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Comcast's FCC Filing Called Unfair, Not Good Enough

Shoemaker brings us a follow-up to Comcast's recent defense of its traffic management procedures. The companies involved in the original FCC investigation are not satisfied with Comcast's response. From Ars Technica: "Comcast made an aggressive defense of its policies, claiming that it only resets P2P uploads made during peak times and when no download is also in progress. Free Press, BitTorrent, and Vuze all say that's not good enough. In a conference call, Vuze's general counsel Jay Monahan drew the starkest analogy. What Comcast is really doing, he said, wasn't at all comparable to limiting the number of cars that enter a highway. Instead, it was more like a horse race where the cable company owns one of the horses and the racetrack itself. By slowing down the horse of a competitor like Vuze, even for a few seconds, Comcast makes it harder for that horse to compete. 'Which horse would you bet on in a race like that?' asked Monahan."

157 comments

  1. Now.... by yamiyasha · · Score: 2, Insightful

    only if the FCC can deal on that Merger between Sirius and XM

    1. Re:Now.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lolwut?

  2. Which horse? by ShaunC · · Score: 3, Funny

    'Which horse would you bet on in a race like that?'

    Well, probably not this horse.
    --
    Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
    1. Re:Which horse? by hal9000(jr) · · Score: 1

      Anyone have a link to the FCC filings? I would like to read those.

  3. Bad analogy. by calebt3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's more like having a professional sniper taking out the competitors.

    1. Re:Bad analogy. by whosaidanythingabout · · Score: 1

      Agreed, these analogies simply suck. Comcast's car analogy is just a plain lie, and the defense is just off the mark. If anything the competing horse is repeatedly sent back to the starting gate.

      If that is the best that the defense can do then they appear as clueless as the judge is likely to be. The real job of the defense here is to be smart enough to educate the judge on how the actions of Comcast cripple their customers ability to use the network service that they pay for.
    2. Re:Bad analogy. by calebt3 · · Score: 1

      Even better analogy: The competition's racehorses have barriers every dozen yards or so that trip them. Since the horse is injured, a new one needs to be saddled up and brought out. After this happens a few times, the rider just gives up.

    3. Re:Bad analogy. by omeomi · · Score: 1

      If anything the competing horse is repeatedly sent back to the starting gate.

      Ooh, we could name the horse Sisyphus!

      I wonder if anybody will get that...

    4. Re:Bad analogy. by DontLickJesus · · Score: 1

      Here's a relevant analogy:

      Cable is required to sell competitors advertising time.

      Would it be fair if cable were to purposefully degrade only these commercials, even in the name of network management?

      Would it be fair for cable operators to degrade channels because they don't agree with the content of the channel (as opposed to dropping the channel, which they obviously have the right to do). This would most likely result in lawsuits for damages incurred by said channel.

      --
      Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
    5. Re:Bad analogy. by dwpayne · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think a better analogy is if the post office had a policy of deliberately throwing away mail when they were too busy, like at Christmas time or whenever. That's not really interfering, right? Just delaying your mail, I mean, if you don't reply, the other people know to just resend you the same mail again, it just takes a few weeks.

      The post office is a good example of net neutrality too. When I write to a congresscritter, I just have to put a stamp on it, I don't have to pay every person who carries the letter. I don't pay my local carrier, then the guy who brings it to the regional center, the long haul trucker who brings it to DC, and so forth, just the one stamp.

    6. Re:Bad analogy. by ookabooka · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's more like having a professional sniper taking out the competitors.

      My favorite analogy: It's more like AT&T interrupting a phone call to your buddy, faking his voice to you and saying "Oh sorry, gotta go" and hanging up. As if that weren't bad enough it fakes your voice to your buddy doing the same thing. This is fraud, they inject RST packets and make it look like it's legitimate traffic from the other computer. It's an awful way to do QoS if it can even be construed as such. Why don't they just add in nice shaping rules like everyone else?
      --
      If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
    7. Re:Bad analogy. by kaizokuace · · Score: 3, Funny

      if you want a car analogy, its probably something like that freeway scene in one of them matrices movies. Packets, err...cars blowing up all over the place. And the bad guys catching up to the good guys. And lots of explosions and cgi.

      --
      Balderdash!
    8. Re:Bad analogy. by mtmra70 · · Score: 0, Troll

      But the post office does raise it's rates every 6 months and over charges for their service....

    9. Re:Bad analogy. by somersault · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nope, I didn't get it. If only I had some method of searching through large quantities of information quickly, trying to match a certain word or phrase.. or perhaps some large collection of knowledge indexed in an orderly fashion that I could lookup quick (or as the Hawaiians say, 'wiki') for the name Sisyphus.. oh well, guess neither I nor anyone else will get this joke.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    10. Re:Bad analogy. by budgenator · · Score: 1

      well then just type "Sisyphus" into wikipedia and botta-boom-botta-bing you get an article about Sisyphus!

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    11. Re:Bad analogy. by budgenator · · Score: 1

      I think the better analogy is sports orientated and would be, "imagine a football game where someone in the stands blows a referees whistle and stops the play every time something happens on the field they don't like and nobody can even figure out what the clown with a whistle doesn't like."

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    12. Re:Bad analogy. by budgenator · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And I just send a copy of the letter out every other day until I get a letter back stating you got the original letter, that's how they manage traffic.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    13. Re:Bad analogy. by somersault · · Score: 1

      *whoooooooosh*

      --
      which is totally what she said
    14. Re:Bad analogy. by h4rm0ny · · Score: 1


      Wow! That's one of the rare occasions I've actually seen a useful analogy on Slashdot. If that's yours, you should really see if you can get that analogy wider exposure. It illustrates Comcast's behaviour and the perceived immorality of that behaviour beautifully.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    15. Re:Bad analogy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats get back to the highway/car analogy:

      What their doing is not limiting how many cars can get onto the highway, what they are doing is throwing a stone wall right in front of the car, then throwing it off the highway. And doing it without any warning, or thinking about who might be in the car.

    16. Re:Bad analogy. by Grandiloquence · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think a better analogy is if the post office had a policy of deliberately throwing away mail when they were too busy, like at Christmas time or whenever. That's not really interfering, right? Just delaying your mail, I mean, if you don't reply, the other people know to just resend you the same mail again, it just takes a few weeks.

      More like, the Post Office throws away your letter, then forges a letter to both parties. Each forged letter has a message equivalent to "I hate you and never want to hear from you again. Stop sending me letters.".
    17. Re:Bad analogy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I think a better analogy is if the post office had a policy of deliberately throwing away mail when they were too busy, like at Christmas time or whenever.

      You are getting close. I have contacts inside Comcast and they are saving a lot of money by reducing the amount of bandwidth they must purchase, especially from AT&T. They don't really care about traffic that stays on the comcast networks. They are thrilled with the cost savings.

      So this is more like laying off more and more postal carriers to save money and using the lack of delivery capacity to justify throwing away more mail...

      I know the names of the Comcast people they need to subpoena.

    18. Re:Bad analogy. by u-235-sentinel · · Score: 1

      My favorite analogy: It's more like AT&T interrupting a phone call to your buddy, faking his voice to you and saying "Oh sorry, gotta go" and hanging up. As if that weren't bad enough it fakes your voice to your buddy doing the same thing. This is fraud, they inject RST packets and make it look like it's legitimate traffic from the other computer. It's an awful way to do QoS if it can even be construed as such. Why don't they just add in nice shaping rules like everyone else?

      Because Monopolies can make products that suit their needs over the needs of their customers.

      If you really understand Concast management, you would realize that in their minds they are doing no wrong. They really think this is an acceptable network management method instead of implementing QoS services.

      Yeah I know. They have strange people working over there.

      --
      Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
    19. Re:Bad analogy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the real job of the defense is to be smart enough to not say anything more technical than bad analogies that a five year old could understand and hope for a sympathetic judge.

    20. Re:Bad analogy. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      If someone doesn't get a joke a about not getting a joke, then is that some form of metahumour?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    21. Re:Bad analogy. by somersault · · Score: 1

      It could be something to do with that irony stuff that everyone keeps going on about.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    22. Re:Bad analogy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your analogy is a good one, but it's a little incomplete.
      Lets assume the post office has a limited number of employees. Now when everyone is simply sending a couple letters a day, the mail gets sorted and sent out quickly and easily. But what happens when someone decides they don't want to send a couple letters a day...they want to send a few thousand. And then another person joins in and sends a few thousand a day as well. The 'Comcast' post office is still accepting letters, but they are limiting the number of staff members they are willing to assign to the few people who want to send a few thousands a day (in order to protect the majority of people who send only a couple of letters). Is it fair to those who send only a couple letters to have them all delayed so that a few people can send thousands? I say delay the few who are sending too much mail, so that the rest of us can have our mail delivered in a timely matter.

      I guess another argument would be that if people are sending thousands of letters a day, maybe they should hire more staff.

    23. Re:Bad analogy. by The_Rook · · Score: 1

      not quite. the post office is not really a great analogy because all the costs associated with sending a letter lie with the sender, not the recipient. on the internet, the costs of transporting content are shared equally by both the sender and recipient. that's why everyone screams about spam.

      if we wanted the internet to work more like the postal service, then everyone would have free internet access on the receiving side, and pay a fixed amount per packet in sending costs. packets would come in different types or classes with first class packets being the most expensive to send but also receiving the highest security and priority. lower class packets would be less expensive and receive lower priority but would be used for less critical or non-realtime data. but the real key to the system is that all the costs are borne by the senders, not the recipients of data.

      --
      when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
  4. You are a Moon Master! by milsoRgen · · Score: 2, Funny

    My $0.02: deregulate, increase investment in infrastructure and leave it to the law enforcement agencies to deal with potential matters of criminal activity online. then we have an internet we can all enjoy!

    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
    1. Re:You are a Moon Master! by milsoRgen · · Score: 1

      Damn it, I meant regulate should of previewed I suppose....

      --
      I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
    2. Re:You are a Moon Master! by wrinklybrain · · Score: 0

      You want the goverment watching what you do looking for illegal activity?

      Of the two evils, I'd rather have my ISP doing that. Better yet, instead of that why dont they just throttle the issue and sweep it under the rug and pretend they dont know what were doing.

    3. Re:You are a Moon Master! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the post office charges different rates for different types of mail... and you can pay more for speedier delivery. No one ever seems to complain about this, though.

    4. Re:You are a Moon Master! by erlehmann · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But the post office charges different rates for different types of mail [...]
      certainly not based on what's in the packages (read: packets).
    5. Re:You are a Moon Master! by takshaka · · Score: 1

      certainly not based on what's in the packages
      Two words: Media Mail.
    6. Re:You are a Moon Master! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you never used MediaMail?

    7. Re:You are a Moon Master! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the post office does reserve the right to refuse to ship packages that might harm their infrastructure: http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/601.htm#wp1064962

  5. Phew by Nero+Nimbus · · Score: 4, Funny

    For a minute there, I thought we were going to get yet another car analogy.

    1. Re:Phew by wjhoffman1983 · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's more like a series of racetracks...

    2. Re:Phew by MrShaggy · · Score: 1

      Exactly, cause when you put that horse on the track on Friday, you might not be able to get off till Monday, because every other horse is there. Unless you have a dump-truck.

      --
      I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
    3. Re:Phew by djupedal · · Score: 1

      How's this?

      If the internet were a limousine, Comcast would be a temporary spare...left to rot in a warehouse...in the dark. Without heat. Behind an unlocked door. Without an id tag. On a weekend. In New Jersey.

      Feel better?

    4. Re:Phew by Romancer · · Score: 1

      And remember, beware the leopard.

      --


      ) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
      ) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
    5. Re:Phew by dmsuperman · · Score: 1

      Those are horrible analogies, it's like a series of tubes, where cars can float through them, and sometimes banana peels are thrown on the ground and the car slips and is delayed while it must right itself. And Comcast also constantly patrols the roads and cleared stopped cars.

      --
      :(){ :|:& };: Go!
  6. Another bad analogy by GaryOlson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Education is fairer when you hold the smartest and best back just a little bit when the rest of the class can not understand their input.

    --
    Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
    1. Re:Another bad analogy by brian0918 · · Score: 1

      And when the entire class does not give a sh*t about even going to school, the ones with potential get nowhere and become demotivated. Switch to private education and help those who want to be helped; stop teaching the attitude that progress requires no effort from those meant to progress.

    2. Re:Another bad analogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't understand!

  7. It's paid for. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ISP's are selling these massive speeds / bandwidths, but get pissy when anyone comes close to actually using it.

    1. Re:It's paid for. by Sangui5 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not only that, but their own arguments support the view that they're massively oversold.

      They say that they are only targeting a few users--that a "small minority" of people are hogging the bandwidth. If a small percentage (say, 2%) of your users can overload the network, that directly means you are heavily oversold (by 50x).

    2. Re:It's paid for. by Burdell · · Score: 1

      Yes, the network is oversold; the Internet (and packet-switched networks in general) is designed around the assumption that nobody uses 100% of their bandwidth 100% of the time. We could go back to circuit-switched networks, but who wants to pay $1000+/month for residential Internet access?

      In Comcast's case though, the problem is the design of the cable modem network protocols. There are a limited number of channels available for upstream bandwidth, and they have to be shared among all users on a segment. Comcast could put just one user per segment, but again the cost would be many times what they charge today (because of the significant increase in equipment and management costs). The newest version of the protocol (DOCSIS 3.0) allows for more upstream bandwidth, but they're going to have to spend a significant amount of money to upgrade (and in some cases replace) all of their existing equipment to take advantage of the new version.

    3. Re:It's paid for. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      So why can't they just advertise "speeds UP TO xxxx Mbps*" (with "* speed only seen at off-peak times" in small print)?

      No one expects their new sports car to go 180 mph on the freeway in rush-hour traffic, so why is this such a problem with advertised network speeds?

    4. Re:It's paid for. by Sangui5 · · Score: 3, Informative

      It isn't that there is overselling that is the problem, it's that there is *heavy* overselling. Comcast is promising gobs of bandwidth for very little money, yet they don't have the capacity to back it up. They probably based the amount they could oversell on estimates from pre-broadband usage patterns; it's not the customer's fault that Comcast made an incorrect assumption. If they've oversold so much that it is causing such bad problems, then advertise lower peak bandwidths, or stop accepting new customers. Cheating your existing customers is not a valid option.

      As for the shortcomings of DOCSIS; the DSL specs allowed tuning which frequency bands are assigned to upstream vs. downstream. The phone company understood that traffic patterns can change, and that they need to be flexible. If the cable internet industry was incompetent/shortsighted when designing their specs, then they brought their troubles on themselves.

      Shared co-ax has some advantages in that it does allow for very large peak bandwidth for individual users; it stinks in that it supports quite poor average bandwidth per user. For DSL, the expensive, super-high-speed links only have to go to the central offices; for cable internet, the whole loop has to operate fast. It was a good design for broadcasting TV; not so much for internet.

    5. Re:It's paid for. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because a third party imposes the speed limits. If Ferrari S.p.A. set speed limits for all roads, I'd expect their advertisements to reflect that speed.

    6. Re:It's paid for. by sjames · · Score: 1

      Yes, the network is oversold; the Internet (and packet-switched networks in general) is designed around the assumption that nobody uses 100% of their bandwidth 100% of the time. We could go back to circuit-switched networks, but who wants to pay $1000+/month for residential Internet access?

      The problem isn't that they oversell. For the exact reason you point out, some overselling is the right thing to do. The problem is that they MASSIVELY oversell. They oversell beyond what the real usage patterns can support and they oversell way beyond the usage pattern they themselves suggest in their advertising (that is, to the point that they can't handle the traffic if people use the service the way the commercials suggest that they will). Then, they quietly sabotage some protocols (denying it until the proof is overwealming) and set secret limits. Then they just dump anyone who isn't psychic enough to figure out what the limit is and stay under it. To add insult to injury, they call those people abusers even though they never defined abuse in a useful enough way to avoid it.

      They act as if they owe residents of a community nothing even though they couldn't even exist if not granted right of way by people who supposedly represent those residents.

      They COULD be honest, admit to what they can and do really provide for the monthly fee and give "abusers" a way to monitor themselves and avoid exceeding what they have actually paid for. It's too bad they choose to lie instead.

    7. Re:It's paid for. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      No, you're missing the point. I said "rush-hour traffic". In rush-hour traffic, it doesn't matter how fast your car can go, or how fast the speed limits allow you to go, because the gridlock around you will bring your car to a complete halt on the freeway.

  8. Re:You'd do the same by JStegmaier · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or ISPs could stop over-selling their capacity, then no one would need to "police" themselves by making sure they use less than the bandwidth they're paying for.

    ISPs either need to take on less customers (I know at least one DSL provider in my area is taking this path, actually refusing new customers and their money because they've oversold) or actually tell their customers how much bandwidth they're getting.

    Instead, they sell, sell, sell accounts with "unlimited" bandwidth at X speed; add something in their ToS that some unknown amount of usage is too much; and then blame their infrasture problems on those that use BitTorrent and the like (whether they are used for legal or illegal purposes) rather than on their own irresponsibility and money-grabbing.

  9. Slashtecnica by Protonk · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Just like the tag says. Mod me down/offtopic/whatever, but I'm tired of seeing every other story from ars on slashdot. I understand that the discussion system here is relatively unique and we might benefit from community wisdom on a subject where the discussion system on ars tends to be very obscured and not the focus. I get that not EVERY article there is copied here. I just wonder how much of the slashdot readership sees ars as well as /. and would rather not see a story on both. I can almost always expect to see a story on ars here within a day or so, like clockwork. I'd rather see it stop.

    1. Re:Slashtecnica by Vectronic · · Score: 1

      Semi-valid arguement, however its not really *where* the story originates, but how many people it reaches... some people (myself included) dont like Ars Technica, mainly because its a pain in the Ars, too much advertising, links, way too much focus on bullshit rather than the story (I mean the layout of the site, not the articles)... and its about a third as speedy as /.

      What /. need is a forum on itself (Maybe there is but only for "Subscribers" ?) or atleast a poll now and again about "How could /. improve ths site?"

    2. Re:Slashtecnica by KingMotley · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'd rather see it continue. I don't go to Ars. I don't want to. I also do go to reuters. Or cnews. Or many other news sites. I expect slashdot to bring the most important news here, and that's why I come here. It's not like slashdot has original articles I can't find elsewhere. Every article on slashdot comes from somewhere else.

    3. Re:Slashtecnica by Protonk · · Score: 1

      I guess I never felt that slashdot will bring the important news to me. OR.....I should be more clear. I feel that slashdot should be aggregating news that isn't showing up in other major venues. I should see a story about some weird linux nonsense or something about the ESA or some such. I don't want to see something from "ars" or "cnet" every other day. That appears to be a very narrowly held viewpoint.

  10. They even flat out lie by Sangui5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They admit to sending RST packets, but then claim that they don't forge packets. They're audacious enough to say that the people who say that the packets are forged are the liars. They also say RST packets are the only way, completely ignoring options like ICMP source quench, leaky bucket/token bucket filtering, or TCP's own congestion control reaction to dropped/delayed packets.

    Whoever wrote Comcast's response has quite a pair.

  11. No room P2P huh! by neonmonk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh, no room for P2P, huh?


    Fine. I'll go build my own telecom infrastructure with blackjack.. and hookers.


    In fact, forget the infrastructure and the blackjack... Eh, screw the whole thing.

  12. Why the analogies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I (I'm willing to bet no one has) heard a single analogy that accurately describes how selective and selfish throttling bandwidth, along with "quality premium service" for a fee. It's protection money. It's false advertisement and breach of contract. Why does this need comparison to horse racing and highways?

    1. Re:Why the analogies? by Protonk · · Score: 1

      I agree that the horserace analogy is pretty stupid. I had to read it twice to figure out if that was all there was to it. I don't agree that comcast's policy is akin to protection money (another analogy), nor do I agree that the use of analogies in general is bad.

      The false advertising claim is probably baseless. The laws on what constitutes false advertising vary state to state and aren't as strict as one might imagine. The breach of contract might also be shaky. I don't have a comcast contract on hand, but I'm more than 50% sure that I won't find a bandwidth or QoS gaurantee written into a residential high speed internet agreement. No lawyer in his right mind would offer that much to a customer.

  13. Re:You'd do the same by Protonk · · Score: 1

    Fine then, as long as I sign a contract that says my traffic can be interrupted by forging packet requests. That's totally cool. turns out my contract DOESN'T say that. Also, the fact that cable companies represent something of a natural monopoly means that regulation in this sense might be the right answer.

    Where do you get the notion that using p2p software is immoral or illegal? This is a funny one. I don't care if you can't keep a VPN connection up. that sounds like a problem you need to take up with your carrier. If they can't provide you w/ qos gaurantees, then maybe you shoudl find another carrier. It's as simple as that. If comcast wants to make badnwidth limits or appropriately throttle traffic in order to provide those QoS gaurantees, greate. If they want to illegally forge packets and impersonate parties in a conversation, that is a legal manner.

  14. Re:You'd do the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    f you want a law changed write your congress man/woman, goto capital hill, or something that changes the law. Breaking the law will not help anyone. Following the law is a fools game when the law is written by your mortal enemies. Just ask the Irish. Or the americans of a few hundred years ago. Real change only comes when the law is broken. Disrespect for unjust law is your duty.
  15. This made a rant during an economic radio show by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Informative

    On my way home from work this evening, a radio host was finally talking about this in a way that regular joes would care about (and the show was for regular joes trying to invest). He said that Comcast is using its monopoly to limit competing content (non-comcast video and audio). I'm sure more than a few ears perked up.

    1. Re:This made a rant during an economic radio show by Protonk · · Score: 1

      ears might have perked up, but that isn't strictly the case. That is what is wrong w/ the analogy. This is the REASON we want net neutrality provisions but it is not what is actually happening. To call comcast's video on demand service a direct competitor to other p2p and video systems is laughable. It is a potential competitor to some small sectors of the market.

    2. Re:This made a rant during an economic radio show by alanshot · · Score: 1

      exactly. as a packet8 customer on a commiecast network, I find it odd that none of my comcast voice freinds have call quality issues, yet I am constantly fighting the issues. And if I take my packet8 equipment to my office I NEVER have any quality issues. Kinda makes me wonder what ELSE they are throttling.

    3. Re:This made a rant during an economic radio show by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 1

      "To call comcast's video on demand service a direct competitor to other p2p and video systems is laughable."

      Of course it is a competitor to new services that are internet-based. Putting p2p aside, Xbox Live and iTunes offer video on demand services that, IMO, eliminate the need for cable television. In fact, I get all of my TV programming from iTunes with AppleTV (and through my Xbox 360 if I want). Luckily I have Fios in my area, so I would never do business with Comcast based on their antics.

    4. Re:This made a rant during an economic radio show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think Comcasts filtering decisions are based on competitors content delivered over their lines. It is to compete with FIOS and other players in the high speed market.

      FIOS promises great speeds. In order for Comcast to compete with that, they need to increase their own speed. I know since I've had Comcast internet, my service level has gone from 1.5/128 to 8/512 in several steps. They also have "speed boost" for smaller higher speed downloads. It does work. I can achieve almost 20mbits/sec down on several speed tests. With all of this, on paper and in the advertising campaigns to compete with FIOS, they can claim these outstanding speeds. The problem is they do not actually have the capacity for people to use that speed other than maybe browse web pages and read email. How can they retain a majority of their customers and try to maintain comparable speeds? Increase bandwidth or reduce the bandwidth that each person can use. Now you have speed boost and 8/512 that sounds comparable but in reality, it is not because of filtering and packet shaping (or packet forging in this case). Think extremes, imagine if they offered 100mbit speed but behind the scenes they filtered and throttled everything over 1MB is size?
      It is all marketing and advertising. People see the speed advertised in writing and jump on the deal.
      Comcast should be questioned by the FCC and the local governments with franchise agreements about the advertising program as it relates to the filtering. They may be able to justify the filtering from a pure network standpoint but can they justify that filtering as it relates to their goals of the advertising campaigns?
      Network congestion -> we filter and monitor to maintain quality service
      Sounds reasonable, any NOC would do that.
      Advertise speed boost, 8mbit speed, blazing speeds -> network congestion -> we filter
      Now it is a problem, promise one thing, deliver another.

    5. Re:This made a rant during an economic radio show by Protonk · · Score: 1

      I just don't buy the notion that retarding p2p video services is in any way an action motivated by the fear that they will compete with comcast's video on demand cable service. That is the intent of the analogy, to suggest intent without proof. I don't feel that is very valid at all.

  16. Re:You'd do the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's all well and good, since I don't give a damn about P2P when I'm at home (I have a real network connection for that), but when I can't sustain a RDP connection due to Comcast's bullshit without some fucking around of my own, I think there's a pretty god damn real problem. Have you ever even used Comcast?

  17. Re:You'd do the same by corsec67 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Except in this case it is much more than just blocking connections. Comcast was making forged reset packets, and sending it to both parties. Forgery != Blocking.
    These reset packets were also targeted at VPN connections.

    --
    If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
  18. Needs more car analogies. by Lordfly · · Score: 4, Funny

    You see, the internet is like a car, and Comcast is like the clutch. If you stick a bologna sandwich in the clutch, obviously you need more cup holders, like Bit Torrent and Vuze.

    That's why we need net neutrality!

    --
    hookers and grits.
    1. Re:Needs more car analogies. by Sangui5 · · Score: 1

      That analogy is terrible! Vuze is nothing at all like a cupholder; it's more like a heated seat.

    2. Re:Needs more car analogies. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ross Perot? Is that you?

  19. You and ron paul supporters by Bored+MPA · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You and ron paul supporters have a lot in common. /taunt

    -b

  20. Repeat Programming by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Funny

    Funny, when I mail an "unfair, not good enough" check for my Comcast bill, they just shut me down.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Repeat Programming by calebt3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      The post office dropped your packet. Or did it send you a fake cancellation of service notice to both of you?

    2. Re:Repeat Programming by u-235-sentinel · · Score: 1

      Funny, when I mail an "unfair, not good enough" check for my Comcast bill, they just shut me down.

      You must have been using your Internet too much. Either that or... uh.. well..

      No that's about the only reason they turn you off these days. ;-)

      --
      Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
  21. They even flat out show a pair. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Whoever wrote Comcast's response has quite a pair."

    Most horses do.

  22. Re:You'd do the same by locokamil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Who are these paragons of good ISP behavior, by the way? If they are in the northeast, I would like to give them my custom.

    When, that is, they are willing to take it. :)

  23. Re:You'd do the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you think that others should be brought to court in order to make it easier for you to tele-commute... and they're the selfish ones?

  24. A better analogy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's the worst analogy I've ever heard. What they are doing isn't traffic shaping, it's a criminal offense. How about:

    Your honor, they are breaking criminal law. It's as though Comcast were mailing bombs to their customers with fake return addresses on the package.

    Why are Vuze's lawyers lobbing softballs? The Associated Press documented spoofed IPs. Someone at Comcast should go to prison.

  25. Certification Solution by Deanalator · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I think it would be fun if the US had some sort of regulating body that would create a set of 20 or so certifications for each type of market in business. Small companies would not necessarily need to get certified, but there could be tax related incentives for large companies to be certified.

    For example, a mining company could not also be a railroad company (the classic steel monopolies). Likewise, a company certified as an ISP could not also get certified as a media distribution company. Also, if one company starts to encroach on a market that is not their own, they would risk losing their certification. Companies could still function without certification, but they would lose certain perks related to the market they want to operate in.

    You could also enforce rules, such as net neutrality on government owned fiber. That way, ISPs still retain their property rights to tamper with people's data (we do route over their machines), but then the government would be able to revoke their certification. This would allow customers to know which companies play nice without having to dig through a ton of information themselves.

    I think this model has the potential to greatly simplify the tax code, and corporate law, while increasing customer awareness of sketchy business practices.

  26. Horse shit by syousef · · Score: 1

    I don't think the analogy in the summary is worth a horse's turd. Disconnecting is more like shooting the horse, not slowing it down.

    Anyway there's no car in that analogy. I don't understand!!!

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  27. Why concentrate on "throttling"? by Sparr0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think the EFFECT of Comcast's interference is the main issue here. Traffic shaping IS an issue, but not the important one in this case. HOW they are doing it is important. They are forging network packets (RST packets, in particular). This isn't just limiting the cars getting on the highway, it's like calling you on your cell phone before you get on the highway, pretending to be your boss, and telling you not to bother coming to work today. They are committing fraud, of multiple sorts, every time they do this.

    1. Re:Why concentrate on "throttling"? by elronxenu · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Can we make a technological defense against this problem, e.g. by comparing Time-to-live (TTL) on the RST packets against TTL on the legitimate packets, and if it is substantially higher on the RST packet then assume interference and drop the RST?

    2. Re:Why concentrate on "throttling"? by WK2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You should be able to work around it by adding something to your iptables. I found this page: http://www.tweak3d.net/forums/tech/possible-fix-comcast-torrent-blocking-28264 which has a simple fix. I haven't tested it myself. It looks like it should work. Their solution is to drop ALL RST packets to your bit torrent port. If the RST was legit, the connection will time out eventually anyway.

      Your solution is technically better, but much harder to do. I think it would require patching and compiling a kernel.

      --
      Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
    3. Re:Why concentrate on "throttling"? by mrogers · · Score: 1

      Their solution is to drop ALL RST packets

      The same solution also fixes that pesky Great Firewall problem.

    4. Re:Why concentrate on "throttling"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with this is that as far as I'm aware they send RST packets to both parties, so an unilateral 'fix' won't do much good.

    5. Re:Why concentrate on "throttling"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's just one problem with blocking RST in your firewall. Comcast sends RST packets to BOTH sides, reconfiguring iptables will do you no good if the other side accepted the RST packet and dropped the connection anyway.

    6. Re:Why concentrate on "throttling"? by scottwed · · Score: 1

      It's impossible to workaround the Comcast (or should I say Sandvine ) technique by only fixing something on your end . Those forged reset packets are going to both participants in the conversation. Because both sides think the other person wants to hang up, the session is permanently discarded. It's then up the application to decide if it wants to initiate a new conversation. This wouldn't be so obnoxious to the non-bit torrent world if it wasn't also harming other systems, such as Hamachi VPN, Lotus Notes, and sometimes even Google (still can't explain the logic behind that, but there are packet traces to prove it).

    7. Re:Why concentrate on "throttling"? by dennypayne · · Score: 1

      2 AC's posted this, so in the interest of getting those correct responses noticed by those who filter out AC's....

      This won't work if Comcast is sending the reset to both sides. The other party to the connection will accept the RST and drop the connection anyway, unless they have done the same in iptables as you have. So the fact that you are blocking RST's won't help.

      Denny

      --
      Erecting the wall of separation between church and state is absolutely essential in a free society. - Thomas Jefferson
    8. Re:Why concentrate on "throttling"? by WK2 · · Score: 1

      It's impossible to workaround the Comcast (or should I say Sandvine ) technique by only fixing something on your end . Those forged reset packets are going to both participants in the conversation.

      You can't go around modifying everybody else's PCs. Unless you're Microsoft, and you are creating friendly worms. You can only work around the problem on your end. The person on the other end needs to work around the problem too, in a similar way.

      The example I linked to provides a workaround for the server side. For the client side, you would have to drop RST packets from all established connections. Keep in mind that with P2P, everybody is both a client and a server. You also have to keep in mind NAT routers. If you are behind a NAT, it will forward the RST packets, but may also take them as a hint that the connection is now closed.

      --
      Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
  28. Re:You'd do the same by nbert · · Score: 1

    Another possibility would be to accept that their mixed calculation doesn't add up. They could make the flatrates more expensive and add a variety of volume/time based options for "normal" people. It's not the fault of the customers if the current model fails because some people really use what they paid for.

    Disclaimer: I don't know about Comcast's pricing model (and I can't really check without a valid address in the states). But wrong flatrate pricing seems to be a generic ISP problem nowadays

  29. Re:You'd do the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you had a coffee shop, and was told that allowing P2P could put you at legal risk, you ban that traffic.

    No, I'd laugh in their face, and ask if they think letting customers talk to each other also puts me at legal risk. (Sign language is verboten! You could be telling her something illegal in *my* coffee shop.)

    If you had the majority of your patrons telling you they are going to your competitor because they can't access your mail because of 2% of your users not limiting P2P you'd throttle it.

    And then I'd lie about it to everybody, including government investigators? Why would I do such a thing? This analogy makes no sense.

    If you want a law changed write your congress man/woman, goto capital hill, or something that changes the law. Breaking the law will not help anyone.

    Again, I laugh in your face. Breaking the law to change the law has an excellent track record. But this isn't about P2P; this is about Comcast advertising "unlimited" internet, and then limiting it, so the relevant law is called "fraud", and it needs no changing.

    I do applaud you on one thing: the name "wrinklybrain" is apropos for somebody who has no knowledge of history or law!
  30. Car analogy by elronxenu · · Score: 1
    It's like cars on a highway ... when the highway is crowded and traffic is slowing down, some cars being driven to a competitor's shop are picked up by a crane and moved back to their starting point, at the onramp to the highway.

  31. Slashdot Used to be great. Now it suzx0rs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot claims to be a free and open haven on the net. A place for geeks to catch up on the latest news, and read interesting opinions about it. Instead, it is rife with behind-the-curtains moderation and subversive actions taken against accounts.

    The editors are well known for their abuses. The canonical example is documented here yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/10/174240. A post which detailed troubling trends in moderation on slashdot was modded up by many moderators. Slashdot's editors secretly banned each and every moderator who modded the post up from moderating again on slashdot.
    The Editors Are Unqualified

    The editors of slashdot are unfit for the positions they hold. Above all, they lack journalistic integrity. The news posted is often factually incorrect, and is always slanted by the opinions of the editors. Their ineptitude in every aspect of the job crops up constantly. They are horrible programmers, incompetent sysadmins, and make elementary spelling and grammatical errors, and the quality of the site reflects this.

    This problem produces a number of symptoms. Most notably, the competent readership is driven away. This is the group that has something to offer to slashdot- informative comments, wise moderations, etc. However, they are driven away by the site's amateur execution and moronic readership.
    Moderation Sucks

    Comments are judged by popular opinion. This means that anything that sounds smart gets the stamp of approval, which means that complete nonsense is promoted. While this may sound like a small point, consider that Slashdot is one of the most popular geek sites around. To a young, uneducated programmer, this sort of misinformation is extremely harmful.

    1. Re:Slashdot Used to be great. Now it suzx0rs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This link:
      http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/1/17/21155/1564

      The comment, "The first Slashdot troll post investigation" has at the time I write this, gotten moderated 126 times (Moderation Totals: Offtopic=53, Flamebait=1, Troll=3, Redundant=2, Insightful=10, Interesting=38, Informative=11, Funny=2, Overrated=2, Underrated=4, Total=126.), and all of the 75 replies have also been moderated to -1 (Offtopic).

      The concensus of the posters is that one, or more, of the editors of slashdot decided that this thread shouldn't be viewed, and used a hitherto unknown power of the editors (infinite moderation points) to bitchslap the whole thread to -1 (offtopic).

      Slashdot claims to be a user moderated news site. If the users want to discuss the slashdot moderation system under an article about Oracle security problems, shouldn't they be allowed to do so? What good is user moderation if an editor decides that the subject is non grata?

      Clearly, the slashdot users wanted to discuss the topic, as seen by the amount of replies in the thread. They weren't allowed to.

      Finally I want to pose a question: What if this happened here? What would our feelings toward Rusty be then? Would we still feel that Kuro5hin was a place where we could discuss whatever people wanted to discuss?

      Ah well, it was time to give up on slashdot anyway... *sigh*

  32. Re:You'd do the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Exactly. Is there any other industry where companies are allowed to sell services which they know they cannot provide?

  33. A.I. Tor Forks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Time for a people's free internet, with A.I. Tor forks!

  34. hmm by rastoboy29 · · Score: 1

    You know, I have to admit, as much as I like this seeing the light of day, it scares me to have Congress so...involved...in these technological affairs that they cannot, really, possibly all understand.

    I know plenty of hot young IT geeks who don't really "get" the bigger picture, let alone a bunch of technophobic Congrescritters...

  35. Just traffic shape!!! by NickCatal · · Score: 1

    I have said this before, why does Comcast not just throttle BT packets when the lines are being saturated? On multiple levels. You could also throttle the bandwidth of the largest users in general if other users who barely ever use the internet want bandwidth. AKA if all I do is log on once a day and watch 10 youtube videos I would get priority over the guy who maxes out his line doing BT all day.

    Of course, you would always want to prioritize VOIP, games, DNS and other types of vital traffic. Could even prioritize based on what servers are being accessed. Blackberry.net, Chase Online Banking, ETrade, and other similar sites are a bit more important than YouTube.com for most customers.

    This shaping would only be if the line is being saturated.

    I go to a school that, when I was a freshman, had a few thousand students on the residential network sharing a single T3. There were arrays of squids which basically cached all of Facebook & Yahoo Mail and traffic shapers for everything else. The shapers were set to aggregate and monitor the usage of bandwidth that is not being pulled from the squids based on the mac addresses they registered when they first connected to the network. So if one user was using a ton of bandwidth, their devices would be throttled down. I was absolutely floored by this. Not only because I feel like I was getting ripped off by sharing a single T3 with a thousand other college students, but also that I never even suspected that I was sharing such a small connection. In fact, since the squids were there things seemed to load even faster! (although I wouldn't recommend having Squids for business customers, if it is a residential non-business network then it should be fair game if the remote hosts don't specifically say not to cache the content)

    It can be done, and Comcast doesn't have to mess with the actual packets or play games with the traffic on their network. Just do some traffic shaping for Christ's sake! Not only that, you can start offering faster connections like RCN... Hey, if they can get me 20mbit even if any BT I use is throttled based on what my neighbor's needs are, then I'm game.

    --
    -nick
    1. Re:Just traffic shape!!! by arotenbe · · Score: 1

      Of course, you would always want to prioritize VOIP, games, DNS and other types of vital traffic. Could even prioritize based on what servers are being accessed. Blackberry.net, Chase Online Banking, ETrade, and other similar sites are a bit more important than YouTube.com for most customers. Yes, but can you imagine the lawsuits when <insert website/service/network protocol> demands that it be given higher priority?
      --
      Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
  36. You'd share the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Or ISPs could stop over-selling their capacity, then no one would need to "police" themselves by making sure they use less than the bandwidth they're paying for. "

    Sounds to me like you're making the argument that they should cancel the subscriptions of all the hogs then. That way all the bandwith that's left would then fall "within capacity" and no one would ever have to read a "overcapacity" post again. Nice and the remainder need never fund the habit of those who never read about the "tragedy of the commons". Now the only remaining issue is if the "my exclusive slice of pie" view that everyone has of broadband will still be broadband once our "rights" are taken care of?

    1. Re:You'd share the same by temcat · · Score: 1

      If they have promised and sold some bandwidth to a customer, the customer is not a "hog" if he/she takes all available bandwidth. And tragedy of commons doesn't apply here: the simple solution is to sell less bandwidth or have fewer customers. Also, I guess at least some ISP contracts are written so that an ISP can unilaterally change the provisions of an existing contract whenever it wants. If this is the case, an ISP can just alter its contract terms to provide lower bandwidth. But resetting uploads is a no-no.

    2. Re:You'd share the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "If they have promised and sold some bandwidth to a customer, the customer is not a "hog" if he/she takes all available bandwidth."

      "Bandwith" apparentl;y is much like "rights" It's made up as we go along. Second, the only people who think they can take all of a shared resource (tragedy of the commons) are the same who failed remedial physics.

      "the simple solution is to sell less bandwidth or have fewer customers."

      Or the right customers but that's not politically correct in a finite world with infinite rights.

      "Also, I guess at least some ISP contracts are written so that an ISP can unilaterally change the provisions of an existing contract whenever it wants."

      It also says that continued use is acceptance of those terms. I hope you're typing your reply over dial-up?

    3. Re:You'd share the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you sell me an unlimited account, I expect it to be EXACTLY what you've called it - unlimited. If that's not what you're intending to sell me, don't call it that and stop the false advertising.

      My current house has a half megabit unlimited connection. It really is unlimited; I can rape it as fast as it'll go and they couldn't care less. Naturally, at half a megabit that's not very fast, but they have sold me *exactly* what they said they would.

    4. Re:You'd share the same by temcat · · Score: 1

      "Bandwith" apparentl;y is much like "rights" It's made up as we go along. Second, the only people who think they can take all of a shared resource (tragedy of the commons) are the same who failed remedial physics.

      Tell me who exactly produces and allocates those resources? Right, ISPs do that. They're not like a common pasture or water body, they have an owner who manages them, so your tragedy of commons analogy is pure bullshit. It's perfectly within the capabilities of ISP to share AND PROMISE less resources from the beginning and do what they advertise. But they prefer false advertising.

      Or the right customers but that's not politically correct in a finite world with infinite rights.

      Yes, customers acquired through false advertising are not right customers. The ISP in question try to target a larger audience than they actually can handle without breaking their promises. This is a problem with their business model.

      It also says that continued use is acceptance of those terms. I hope you're typing your reply over dial-up?

      Why, I have a good ISP that doesn't advertise what it can't deliver. Also, where I live, I suppose that behavior like the one Comcast exhibits could lead to license withdrawal.

    5. Re:You'd share the same by quag7 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      You know what, as much as I want Comcast to stop this RST packet shit, this argument, while I guess technically having some merit, isn't very convincing:

      (1) Yeah, I agree, they shouldn't advertise unlimited if it isn't. Their equivocation on what "unlimited" means is sleazy, but...

      (2) If you feel rooked, you *can* cancel service. What I don't like is I have no alternative to Comcast, but that's a completely separate issue.

      (3) I doubt there's any Comcast reader or torrent junkie who doesn't know what Comcast is doing, so I'm a lot less sympathetic to this argument today. Whether they're dishonestly advertising unlimited or not, we know what they're doing, so we all know to seek out alternatives or not sign up.

      We're arguing over fine-print. Now unless Comcast works differently in other locations than my own (I am a Comcast subscriber), there are no contracts anyone's locked into. You can cancel, and maybe go with DSL or something else if it is available.

      My point is that I don't know how useful this argument is - that they advertise unlimited and goddamit, I'm going to max out my bandwidth 24/7 because of it. All you invite them to do is adjust their advertising verbiage a bit, and continue doing the same shit, which isn't going to help anyone.

      We should be looking at why there's not more competition, why there is not more capacity, why the US is falling behind, broadband wise, and what can be done about this situation. As much as the self-righteous guardians of intellectual property rant about how THEY can't use their internet because of Warez kiddies (A situation I've never encountered, nor have I met anyone IRL who this has happened to), it will be interesting to see what they say as television and phone companies start pumping more and more data across the internet, and the same conditions occur because some octogenarian next door watching reruns of The Golden Girls, or some telecommuter is running massive system backups across his pipe.

      Comcast has been a poor steward of them tubes, and what I'd really like to see is competition - something needs to light a fire under their ass to invest in their infrastructure - as others have pointed out, there's dark fiber all over the place, and the only thing that, in the long run, is going to make a damn bit of difference, is to hit their stockholders in the wallet. We need to figure out how to create conditions where this is possible. It is not, now, the way cable companies work, at least where I live.

      But complaining about "false advertising" is just childish, even if it's true. We all *know* they don't really mean unlimited now, and the kind of people who don't know and sign up for Comcast are probably not people who give a crap about bittorrent. Let's move on; this argument is a tarpit.

  37. Cox Communications by Smordnys+s'regrepsA · · Score: 1

    I just had to deal with spending 3+ hours to download a 150MB file, due to my entire connection going down every time I have Bit Torrent up for more than ~5 minutes. From what I've read, Cox is supposedly using the same forging method as Comcast. When does the FCC start hanging other companies out to dry? ...or, do they feel that putting pressure on only one company will solve the problem?

    --
    Just -1, Troll talking to another.
  38. Its just backhaul.... by AHuxley · · Score: 1
    They know what all the end users modems up speeds are set at.
    The end users cannot unlock their modems.
    They know what the up load at a set maximum speed will do to the network.
    There are no real unknown unknowns with closed network math.

    Light up some dark fiber, make it glow.
    Put few new big boxes in.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  39. Re:You'd do the same by some+guy+I+know · · Score: 1

    Is there any other industry where companies are allowed to sell services which they know they cannot provide?
    Government, if you can call government an "industry".
    Look at all of the campaign promises being made by the people currently running for US President, and all of the lies being told by the current (and former) administration(s).
    --
    Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
  40. but, it's Premium! by AmishElvis · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Premium 56K Dial Up Internet Access"

  41. Sounds like a bad business model by Fatal67 · · Score: 1

    If your business model requires you to use another companies LIMITED resources for free or you go out of business, your business model is busted.

    From the testing I have done, I have only seen throttling applied to external networks trying to download from me. All comcast customers appear to be able to download from me with no issue. So if these companies are in fact being throttled it is because they are using Comcast's bandwidth and transit to serve video to non comcast customers.

    Your mileage may vary as the sandvine policies implemented may vary from region to region or even sandvine box to sandvine box.

    If the FCC says that Comcast cannot manage their network, expect internet access to switch to a per bit pricing model. Everyone using p2p to seed those ever popular linux iso's might have a change of heart when they end up paying what it costs comcast, which is close to 30 bucks a meg.

    People expect an internet service that has a best effort price but dedicated bandwidth performance. You can't have both. You can order your t1 for 500.00 a month, or you can have your best effort cable modem service. the kicker is.. the p2p abusers will stop when they have to pay for it, but the rest of us will have to live with the new pricing structure they forced the ISP's to adopt.

    1. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      30 bucks a meg? bullshit, they'd have millions of customers costing them orders of magnitude more than the customer is paying just for playing games online for a few hours let alone p2p. They'd have been totally screwed out of business the moment they started.

    2. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by jamar0303 · · Score: 1

      And Japan manages to have 100M symmetric fiber connections for approx. $60/month with no such throttling... how? If the cable companies decide to charge on a metered basis it will only be because of their own greed.

      --
      OSx86 FTW
    3. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by Fatal67 · · Score: 1

      Sorry, not bullshit.

      Call up level 3 or AT&T and ask them how much 1 meg of dedicated transit costs them. At a minimum commitment of 200 gigs you may be able to get it under 20 bucks a meg. If we want dedicated bandwidth, we need to pay dedicated bandwidth prices.

      Order a T1 which is 1.5 megs dedicated (at least to the backbone of your provider) and youre looking at 500.00 a month.

      I'm not making these numbers up. Please look it up yourself instead of calling bullshit.

    4. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by Fatal67 · · Score: 1

      Japan has fiber connections to the home, as you stated. Dedicated resource vs shared resource that cable companies have. As so many people have pointed out here, there is a major difference.

      The cable company backbone (comcast in this case) has no congestion issues. Getting you to the backbone is where they have an issue. Their throttling is done, supposedly, only on the upstream.

      just throwing more bandwidth at the local loop isn't a solution due to the way the p2p protocol was written. It uses all of the bandwidth available to it. Adding more doesn't give anyone else extra bandwidth. It just increases the percentage of overall bandwidth p2p is using.

      So, if as a provider you are unable to throttle p2p yourself and adding bandwidth doesn;t resolve it, what option do they have besides charging people for what they use?

      Take all you want, pay for what you take. Seems very fair to me. But I don't leave my pc up and running 24 hours a day 365 days a year seeding WoW patches and Linux Iso's so my bill would probably go down.

    5. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, if Slashdot isn't hosted on Comcast you'll be OK with getting booted off it, right?

    6. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by Fatal67 · · Score: 1

      If slashdot pushed all of their content to my pc and everyone anywhere in the world was downloading their content from me, I would fully expect to be cut off or at the very least, to be charged hosting rates.

      If that isn't what you meant then I have no idea what your comment was supposed to refer to. Can you clarify?

    7. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by argent · · Score: 1

      Order a T1 which is 1.5 megs dedicated (at least to the backbone of your provider) and youre looking at 500.00 a month.

      That's 500 a month for 1.5 megabits a second for 2592000 seconds, or 486 gigabytes a month. for $500.00, for an actual cost under a dollar a giga*byte*. And that's for a T1, close to the highest cost-per-bit dedicated service out there (it *is* handily beaten by a nailed-up ISDN BRI at business rates, but that was kind of a last-resort even last century)... I doubt Comcast is paying one tenth of that.

    8. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by Fatal67 · · Score: 1

      Exactly!

      they are paying about 20 bucks a meg I would guess. Those megs are calculated the same way you did the math in your post.

      The t1 is at max 1.5 megs of transit. (30 bucks at 20 bucks a meg).

    9. Re:Sounds like a bad business model by argent · · Score: 1

      The thing is, you're stating accurate facts but they're not actually relevant to the point you were originally making.

      OK, going back to my previous calculation, the hundred families with nominal 6 megabit internet connections downloading a movie a night from iTunes for rental instead of subscribing to Comcast's High Tier offering are costing Comcast in real money only the actual peak bandwidth they get from their neighborhood... the monthly traffic from 3000 movie downloads is a pittance.

      So what's the peak bandwidth from a neighborhood? I know when they switched us to a UBR10k from a UBR7k we got a lot closer to our nominal throughput a lot more often, and I don't think they were using more than a couple of nodes... at less than 50 megabits (ideal) per channel per node... so they have (as expected) an awful lot of overcommitment. If they're actually paying as much as ... what did I say, $300? $500? for our neighborhood's share of THEIR upstream I'll be greatly surprised.

  42. More like a water bill by mcrbids · · Score: 1

    Instead, they sell, sell, sell accounts with "unlimited" bandwidth at X speed; add something in their ToS that some unknown amount of usage is too much; and then blame their infrasture problems on those that use BitTorrent and the like (whether they are used for legal or illegal purposes) rather than on their own irresponsibility and money-grabbing.

    I live in an old house, parts of which over 100 years old. (It's been heavily remodeled) Old enough that there's no meter on the water. We pay a flat rate. You could call this "unlimited" water because there is no specific limit on the water usage.

    Technically, there's no particular reason why we couldn't run pipes over to our neighbors and run the whole block on our single water feed. In theory, I could turn on a faucet and use it as a fountain to feed some forever-flushing toilet art.

    Except that would be fraud. See, even with my "unlimited" water source, there are practical limits, if not technical ones. If I were caught, the city would have every right to sue me for damages. I can't go in the business and sell water to southern California. (Yes, I live in Northern CA)

    Your Internet pipe is not much different. No, you aren't being sold to specific limits. But the reality is that a very small percentage of the customers account for most of the bandwidth used. They don't want to worry about the 97% of the customers, they just want to put some limits on the last 3%, or get rid of them altogether.

    That 3% is us. That includes the 120 TB of network traffic I accounted for last month on my DSL account. That's not BT traffic, that's mostly offsite backups of my business, but still, I know I'm in the "blood sucking leaches" category.

    Now, let's talk about brass tacks: My company hosts servers. We have half a dozen in a top-notch hosting facility in Sacramento, CA on a 6Mb burstable contract. In short, we serve data at about a 6 Mb rate during my daily peaks. Yet a single cable customer could account for 6 Mb of data stream if they're set up right.

    But while the cable customer pays $50/month for their 6 Mb service, we pay over $1,000 per month for my 6 Mb hosting contract, and I'm happy to pay that (damned cheap!) price. For that $1,200 per month, I get at 5 nines (99.999%) network uptime with dual network feeds, a half-rack, (about 20 U) 20 amps of redundant power, and the ability to burst up to 100 Mb during peak usage.

    Are you noticing a small price disparity? $1,200 on my side, $50 on yours. Is that fair? Not that I mind the $1,000 price tag, it's a million-dollar business. The $1,200/mo is peanuts. But it's a big number compared to your $50/month.

    Where was I going with this? I don't know. But the bottom line is that Mb isn't the only factor, and the telecoms aren't being as greedy as your limited experience would lead you to believe.

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    1. Re:More like a water bill by micheas · · Score: 2, Informative

      That includes the 120 TB of network traffic I accounted for last month on my DSL account. That's not BT traffic, that's mostly offsite backups of my business, but still, I know I'm in the "blood sucking leaches" category.


      WTF You average 485.451852 megabytes per second on your home DSL line!!!


      I WANT THAT DSL SERVICE!
      120 GB of network traffic a month my dsl could do, but that's 500 times as fast as what I have.

    2. Re:More like a water bill by quag7 · · Score: 1

      I don't even object to paying for bandwidth allotments. I don't even mind throttling as long as they're up front with it. Tier the pricing structure in a reasonable way, and throttle bandwidth.

      My objection is the way these RST packets completely disrupt service. I understand the point about people torrenting shit 24/7. There simply has got to be a better, less invasive way of handling this, whether that means jacking up prices for certain kinds of users to fund more capacity, or else using benign throttling.

      The method they're using is overkill.

  43. what you probably do not understand is that by erlehmann · · Score: 1

    [...] ISPs still retain their property rights to tamper with people's data [...]

    they have absolutely no right to do that. does your landlord have the right to go into your appartment and tamper with your property ?
    1. Re:what you probably do not understand is that by Deanalator · · Score: 1

      No, but I do play upsidedownternet on the neighbors that connect to my wireless :-)

  44. Re:You'd do the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Or ISPs could stop over-selling their capacity, then no one would need to "police"
    > themselves by making sure they use less than the bandwidth they're paying for.

    Proposal.. Make them the math:

    I paid for "unlimited". You gave me 300kbit this months.

        300k / unlimited = approaches zero.

    I'll be generous and round up "approaching zero" to the next higher value that can be expressed in dollars and cents. Therefore this month I'll pay 0.01 US.

  45. This seems interesting ... by erlehmann · · Score: 1

    Back in 2002 is wasn't on Slashdot, but this stuff seems kind of interesting - i know now what they mean with "browse at -1 to spot abuse".
    Are there any newer threads like this [1] ?

    [1] http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=26315&cid=2850660

  46. ComCast does own the racetrack! by NekoXP · · Score: 1

    Yep, ComCast own the little bit of the internet between you and the rest of the world that isn't on ComCast, and probably operate a hell of a lot of hardware between you and the border router. What little of that they DON'T own is copper owned by some telcom carrier company between your house and your local phone exchange and ComCast are paying to license the use of that anyway :)

    So yeah, ComCast can run the horse race however it likes. It can also run foxy boxing in the middle of the track too, while it does it. Their network. If you don't like it, get another ISP.

    Net Neutrality is for morons. Only in the USA could you legislate that networks and routers that you own CANNOT be flow controlled, while strengthening physical international borders using biometrics, reshuffled border agencies and more strict immigration..

    1. Re:ComCast does own the racetrack! by jamar0303 · · Score: 1

      Ever been anywhere where Comcast is the only ISP available? How do you propose THEY get another ISP? This isn't Japan, where there are 15 different ISPs competing nationwide for subscribers, this is America, where there are at most 5 different choices available to people. And that's in urban areas- go far enough and you'll find places with monopolies.

      --
      OSx86 FTW
    2. Re:ComCast does own the racetrack! by NekoXP · · Score: 1

      I have an apartment where the only ISP available is Grande Communications (a little Texas cable ISP). This is being regulated out by the FCC who say that apartment-deals like this are really bad for business and competition. I am glad of that.

      So, if ComCast are the only ISP serving your area.. bad luck. But you're a very low percentage of the population. Unfortunately American runs on the benefit of the majority - where people have 5 ISPs to choose from. Personally, when I chose an ISP, I ignored the apartment complex deal and chose Speakeasy instead - ADSL rather than cable.

      I'm kind of lucky where the apartment is, because it's literally around the corner from the old SBC (now AT&T) HQ, the telecoms provision is really excellent. But, most people in cities are like that. They do have 5 ISPs to choose from. So, they can choose different.

      If you're unlucky, well, move somewhere better, if downloading torrents on the internet is SO important to you. I can't imagine you'd be doing it for a job.. so I don't see why I should be sympathetic to you :)

    3. Re:ComCast does own the racetrack! by jamar0303 · · Score: 1

      I suppose so. I moved- left America some time ago and only return for short-term visits now.

      --
      OSx86 FTW
  47. Preferential treatment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you can pay more to have your letters treated preferentially above other letters. "First class" service for the internet... no thanks.

  48. Re:You'd do the same by budgenator · · Score: 1

    The biggest problem that the cableco's like Comcast have is that the present DOCSIS protocol heavily favors a World Wide Web model where the provider transits a small number of short requests for the user and a large amount of downloaded content. It works OK for the smaller peer to peer stuff like Instant Messaging and some games with chat, but when you go to a full montey interactive model the cableco gets hammered by the upload traffic. The biggest pisser is the cableco's realize that the p2p apps, music and video are the hot stuff on the internet and getting them is aggressively marketed, while the network does everything they can get a way with to block them.

    If it were a backbone bandwidth they could traffic shape at the boarder, and I could get lightening fast connections to other comcast user's but slower connections to non-comcast user's and nobody would even know because they would get good throughput, but the problem is in the "last mile". My son used to install cable tv systems, pole to pole not pole to house and he put a wavemeter on my cable connection, we're getting massive amounts of high frequency roll-off because they are pushing nearly 900MHz of signal through a 500 MHz coax; they'd probably go bankrupt upgrading everybody from RG56 cable to the high frequency RG6 like Belden 1694A, so instead they're going digital because it'll get by and buy them time.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  49. In Chicago by Thelasko · · Score: 1

    We call a rigged horse race a "boat race." Don't ask me how I know that.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  50. Comcast loves free market, hates competition. by afeinberg · · Score: 1

    Over at Capitol Valley they've got a pretty good clue about how strong Vuze's reply is.

    Basically, they hit the Republican Commissioners over the head with their own free market theories and say that if Comcast creates the market by entering the video distribution world (as opposed to just managing a network and controlling the flow to keep it fair for all users), they have to let the market decide if they are the bes provider of video instead of messing with their competitors under the guise of "network management."

    I (heart) irony.

  51. Re:You'd do the same by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

    Or ISPs could stop over-selling their capacity, then no one would need to "police" themselves by making sure they use less than the bandwidth they're paying for.

    That will happen when the Magic Free Bandwidth Fairies sprinkle their pixie dust on the backbone.

    Seriously, it is economically impossible to run an ISP without overselling bandwidth. In fact, there's a special term for ISPs that analyze their customers' usage patterns and try to scale to demand, rather than to being able to provide 100% throughput to all customers simultaneously. In the trade, those ISPs are referred to as "not (yet) bankrupt".

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  52. Re:You'd do the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    CORPORATE SHILL DETECTED

  53. they should boot p2p off the net completely by Grampaw+Willie · · Score: 0

    what is p2p used for? illegal music pirates, mostly. shut it down

  54. Re:You'd do the same by esocid · · Score: 1

    I can vouch for that. I have had my VPN dropped every time I've used it since being with Comcast. It isn't automatic but it will eventually time out and disconnect itself.
    It's even worse when they have a contract with the city I live in and no one else can even lay down lines. That shouldn't be legal.

    --
    Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
  55. Re:You'd do the same by corsec67 · · Score: 1

    You want every single ISP to be able to lay lines down?

    A better solution is to have the company/government department that owns the lines be very regulated, with guarantees about service quality, etc. The main issue is to make sure that the lines get upgraded, like now with fiber, and whatever we use in the future. And then have the ISP(which has to be a separate company, open to competition) lease the lines from the connection provider for each person that is subscribed to that ISP.

    Anything that involves cables going to a house/building is going to be a monopoly/oligarchy simply because people will not put up with every company laying their own wires. But, once you have a connection from a house to a central point, the monopoly can end, and competition can take over.

    --
    If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
  56. Re:You'd do the same by esocid · · Score: 1

    Maybe I was a bit hasty. But I'm with you there on the competition aspect, which seems to be hampering the innovation/upgrading of these services. Competition, or lack thereof, was the reason I was forced to sign up with the ISP who had a contract with the apartment complex I lived in, which I believe has been deemed illegal and now I'm still unable to get a competitive service since the only other ISP in the area, Adelphia, was bought by Comcast. I just hope wherever I move next has something other than Comcast.

    --
    Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
  57. Re:You'd do the same by u-235-sentinel · · Score: 1

    Or ISPs could stop over-selling their capacity, then no one would need to "police" themselves by making sure they use less than the bandwidth they're paying for.

    But then if you are a Concast customers, you don't know what you are paying for (how much bandwidth do you get?). And if you upgrade to a business account like we did, you get more bandwidth. I asked, the salesdroid said it. When I asked how much more bandwidth do we get. His response?

    "I don't know, just.... more".

    Yeah, great company.

    --
    Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
  58. Comcast doesn't just kill Upload Sessions. by dnasquared · · Score: 1

    I am a Comcast customer. Every time I update World of Warcraft, which does so via P2P, the client eventually loses its connection and appears to be "behind a firewall", making it use the direct download from Blizzard, instead of the P2P download method. Comcast are either a bunch of filthy, stinking liars or they're just grossly incompetent. They are hitting more than just pure upload P2P traffic when they "shape". No matter how you slice it, I want Comcast to get kicked in the teeth on this.

  59. Re:You'd do the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's been a favourite pastime of most airlines for the last 50 years or so ...

  60. Please clarify. by argent · · Score: 1

    If your business model requires you to use another companies LIMITED resources for free or you go out of business, your business model is busted.

    I have some sympathy for this position, however I do not find the pricing information you include in your article persuasive:

    If the FCC says that Comcast cannot manage their network, expect internet access to switch to a per bit pricing model. Everyone using p2p to seed those ever popular linux iso's might have a change of heart when they end up paying what it costs comcast, which is close to 30 bucks a meg.

    I rent a couple of colo servers, which do not tend to benefit near as much from overcommitment as the last mile, and if my colo company was paying 30 bucks a megabyte, let alone a megabit (if that's what you're claiming) I would be out of business. If you said 30 bucks a *gig* I'd still be suspicious, given the rates I'm paying for bandwidth. Can you elaborate on this point?

    1. Re:Please clarify. by Fatal67 · · Score: 1


      Sorry, let me see if I can clarify.

      IP Transit is sold by the megabit. If you go to level3, Sprint, AT&T, etc, for IP transit, you will get a per meg price. Depending on the amount of megs you commit to, your rate will drop. If you approached level3 for 10 gigs of transit, they will tell you a price somewhere around 25 bucks a meg.

      The confusion appears to be in how those megs are measured.

      If I have a transit link and I pull 1 meg a sec every sec for a month, I'm billed for 1 meg. (usually its 95th percentile but thats not relevant to this conversation).

      Your colo provider is probably giving you something like 2000 gig a month included with your server rental. That's not measured the same way. Your 2000 gig is measured by the bit. It is metered. IE, if you transfer 200 10 gig files, you hit your 2000 gig limit. If you were to take that 2000 gig and covert it to the way transit is calculated you would see that 2000 gig is really about 700k a second all month long and would cost less than 30 bucks a month (or whatever they pay per meg)

      Did that clear it up any?

      Out of curiosity, I'd love to know how much bandwidth you are given at what price. The 2000 gig number I used is from my colo provider.

    2. Re:Please clarify. by argent · · Score: 1

      OK, you're talking about the throughput of the link.

      I'm talking about the total traffic per month, regardless of the peak rate. For people selling content online and competing with Comcast for my entertainment dollar, I think that's a more reasonable number.

      Let me explain why I think that:

      If 100 people in a neighborhood download a video from iTunes every night for a month, the total contribution to Comcast's traffic for the month is 3000 gigabytes. If enough people are doing it that they're competing with each other and they can't individually get 6 megabits per second or whatever their nominal rating is, that's irrelevant... that just means that some of them may end up finding they need to pick up their evening movie earlier in the day.

      So Comcast doesn't have to pay for 6 megabits per second times 100 families, they only have to pay for whatever they need to pay for so that most of the time most of their customers get most of the 6 megabits they expect.

      So those 100 families, paying something like 6000 dollars a month between them, are *between them* costing Comcast something like 250 bucks a month for their upstream bandwidth... even if they all make the greatest possible use of iTunes movie rentals, and that's assuming Comcast is getting no better a deal for their upstream than a small customer like me.

      So I don't see where the numbers make this something Comcast is (a) suffering from, and (b) throttling or charging more money for this traffic. So I can see there are businesses where that would happen, but not ones where Comcast is in a position to *justifiably* game competitors using their network.

  61. Re:You'd do the same by @madeus · · Score: 1

    Instead, they sell, sell, sell accounts with "unlimited" bandwidth at X speed; add something in their ToS that some unknown amount of usage is too much; and then blame their infrasture problems on those that use BitTorrent and the like (whether they are used for legal or illegal purposes) rather than on their own irresponsibility and money-grabbing. You can buy an account with 1:1 contention, unlimited transfer and a decent QoS guarantee instead of the 20:1-50:1 DSL account with a bandwith cap on it that you actually bought, but it's going to cost you a hell of a lot more, because it costs more to provide that kind of service.

    Consumers would rather grab the cheapest deal, ignore what they are actually buying and blame *evil corporations* than their own greed when the quality service they get on their 15 USD a month ADSL connection isn't as good as it is on hundreds-of-dollars-a-month SDSL package. The reality in the DSL market is that most (say in the order of 90%) customers have a service that is far LESS contended than advertised (although cable is more oversold, but then course cable tends to offer higher speeds in the first place ... ).

    The problem is the guys (who often have 2 DSL accounts) and are hooked up to P2P, doing max utilisation day in and day out on their second line. The correct way to deal with them is traffic shaping, so they get a slower service (e.g. take the 5% of users pirating software like crazy and let them contend against each other, leaving the 95% of customers using the service reasonably with a top quality service and, in practice, no contention). However, building infrastructure to handle that is costly, particularly with regard to man hours of qualified staff, so many do the cheaper thing, and just ask (read: tell) the guys who are making the service unworkable to go find another provider.

    Uhappy with that? Well get this:

    You can be sure that providers who take on the expense of implementing proper QoS for residential DSL customers are going to use it (not least to try and claw some money back from the investment) - and that means enforcing their QoS for everybody (not just the very heavy P2P users), and would make things worse for the majority of customers. It's basically inevitable (as firmware gets better and QoS gets easier to impliment), and statistically that's going to negatively impact more customers, but given the amount of bitching by greedy customers - who's basic motivation for unlimited bandwith is the wholesale downloading of software and movies they haven't paid for in any case - I will have no sympathy.

    Consumers get really cheap internet access rates because they are buying a service that is contented and bandwidth capped. High speed network connections with guaranteed 1:1 contention and all-the-bandwith-you-can-use cost hundreds of dollars a month, not 10 dollars a month.

    There is plenty of choice out there - it's a case of pick the level of service you want and stop bitching. It's not rocket science.

  62. Re:You'd do the same by nbert · · Score: 1

    I wasn't aware this was a problem specific to cable. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

    A slightly ot note: When our cable company wanted us to switch to digital cable and internet over cable they only wanted to replace the converter in the basement of our house and replace the in-house infrastructure to a star topology (we have 16 parties living in the house). I wasn't aware that the cable type they currently use poses a problem. But we dropped cable anyways because they wanted us to sign a 15 year contract in exchange for the "upgrades". Satellite and DSL are not cheaper for us, but being bound to one technology for 15 years seems rather insane at the current stage of development. Who knows if there will be traditional television in 2023?