FCC Chief Clarifies His Statement On Comcast

netizenz writes "At a press conference yesterday, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has clarified his earlier statements on Comcast. According to the CircleID post by Richard Bennett, he 'will not seek a fine against Comcast. Rather, he will simply impose some reporting requirements on them and order them to do what they've already started to do, phase out the current traffic management system in favor of an application-agnostic one. This is second story in a row where the AP have got the facts backwards. Hence, both sides may now officially claim victory.'"

Comments

By "clarification" he means

[Anonymous Coward]

Retroactively revising his position on order of the big bosses, since they didn't like his first one.

Re:By "clarification" he means

[quonsar]

...they dropped off the check last evening.

Traffic shaping is ok

[kurt555gs]

As long as it is "application agnostic". Comcast or for that matter most large ISP's think the internet is theirs to do with what they want. Laws? phooey, we own it, we will decided who its used in our interest.

Never mind all our wires run on public right of ways.

this is truely getting out of hand.

Re:Traffic shaping is ok

[McGuirk]

"So if you drive your car on a public road the car becomes public property?" No, but try putting up road blocks, and forcing people who drive certain kinds of vehicles to drive in lanes with much lower speed limits. You can't do things like that on a public roadway unless you're the government...or a contracted worker or prison inmate.

Re:Traffic shaping is ok

[WolfWithoutAClause]

I think the dirty secret is that their previous strategy- deep pack inspection as a way to enforce non neutrality- doesn't work very well anyway.

The problem is you have to keep fiddling with it- which costs money, and your customers always outnumber you, and usually outsmart you.

Deep packet inspection works well if you're playing *with* the customers. So if it's a way for the customers to say- I value this packet particularly highly, and the ISP follows along- that's fine (and the ISP of course checks that you are only marking *some* of your packets high priority, according to some contractual agreement that the customer paid for, like so many hours VOIP high priority a month or whatever)

It's if the ISP is deliberately shaping one particular protocol or class of protocols. In that case the customer will come up with ever-more-creative ways for one packet stream to look like another enitrely.

Any bets he got a call from someone "important"?

[Opportunist]

Telling him that he should backpedal?

Re:Any bets he got a call from someone "important"

[falcon5768]

Honestly its the FCC, their about as neutered as it comes when talking about enforcing laws. Its very likely in this case the AP DID get it wrong, not that it matters since NO ONE fined by the FCC in the last 3-4 years has even paid theirs anyway.

typical

[Alibaba10100]

I've noticed that whenever I know the actual details of a story (say its a story on someone's remarks, which I heard, or a story on technology I've known about for years) AP, Reuters, BBC, FOX, CNN, or whoever else carries the story gets it completely ass backwards. Easy proliferation of actual information has made it possible for people like me to realize this. It just makes me wonder what is wrong with the news agencies.

layers of fact checkers

[Trailer Trash]

Come, now, AP has layers of fact-checkers to make sure they don't get details wrong. They would never be duped by photoshopped missile launches, either, right?

The FCC doesn't have any authority here

[wiredlogic]

This backpedaling is because the FCC doesn't have any authority over how a cable company manages its network. There are no requirements whatsoever for any ISP or backbone provider to provide neutrality or to faithfully implement internet standards. What we have today is just a continuation of the laissez faire approach that worked for the early internet.

Looks like Corporate America had a talk with him.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Act tough against Corporations and some one higher up says "look dick bag, you're only here cause i put you here, so dont get fucking cocky you little peice of shit... You will do nothing."

So now comcast gets a blow job from the FCC rather than a strict ruling from our government.

Lovely. Did you really expect anything to ever happen to comcast? You do realize that these companies get away with murder... and you dont.

Re:Any bets he got a call from someone "important"

[antirelic]

Nah. The FCC will brutally and efficiently prosecute anyone who is not a big business with well placed lobbyists, and a constituency that relies on the jobs these big businesses provide. Open up a pirate radio station and watch what happens. You will find the FCC on your doorstep quickly, and they will have no mercy.

Now, if your a big company like Comcast, have no fear. You'll just have to do some "reporting" which is pretty stupid since elected officials and their supporting staff have no idea what those reports would even mean.

Re:Any bets he got a call from someone "important"

[hvm2hvm]

Nah, it's the whole fucking world. It's like this damn companies are above the law. Whenever some huge company makes something obviously malicious the worst it can happen they get a fine. A band of young guys are partying and run out of booze and they rob a store, they get 5years+. WTF?

For something as big as traffic shaping for millions of people therefore attacking their freedom (and maybe privacy) I would just put the fuckheads in charge in jail until someone with enough common sense runs it. The same with Sony's rootkit and whatever Microsoft has been doing :P

Re:Looks like Corporate America had a talk with hi

[Ninth Marion]

Hmm, FCC - Fellating Corrupt Corporations? It does have that certain ring of truth.