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ISPs Say P4P Negates Need for Net Neutrality Regs

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the more-dumb-buzzword-terms dept.

Donut hole hole writes "AT&T and Comcast are using recent successful P2P trials to argue to the FCC that there's no need for strong traffic management or net neutrality rules. 'Comcast's statement, filed with the FCC on April 9th, hails an announcement by P2P developer Pando Networks that its experiments with P4P technology on a wide variety of U.S. broadband networks have boosted delivery speeds by up to 235 percent. This news, Comcast vice president Kathryn A. Zachem wrote to the Commission, "provides further proof that policymakers have been right to rely on marketplace forces, rather than government regulation, to govern the evolution of Internet services."' Looks like Comcast only likes P2P technology when it can be used to serve its political and regulatory agenda."

5 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Where are our rights? by eln · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's not true at all. I'm still on P3P, and I won't upgrade to that P4P mess for anything.

    However, I have heard good things about P3.11P for Workgroups, so I might try that one out.

  2. p4p means by WarJolt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't be fooled. When comcast says p4p they mean Pay 4 Performance. You think they're doing this out of the kindness of their hearts? If they could charge you for this they would.

    1. Re:p4p means by ajs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, P4P is a buzzword for "pennies for packets."

      It's this magical idea that they'll find a way to charge more money for providing the same service without having to lose market share due to raising the prices on their customers' statements. Why not charge EVERYONE is their idea... doesn't matter who you are, or where you are on the 'Net... you can pay Comcast for "premium" service.

      Not the worst idea ever, just a contender.

    2. Re:p4p means by doas777 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      You're right the purported goal of P4P is to inject logic that will attempt to find local (or close) users for a peering protocol, and that sounds like a good idea, right? I agree. if only i could trust the people doing it.
      P4P is a major privacy killer. based on what I see at the P4P workgroup page, P4P is not a protocol or code that will be inject into existing P2P apps, it is a network management technique and toolkit that the ISPs can use to control existing and future P2P traffic, presumably without knowledge or consent from any of the peers. In fact here is one of the project objectives:

      Determine, validate, and encourage the adoption of methods for ISPs and P2P software distributors to work together to enable and support consumer service improvements as P2P adoption and resultant traffic evolves while protecting the intellectual property (IP) of participating entities Somehow I just knew IP rights would come up. I'll pay more attention when the pirate bay is in the core group. Until then, I'm not interested, logical as the idea may seem.
  3. NOTHING to do with Peer to Peer by EdIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    P2P, P4P, A2M, blah blah blah FUCKING blah.

    This has nothing to do with any file sharing technology. Nothing. They want the government, and those BASTARD consumers, to believe that "marketplace forces, rather than government regulation" prevailed and solved the problem.

    Well the REAL problem was ISP's selling unlimited bandwidth contracts. Right there is the heart of the issue, one they don't want to talk about. They advertise impressive speeds (throughput) and unlimited "internet" which is basically no limitation on the amount of data you could transfer in a given month.

    If that is true, which legally they should be held to AT LEAST the unlimited transfers, then P2P is irrelevant isn't it? Sure it has its problems, but none of that is the consumer's fault. They are using their "unlimited" connections in a "unlimited" way.

    So now they cannot deliver on those "impressive" speeds since they were overselling their real capacity in the first place.

    To put it another way.... It would be like an Airline company saying you could fly as far as you want up to 3 times a month for $99 dollars a month. They screw up getting greedy and all of the sudden they can't actually deliver 3 times a month since all the flights are constantly full.

    No, don't buy this fairy tale from Comcast. The consumers are all entitled, BY CONTRACT no less, to do what they are doing.

    If P4P ends up vastly increasing the efficiency of the consumer communications going across their network, then that is GREAT for anyone that owns a part of Comcast. More profit margin returning.

    It DOES not mean it should be an end to Net Neutrality or government regulation of their sneaky little asses....