content for a price if you wish, a boon to indepdendent video producers.

Some things that they have done recently have been aggrivating (re-compressing files to a semi-proprietary format) but on the whole they have the right idea. And they are the textbook example of a company that is the most hurt by bandwidth throttling if it is done to an extreme as Comcast is doing (completely denying a download session)

Unlike Comcast itself, Vuze provides an outlet for speciality video producers to get their stuff out there.

Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice

[Kazrath]

I really do not like the available bandwidth argument. 15 years ago there was no home based broadband and the argument was still being made that there was not enough bandwidth. A decade ago AOL lost a HUGE suit over it.

These companies are holding a monopoly and raking in the cash. If you take into account just the internet sector has something like 13 million subscribers that 650 million gross a month. Their cable TV pretty much uses the same bandwidth also. Why are they not investing their huge profits into infrastructure to improve their maximum bandwidth. The technology is already avaialable so there is no valid excuse. If you increase your bandwidth to a point that it is impossible to saturate it then the issues will go away. Basically if everyone can download High Def content faster than you can play it the network cannot be saturated.

Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice

[eth1]

I think one of the better ways to do this is to sell a package with X GB of unthrottled transfer per month. As you approach X, instead of just letting you blow past it and chargeing for the extra bits, start throttling the sustained transfer speed down while leaving short bursts unthrottled.

You can pay more to increase X, but there's no fear of getting cut off or ending up with a large bandwidth bill to make people wary of buying a 'limited' or 'metered' service.

The huge bandwidth users will either have to pay more or deal with slow downloads, while the "normal" users don't have to worry about it at all. If they do go over one month, their web browsing and MMORPGs aren't affected, and they don't get hit with a bunch of extra charges. Most people want very fast transfers for a few seconds at a time, and this seems like a perfect solution.

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.

Tag system

[Wylfing]

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.

How should get what bandwidth/priority

[pcause]

The truth is that all ISPs rely on the fact that if they are selling 5Mbps t 10 people they don't have to have 50Mbps of available backbone. They assume that web applications are using the connections intermittently or that if you have a long running connection it doesn't matter if it slows down from time to time. If everyone on their 5Mpbs lines was downloading large files the best they'd each get would be something like 500Kbps assuming a 10-1 contention rate and most ISPs are are 20-1 or 50-1.
P2P traffic will slow down if there is a lot of it or if there is other long running traffic, without Comcast doing anything.

The bigger issue is that our connections are a shared resource. I it fair for you to get all of the bandwidth and leave me with slower response for my web traffic just because you want to download movies. Should we all get an equal slice. The only way for the ISP to do this is traffic shape - limiting the amount of total available bandwidth available for high use protocols like P2P traffic. Ding this means that when I try to load my web page or shoot a dragon in my MMOG there is some bandwidth left to give me a decent response.

Now, you could say that all the ISPs should have enough backbone to supply each of us with full time use of the bandwidth that the ISP talks about providing. The problem is that this would cost a HUGE amount of money and your bill would up 10-50 times what you now pay (depending on your ISPs contention factor).

The so called "net neutrality" debate is mis-named. The question is who pays for the cost of infrastructure and who makes the profits?

Re:How should get what bandwidth/priority

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Now, you could say that all the ISPs should have enough backbone to supply each of us with full time use of the bandwidth that the ISP talks about providing.

Nope. ISPs should, however, be required to advertise what they're actually offering rather than misleading potential customers.

The problem is that this would cost a HUGE amount of money and your bill would up 10-50 times what you now pay (depending on your ISPs contention factor).

Please. Comcast does not charge cost plus a markup for service. They charge what maximized profit because in many locations they have a government enforced monopoly and because their infrastructure was subsidized by our tax dollars to the tune of billions. They don't compete because no one else can get access to the last mile public right of ways needed to lay lines and because the government won't shell out billions more to establish a second player and won't require Comcast share the lines with competitors.

The so called "net neutrality" debate is mis-named.

Net neutrality is a different issue altogether, despite propaganda trying to confuse the topic. Net neutrality is simply advocating a law that says ISPs can't treat traffic differently depending upon the source and destination of the traffic. That is to say, they can throttle all bittorrent traffic, but they can't throttle all bittorrent traffic except traffic to a service they are offering or service to a company they get paid extra by.

The question is who pays for the cost of infrastructure and who makes the profits?

The entrenched telecos make the profits, because their lobbying dollars are more influential than the threat to politicians posed by the chance that voters will be informed of how new laws affect them and vote on the issue. The infrastructure has already been paid for largely by the US taxpayer. In fact, we've already paid more per person than Sweden, which has similar population density and who subsidized the entire infrastructure and have much more widespread coverage. They have faster speeds and pay a fraction of what we do. This is despite a huge misappropriation scandal there. That means in the US we pay more monthly. after having paid more in taxes, and we have a significantly inferior system. What does that tell you aside from the fact that telecos in the US are more greedy and our government is significantly more corrupt.

Finally, we have granted these big companies immunity from prosecution for breaking a huge number of laws like copyright violation, child pornography laws, libel and slander laws, etc. We grant them this protection under the guise of their being "common carriers" but many of them are not officially bound by the restrictions we place on other common carriers. Instead they have all the benefits of common carriers, but eschew the responsibility (to carry all traffic impartially without censorship or discrimination). It is clear to me that our current laws and the way these companies operate is not in the interests of the people, but only in the interests of milking as much money as possible. If we can publicize what is happening and get people to care about how far the US is falling behind other industrialized nations, maybe we can see some real improvement and move back to the top 10 internet enabled countries in the world, where we need to be if we hope to salvage our economy.

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.

Peering

[raidfibre]

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).

--
I reserve the right to be completely wrong *shrug*

New Linux ISOs

[FudRucker]

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...

Re:New Linux ISOs

[cdrguru]

How dare they indeed. Except you aren't paying for raw "bandwidth", you are paying for a service that the ISP is providing. The terms of that service and what it consists of are not clearly defined. Nowhere does it say that specific protocols, transports and applications are either allowed or disallowed.

Pretty much, you bought a pig in a poke.