Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Is Streaming Video the Real Throttling Target?

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-give-them-too-much-credit dept.

snydeq writes "Responding to legal pressure over its throttling of P2P traffic and other dubious practices, Comcast says it will now punish the most abusive users rather than particular applications. Yet its pilot tests in Pennsylvania and Virgina, which would 'delay traffic for the heaviest users of Internet data without targeting specific software applications,' raise greater concerns over net neutrality, ones that belie a potential preemptive strike against the cable company's chief future competition: streaming video. 'Despite the industry's constant invocation of the P2P bogeyman, at present, the largest bandwidth hog is actually streaming video,' writes Mehan Jayasuriya at Public Knowledge. 'Clearly, the emergence of online video is something that cable video providers find very threatening and by capping off bandwidth usage, they're effectively killing two birds with one stone; discouraging users from using their Internet connections for video while increasing the efficiency of the network. Is this anti-competitive? It sure seems like it.'"

4 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Nonsensical reasoning by MSTCrow5429 · · Score: 0, Troll
    "Is this anti-competitive? It sure seems like it."

    As everyone knows, taking actions to further your own prospects at the expense of others, i.e. competing, is anti-competitive. Only Special Olympics-style "competition" is allowed in our infantilized society.

    --
    Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
    1. Re:Nonsensical reasoning by MSTCrow5429 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Of course there is competition in the internet department. You have dial-up, satellite, you could lease a T1 line, etc. Your straw man argument that competition is the same thing as "murder," which is quite another type of activity altogether, doesn't hold water.

      --
      Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
    2. Re:Nonsensical reasoning by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 0, Troll

      If you want a company to do things that run counter to the satisfaction of their shareholders, what exactly is your proposition? Wish really really hard and let Tinkerbell take care of it?

  2. SUPPORT LOCAL PROVIDERS by MarkvW · · Score: 0, Troll

    Comcast is ATT. Remember what ATT did when it had the telephone monopoly? They extracted maximum dollars from YOU! Support local providers. Support the establishment of local providers. Support municipal cable providers, especially!!! In the long run, we'll all be better off.