Legal Trouble For Multiple ISPs

Ars Technica reports that Comcast has been hit with three new class-action lawsuits due to the company's traffic-shaping practices. "The lawsuits ... ask that Comcast be barred from continuing to violate various state laws, in addition to unspecified damages." Meanwhile, members of the US House Telecommunications Subcommittee have asked Charter Communications' president to stop testing a program which uses Deep Packet Inspection to track the habits of its customers. A number of privacy groups have voiced their support (PDF). As if that weren't enough, it seems the City of Los Angeles is suing Time Warner for fraud and deceptive business practices. The Daily News notes, "... the City Attorney is seeking $2,500 in civil penalties for each violation of the Unfair Competition law as well as an additional $2,500 civil penalty for each violation described in the complaint perpetrated against one or more senior citizens or disabled persons."

Comments

TWC was ousted from Minneapolis

[Anonymous Coward]

for the same reasons they are being sued by LA, I believe.

Now we have Crapcast and I'm paying $20 more per month for less service.
--Minneapolis dev.

Re:TWC was ousted from Minneapolis

[IgnoramusMaximus]

The telcos were actually forced to sell access to their lines at cost, but now they aren't. Or so I understand (FWIW.) I don't see why this isn't an acceptable solution.

Because it does not work. The whole idea is fundamentally silly, as the telco's "competitors" are forced to buy service from their main competitor. It leads to a situation where the dominant telco is able to pretend that it is selling access "at cost", while in fact obstructing those buying in many different ways, such as creating delays, purposeful technological incompatibilities and what not. In all the marketplaces in which it was tried the dominant telco always won resulting in these "competitors" withdrawing or ... irony ... being bought at bankruptcy prices by that very telco.

Re:TWC was ousted from Minneapolis

[ATMD]

Seems to work in the UK. BT operates nearly all the copper wire and local telephone exchanges in the country, and charges consumer ISPs to use them. BT is also a consumer ISP, and yet DSL competition is excellent, with very aggressive pricing between rival providers. The way this is acheived is careful regulation by OfCom to ensure that the wholesale arm of BT doesn't sneakily make things easier for the Home Broadband arm of BT.
Is that kind of regulation actually unconstitutional in the US, or are the powers that be just unwilling to do it?

Re:A sign of distorted economics in the ISP indust

[nebular]

I live in Canada and know the pain of throttled traffic. However I do agree that bandwidth is not free and the we can't continue to have unlimited. Right now my ISP has a cap of 200GB for 29.95. I find that reasonable. If I use too much bandwidth, I pay for it, but anyone using the internet reasonably is fine and will be fine for the next few years at least anyway.

I don't mind having to pay extra if I use an unreasonable amount of the network, but my definition of reasonable and most ISPs seem to differ

"Vote with your wallet": Moving to a new house ...

[Jumperalex]

and took this as an opportunity to make the move to FIOS. Now granted the OTHER reason this is when I'm changing is because CUNTCAST was the ONLY available broadband at my current residence. Now that DSL and FIOS are available I made sure to tell COMCAST exactly why I was cancelling my service. Doubt they are smart enough to keep statistics that might clue them in, but I voted with my wallet and made sure they knew about it.

Examples of fraud on the latest Comcast ad

[Doug52392]

Here's some of the promises Comcast makes on their latest ad I just got in the mail. Let's see if theres fraud in it...

• "PowerBoost(r) makes fast even faster! PowerBoost(r) helps power downloads of large files like videos, music, and games at speeds up to 12 Mbps!"
  Now, do I see a "boost" of speed when downloading videos, music, and games (legal ones) from BitTorrent? NO! I NEVER even get a good connection! And at the bottom of the flyer, in that long list of fine print, it says "PowerBoost(r) provides bursts of download and upload speeds for the first 10 MB and 5MB of a file, respectively. So I don't even get PowerBoost for longer than a second! Theres one fraud.
• "McAfee(r) Security Suite featuring a series of tools to help keep you, your family, and your home computers safe, protected, and virus-free. A $120 value."
  I have McAfee, provided by Comcast, installed on my Windows OS (I use Linux most of the time). Guess what? ANOTHER LIE! Sure, it's free now, but in a year EVERY DAMN time you turn your computer on, McAfee nags you to buy a $120 dollar subscription. MORE FRAUD!
• And for their phone service: "Utilizes Comcast's own secure network, not the public Intedrnet, for secure VoIP phone service".
  So your saying the NSA can't listen in? More fraud...
  

So 3 counts of fraud on ONE ad! Comcast are going to have a problem defending themselves this time...

Re:Examples of fraud on the latest Comcast ad

[Wister285]

• "PowerBoost(r) makes fast even faster! PowerBoost(r) helps power downloads of large files like videos, music, and games at speeds up to 12 Mbps!"
  
  Now, do I see a "boost" of speed when downloading videos, music, and games (legal ones) from BitTorrent? NO! I NEVER even get a good connection! And at the bottom of the flyer, in that long list of fine print, it says "PowerBoost(r) provides bursts of download and upload speeds for the first 10 MB and 5MB of a file, respectively. So I don't even get PowerBoost for longer than a second! Theres one fraud.

This is absurd. PowerBoost does in fact work, but I doubt that it is designed to be able to work in every circumstance. What if you connect to a slow server? How can it even work then? Are you going to sue because the server can't serve fast enough? BitTorrent is peer-to-peer and considering most connections are asymmetrical to begin with, expecting PowerBoost to let you download really fast to begin with is unreasonable.

"McAfee(r) Security Suite featuring a series of tools to help keep you, your family, and your home computers safe, protected, and virus-free. A $120 value."

I have McAfee, provided by Comcast, installed on my Windows OS (I use Linux most of the time). Guess what? ANOTHER LIE! Sure, it's free now, but in a year EVERY DAMN time you turn your computer on, McAfee nags you to buy a $120 dollar subscription. MORE FRAUD!

So you got a year's subscription for free. I'm sure there's fine print that says that exactly.

And for their phone service: "Utilizes Comcast's own secure network, not the public Intedrnet, for secure VoIP phone service".
So your saying the NSA can't listen in? More fraud...


So 3 counts of fraud on ONE ad! Comcast are going to have a problem defending themselves this time...

Quit being so sensationalist. Their claim is that they don't use the public internet for voice communications. This makes a man-in-the-middle attack that much harder as it would probably have to be an inside job. As for the NSA claim, it is purely conjecture. I'm also sure they don't claim that they secure their customers so much as to break the law by violating a court order.

Stop hating companies. If they really were making false or deceptive claims, the vulture lawyers would have tried to rake the company over for all that they are worth. If your position is right, it would be too easy!

Disclosure: I am an employee and shareholder of Comcast.

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[mitgib]

Too bad for you that the ISPs are a monopoly due to "control by government busy-bodies". Or are you suggesting that every single ISP/cable company/power company/water company/sewage company be required to run their own pipes to your house?

And why doesn't it make sense that the pipes/wires/drainage belong to the people instead and then the service providers can all lease that from some management authority to gain access to the last mile and provide everyone service?

Comcast lock in

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live in San Francisco bay area, there are three main ISPs - AT&T U-verse, Astound.net and Comcast. Unfortunately in my apartment, they do not allow anybody other than Comcast to make connections. Astound is not even allowed to enter the premises, while U-verse is not allowed to make connection from the apartment junction box to my unit. That makes Comcast the default monopoly.

What surprises me is that AT&T and Astoud.net is taking this lying down. I even went personally to Astound.net office and they say my apartment address is black listed in their database (essentially meaning they will not even try to make a connection here). At least AT&T technician from U-verse came here and argued with apartment manager with no success. I wrote a letter to AT&T U-verse and did not even get courtesy of a form letter reply. Yet U_verse is wasting their marketing dollars by sending me fliers almost everyday (and to everybody else in this complex) to sign-up with U-verse.

Comcast Internet connection is the pits these days. After a minute or two of good connectivity, it drops to almost 0 bytes per second. This creates havoc even in accessing gmail. My VOIP phone or chatting with my friends on iChat becomes impossible.

The whole situation makes "voting with our dollars" impossible. By the way, I found out that other apartment dwellers in SF bay area are in similar position.

Re:Fines have gotten too low!

[mitgib]

I'm pretty sure I understood the article to say per violation to mean $2,500 * xxx customers, that can get quite expensive quickly.

Re:wtf...

[Anonymous Coward]

no. its to put the company on notice. it means they violate a court order the next time they do it and will be in a deep load of doo doo.
yes the same applies to sex offenders and the like - ever heard of the 3 strikes laws ?

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[rfunches]

Do you know why oil is 136 a barrel? It is because speculative corporations like Goldman Sachs are driving the market trying to get $200 a barrel.

OT but I have to respond because the theory of speculation just doesn't work out. When people talk about oil in the U.S. they refer to light sweet crude, which is traded on NYMEX, a regulated futures market. (Another popular market, Intercontinental Exchange, is not regulated but only trades North Brent crude.) It's a delivery contract, meaning that when the contract expires (and all contracts have an expiration date), you must take physical delivery of 1,000 barrels per contract owned.

So if there are so many speculators able to push the price up, they have to sell the front-month contract to avoid taking delivery of oil -- they're in the contract to make money, not get oil, after all. So they should be selling the day before contract expiration, and all of the speculators trying to sell at once should cause the price to drop, right? If oil isn't selling off sharply right before expiration, then either the people who are holding contracts for delivery are keeping the price up or the speculators are taking delivery of oil. Unless you argue that people are lying about oil delivery on a regulated exchange (NYMEX) the argument of speculation just doesn't hold water.

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[kosty]

"The part you've neglected to mention is what happens when speculators decide to start selling their stored commodities..."

That's not how the commodities market works. Read this: http://theroxylandr.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/how-commodity-speculation-works/

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you misunderstand how "futures" trading works. Traders (the ones you're calling speculators) do not actually buy and take delivery of commodities, thereby acting as pricing and supply buffers as you seem to think. The single thing that a futures trader never wants to do is to actually own the commodity they're trading. If this happens, they're screwed as these are guys with Park Avenue offices, summer homes in the Hamptons, and winter homes in Aspen - not warehouses or tank farms.

In the futures market, a trader simply says something like: "I'll sell you a million barrels of oil for $150 per barrel on the first of next month". He doesn't own oil wells or a million barrels of oil, he is simply offering to sell something (which is probably still deep in the earth somewhere in the world) at a particular price on a particular date in the future. If I think that oil is going to be selling for more than $150 on the first of next month, I accept his offer to sell and guarantee to give him $150 million on delivery of the million barrels. This is a contract between me and him. If, when the futures market opens for trading the next morning, I offer to sell my million barrels of July oil for $160 per barrel and find a third trader willing to pay, I simply sell my contract with the first trader to that third trader.

The first trader is still on the hook to deliver the million barrels for $150 million and the third trader is obligated to buy a million barrels for $160 million. I'm out of the deal completely. The oil is still in the ground somewhere. Nothing has actually moved from the possession of one individual to another. The $10 million difference is mine to keep.

The student who wishes more insight into futures trading might want to watch the classic 1983 film "Trading Places".

Sue comcast under anti-trust law or file FTC compl

[plasmacutter]

They are entering into contracts with that apartment complex to tie comcast to their rentals which is completely unrelated in order to further their market share.

this falls afoul of anti-trust law, and denies customers choice.

File a complaint with the FTC or sue comcast.

Re:wtf...

[Splab]

Crack dealers are easily solved. Just create fixing houses where users can get their fix in a controlled environment like in Holland and you are good to go. Of course that means that quite a lot of drug enforcement people are in a bit of a job trouble.

Perhaps they should be reallocated to BEA (B=bandwidth)?

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[ch0knuti]

Funny since I am in Russia and writing this on a computer connected by broadband. True ADSL is more popular than cable here but still it is not dial up. Also I thought that France had one of the best broadband coverages in the world.

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly it's from demand from developing nations, and the tenuous supply (OPEC isn't increasing output, and there's a lot of badness going on in oil-producing countries). The dollar has gone down significantly by FX standards, but compare that to oil which has doubled in the past year. (I work in quant finance and DO know something about this.)

Or maybe it's global crossing censoring websites?

[goombah99]

checking who owns the last stop on the traceroute:

whois 207.138.144.102

OrgName: Global Crossing
OrgID: GBLX
Address: 14605 South 50th Street
City: Phoenix
StateProv: AZ
PostalCode: 85044-6471
Country: US

ReferralServer: rwhois://rwhois.gblx.net:4321

NetRange: 207.138.0.0 - 207.138.255.255
CIDR: 207.138.0.0/16
NetName: GBLX-8
NetHandle: NET-207-138-0-0-1
Parent: NET-207-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NAME.ROC.GBLX.NET
NameServer: NAME.PHX.GBLX.NET
NameServer: NAME.SNV.GBLX.NET
NameServer: NAME.JFK1.GBLX.NET
Comment: THESE ADDRESSES ARE NON-PORTABLE
RegDate: 1996-05-20
Updated: 2005-03-02

RTechHandle: IA12-ORG-ARIN
RTechName: GBLX-IPADMIN
RTechPhone: +1-800-404-7714
RTechEmail: ipadmin@gblx.net

OrgAbuseHandle: GBLXA-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: GBLX-Abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-800-404-7714
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@gblx.net

OrgNOCHandle: GBLXN-ARIN
OrgNOCName: GBLX-NOC
OrgNOCPhone: +1-800-404-7714
OrgNOCEmail: gc-noc@gblx.net
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/08/1354257#
OrgTechHandle: IA12-ORG-ARIN
OrgTechName: GBLX-IPADMIN
OrgTechPhone: +1-800-404-7714
OrgTechEmail: ipadmin@gblx.net

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-06-07 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

Re:On my subnet Comcast blocks PirateBay.org

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Your traceroute and your conclusion are nothing alike.

Looks to me more like comcast hands it off to globalcrossing, who then takes it through what is actually their edge, and then PirateBay.org does not respond to your UDP requests, likely due to a firewall.

This can be verified with a TCP SYN based traceroute to port 80(which you know they allow). Heres one I did from a server with comcast.

TTL LFT trace to thepiratebay.org (83.140.176.146):80/tcp
** [firewall] the next gateway may statefully inspect packets
  1 [AS7016] [CABLE-1] 73.201.88.1 6.2/9.7ms
** [neglected] no reply packets received from TTLs 2 through 4
  5 [AS7922] [COMCAST-16] te-0-4-0-1-cr01.pittsburgh.pa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.91.129) 18.4/13.8ms
  6 [ASN?] [GBLX-13] Te6-4.ar2.DCA3.gblx.net (67.17.194.97) 14.6/25.3ms
  7 [AS3549] [GBLX-8] port80.ge-2-0-0.407ar1.ARN1.gblx.net (207.138.144.102) 140.7/139.9ms
  8 [AS16150] [83-RIPE] [target] thepiratebay.org (83.140.176.146):80 143.3/142.9ms

Now the fact that it jumps about 110ms in one hop is a little odd, but that just shows GlobalCrossing isn't exactly top of the line.

And just for another datapoint, heres the (tail of) the same route using ICMP ECHO requests instead of UDP datagrams:

  5 te-0-4-0-1-cr01.pittsburgh.pa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.91.129) 13.598 ms 14.115 ms 13.300 ms
  6 Te6-4.ar2.DCA3.gblx.net (67.17.194.97) 14.536 ms 13.284 ms 16.724 ms
  7 port80.ge-2-0-0.407ar1.ARN1.gblx.net (207.138.144.102) 137.295 ms 135.119 ms 136.846 ms
  8 thepiratebay.org (83.140.176.146) 135.577 ms 133.808 ms 131.285 ms

Re:Most disturbing image...

[carambola5]

The image: http://i7.tinypic.com/5z6vt4n.jpg