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Comcast Says FCC Powerless to Stop P2P Blocking
Nanoboy writes "Even if the FCC finds that Comcast has violated its Internet Policy Statement, it's utterly powerless to do anything about it, according to a recent filing by the cable giant. Comcast argues that Congress has not given the FCC the authority to act, that the Internet Policy Statement doesn't give it the right to deal with the issue, and that any FCC action would violate the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946. '"The congressional policy and agency practice of relying on the marketplace instead of regulation to maximize consumer welfare has been proven by experience (including the Comcast customer experience) to be enormously successful," concludes Comcast VP David L. Cohen's thinly-veiled warning to the FCC, filed on March 11. "Bearing these facts in mind should obviate the need for the Commission to test its legal authority."'"
Now, I sympathize with Comcast. Many ISPs, not just Comcast, are disrupting P2P sessions, and these sessions are in clear violation of most ISP's Terms of Service. And P2P is horribly disruptive, a single user can easily transmit 20 GB of data in a day.
Yet Comcast seems intent on making people WANT to regulate them. Its like they are deliberately behaving stupid?
They aren't agressive at pointing out all the other ISPs, to get the heat off.
They do stupid things like pack FCC hearing, say that the results won't matter, etc.
Who's running that place?
Test your net with Netalyzr
if comcast can convince the FCC not to bring it before a judge, they most certainly get to interpret the law however they would like.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Isn't this the same Comcast which runs cable service in markets which usually has a local government-granted monopoly for cable service in those regions? Funny that now they want to say "let the market decide" when cable companies generally won't invest in the infrastructure unless granted a monopoly on providing cable service. I'm remembering back a long time - perhaps this isn't the case any more. If broadband options were available everywhere, I'd certainly say "let the market decide" - many people (myself included) only have one option for broadband, and it's often cable.
creation science book
Yeah, right. Which is why US broadband penetration continues to rank lower and lower worldwide despite $200 Billion from the government. And people are protesting traffic filtering. And your company is so afraid of actual people sitting at an FCC public hearing that they pay people to hold seats for employees, busing the employees in, and locking the public out from the meeting.
What Comcast is doing with the sandvine filtering is forging packets. That's fraud.
Correct me if I'm wrong but could this work? 1)Start new ISP that does not filter 2)Get help from the FCC because they are a bit pissed at Comcast for their "nah nah nah You cant get us!" crap 3)When Comcast tries to buy you out/stomp you in to oblivion use antitrust laws to stay alive. 4)Grow to a reasonable size because you have some idea of how the internet works and will not be a dick to your customers. 5)???? 6)profit
They gave up their rights to rely on the marketplace when they signed on to government-endorsed monopoly status.
I would have absolutely NO qualms about allowing the marketplace to sort this out - unfortunately, the marketplace is artificially sparse.
If a power company with government-mandated monopoly was blocking power to your electric oven because it sucked down too much juice and you ran it all the time, the government would get involved.
If an internet company with government-mandated monopoly blocks bits to a piece of software because it uses too much bandwidth, the regluatory body (FCC) should get involved.
That's how it should work. If you want the government to keep you in power, you gotta make sure your services don't fuck people over. If you don't like it, have fun competing and - well - making consumers happy by striving to have the best and least expensive service. Common fucking sense. Unfortunately there's nothing common about it..
(For those of you who don't think this is an enforced monopoly - Right now I only have one choice for broadband - optimum. Time warner services buildings two blocks from me, but I'm in a different district in brooklyn and TW is legally restricted from servicing the area -- because it's optimum's area.)
I would note that it is up to the FCC to determine if Internet service over Cable is a mature technology to the point that it should be opened to providers other than the company that owns the cable plant. If the FCC decides that it is, then Comcast, Time Warner, and other cable companies will be required to open their plant to third party internet service providers, just as Qwest, Verizon and AT&T do for DSL service.
Comcast's monopoly techniques and customer complaints to the FCC are likely to result in a review of their decision a few years back that allowed them to get to the position they are in at this time. I tend to suspect that there is a significant percentage of the Comcast subscriber base who would consider an ISP connection cost of $20 a month across their cable plant to be a significant improvement over the current $100+ a month fees. (Sure Internet service is only a $50 part of that bill, unless you decide not to have cable TV service in which case it becomes a $75 a month charge.)
I.e. there's a 250% mark up compared to DSL with possibly double the bandwidth potentially available, and the opportunity to have your P2P sessions interfered with.
A reminder, the reason Comcast has been interfering with P2P sessions is that they have not built the capacity in their plant to handle the volume of customer traffic. They may be really happy to announce that they are now looking at rolling out DOCIS 3 with it's 100 meg to the customer bandwidth, but it appears they have not built the backbone to allow customers to make use of it. Lots of luck there.
You never know...
And the people to bitch to about that would be your state and/or local politicians, because that's who granted the monopolies in the first place. I've never heard of a Federal cable franchise agreement......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If I were comcast, I would just completely block P2P uploading as it violates the TOS. Not a popular answer I know, but my terms do say that I cannot run a server on my residential connection. P2P seeding should qualify as a file server. Comcast made the mistake of letting customers do something that was against the TOS for far too long. Not that there is a time limit on enforcing TOS, but it is always harder to give someone something and then take it away than it is to not give them something to begin with.
someone might do time for it
Dream on. In America a rich powerful man only goes to prison if a richer, more powerful man wants him there. The rule of law is worthless when legislators are bought and sold like cattle.
For instance, how many Sony executives went to prison for the XCP rootkit? That's right, none. Nobody from Comcast will serve time either, and if they donated enough money to the campaigns of the "elected" officials and legislators they'll continue to be able to abuse their customers.
And now for something completely different:
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Actually, our country has the largest highway system in the world (by far) and it is widely regarded as a modern marvel of engineering. "There's already pointless speed limits when everyone wants to go much faster" is the stupidest argument I have ever heard and potholes happen - the fact that the US government successfully manages a transcontinental system of 45,400 km in length through some of the most varied terrain in the world speaks to its efficacy. If you want to argue about government monopolies, you should probably pick something less successful.
Actually, it's only a server (in the classical sense) if it accepts incoming connections and most P2P apps (Bittorrent included) will function just fine without this ability, albeit with a reduced number of peers that it can reach.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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