Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Appeals FCC's Net Neutrality Ruling
Ian Lamont writes "Comcast has filed a court appeal of an FCC ruling that says the company can't delay peer-to-peer traffic on its network because it violates FCC net neutrality principles. A Comcast VP said the FCC ruling is 'legally inappropriate,' but said it will abide by the order during the appeal while moving forward with its plan to cap data transfers at 250 GB per month."
Watch them win and maintain the 250gb cap.
Comcast subscribers = butt pwnt.
Slowing or delaying p2p is one thing, but actively forging packets, for any reason, should be punished severely.
Forging reset packets does not equal "throttling", even if it does reduce the load on the network.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
they have gone past the 1949 definition of a cable company as a protected common carrier... they originate material, aka internet, guide channels, phone service, and are now modifying that material that traverses their system. they are therefore subject to regulation. if they don't want regulation, go back to being a coax that brings other folks' TV signals into homes, and do nothing else.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Comcast has filed a court appeal of an FCC ruling that says the company can't delay peer-to-peer traffic on its network because it violates FCC net neutrality principles.
I read:
Comcast filed a court appeal of an FCC ruling. The appeal says that the company can't delay peer-to-peer traffic on its network because it violates FCC net neutrality principles.
I then thought:
WTF?! They are trying to bolster net neutrality? Did I just see a pig fly by?
Hmm hmm It seems you have exceeded your 25 telephone calls per month, sir.
How can we do that?
Snort snort. tee hee.
How can we do that?
We're the TELEPHONE COMPANY, sir.
chortle chortle snort snort.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
There aren't currently any laws on the books mandating or protecting net neutrality, are there? I don't think it's technically illegal to throttle traffic the way they're doing it, though it is ethically wrong.
I could be wrong here.
Switch from Comcast's cable to Dish Network / DirecTV, or a competing Cable company's product.
Switch from Comcast's internet to DSL, FIOS or even Satellite or Cellular internet provider.
Vote with your wallet....
Once enough subscribers cancel Comcast, maybe they'll finally pull their collective heads out of their collective asses...
Until then, they will continue to do whatever they want to try and maximize profit and to hell with their customers...
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
From the article: "Comcast announced it would put a 250-gigabyte-per-month bandwidth cap on residential customers. Customers may get a warning if they go over the monthly cap, and after their first warning, Comcast will suspend their service for a year if they go over the cap a second time."
Lose you internet connect for a year! I do not have HD TV but how big are those HD movies that people are downloading? How many people have more then one computer on the internet in their home? Take a family of 4 (mom,dad, two teenagers) There are at least 3 computers in the house (4 most likely). If a movie is download by each computer, 250GB will be eaten up really fast. I know people with netflix who download 5-6 HD movies a week on one computer. I think they will run out of HD movies soon, but 250GB will be eaten up fast if one is downloading HD movies.
I didn't even go to the P2P stuff. This is a move to slow down P2P. Comcast should just come out and say it (if they haven't already). Maybe Comcast should work on improving the bandwidth of it's network instead of spending the time and money on restrictions. I really feel for those who have no other choice.
Or does ALWAYS seem to be Comcast that keeps incurring the wrath of FCC?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
The delaying is BS. Even as a large downloader the 250gig limit doesn't bother me that much. Before it was the lack of transparency that bothered me so much. Saying unlimited and then cutting people off for some unknown arbitrary amount? No. Now I can at least choose to stay with a KNOWN limit or go somewhere else. I really hope they lose this appeal.
The FCC decision leaves small broadband providers wondering what kind of network management is allowed
The kind of management that doesn't discriminate based on protocol, application, destination or source. Google, Yahoo and MSN don't get special access not available to Bob's Web Search because they have deeper pockets.
Hope that helps.
I don't have Comcast, but my cable Internet is the only "high speed" service available to me - I'm too far from a CO for any sort of DSL. FIOS is only a dream.
If you want to fund the difference between my cable Internet bill and a channelized DS-3 (I only need ~6 DS-1s to equal cable), I'll be glad to follow your advice.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Mods, please wise up: Comcast is not a common carrier
(I'll probably be downmodded to hell for pointing out the truth here, but what the heck!)
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I'm not exactly a super-hacker here... So I was wondering: is there a way to sort of mask P2P packets so that Comcast's current detection methods no longer work? If so, is there a way to continue changing that masking/morphing method so that Comcast is forced to constantly try to adapt, which would make it more expensive for them to do than to just let the damn traffic through?
What other sorts of passive aggressive responses to this can you network experts think up?
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
I'm so sick of this argument. There is no valid alternative where a lot of people live. Where I live we are too far away for DSL. Satellite is *not* an option and FIOS isn't even a gleam in someone's eye. As for TV I don't watch TV anymore so that doesn't affect me.
I understand that and I'm sure the OP understands that - most folks know about the local monopolies. I don't have cable because I don't like the way ANY of the local providers operate. The only reason I have a cell phone is because someone else has purchased it - I refuse to get any cell phone under my own name because I think ALL the cell providers offer shitty terms in their horribly one sided contracts.
We're not talking about food, water, shelter, power, or even health care: this is just the internet. Need it for work? Fine, bend over and pay it.
I don't like the way corporate America works in many cases either (let's face, they can bitch and moan all they want but when it comes down to it, the laws favour them!), but if I don't need the service and I don't like the terms, I don't get it: regardless of how badly I want it. And you know what? I save money and I'm happier.
Want != Need.
If that is true, they are responsible for the content they serve up. They should be nailed by the RIAA, MPAA, and FBI for child porn if they are exempt from Common Carrier status.
Dead on! It's time for the vultures to swoop in if they're going to pull this kind of crap.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Anyone that has read my comments for awhile will know that I tried to point this out months ago, and got flamed for it basically.
The problem with letting Comcast or any ISP that also provides content do anything to shape or filter traffic is that there is no oversight on how they will do this to their advantage. In this case, anything that limits your video usage/sharing in favor of using their video delivery systems is an unfair advantage. This is exactly why bundling 3 or more services together is a bad idea for the consumer... very bad idea.
If Comcast is allowed to mess with traffic on their ISP services, they WILL do so in a way that favors their other services and content. I don't believe there are any scientific studies on the probability of this happening, but you won't find many people (or rocks, walls, monkeys etc) that will tell you that it's unlikely that a big corporation will act unethically if given the chance to do so when nobody is watching.
As in the case of P2P forged packets, they will do whatever they can get away with. Comcast is, and has shown themselves to be an unethical company. period. They should not be trusted. Class actions suits should follow shortly.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
You can't drive that big-ass truck on my superhighway...
Only big-ass trucks carrying my brand of goods
can travel on my superhighway.
This ticket issued by: Comcast Traffic Police
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
consumer calls:"HEY! I have a video on demand service that I pay for a monthly fee. Can you lift the 250gb cap?" comcast:"sure but it will cost you an additional 50 dollars a month." These events are fictitious but it could happen.
If we had real market competition, like in Japan or other nations where the data transfer speed and storage ranges from 10 to 20 times faster and storage is about 10 to 20 times cheaper, this wouldn't be a problem.
But the 250 GB cap is ironic, especially given plans to rollout 160 GBps cable modem service in selected cities in the US by Comcast by year end.
At that rate, I won't be able to leave my cable modem on for more than a couple of minutes a month ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You see, in order to qualify as first world, you need things like water, power, sterile food, telephone, roadways, vehicles, and readily available technological infrastructure like wireless and internet.
Without it you may as well move to some place down in central or south america and use a hoe in your daily 9-5.
As such, consumer protections need to be put in place, and part of that is the government making sure there is actual competition.
If this is not happening, then it should.
That said, if you have ANY alternative even remotely similar to comcast, you should dump it for them, even if they have a similar cap. The point is not to reward them but to punish comcast.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Comcast fails to realize that they're a regulated monopoly, and have to abide by a set of rules that non-regulated businesses don't.
Instead of accepting their reality they want to toss all their toys out of the param and throw a crying fit to get their way.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I agree with you. Hello grandparent post, some of us don't live in the city (though even most city dwellers don't have options). I live in a small town of 6,000 people. They will be lucky if they have fiber 20 years from now. Satellite, due to such poor latency, is actually worse than dialup for many applications (which I'm surprised more people in this thread haven't pointed out). For file transfers yes, it is faster, but for any protocol with even a remote amount of chattiness (gaming for one), it is unusable.
So that leaves me with two options: cable and DSL (which is actually more than many small towns have, but I'm lucky to be in the county seat). The cable is provided by Time Warner, who is considering a cap. So I looked up who the phone/DSL provider was so that I could vote with my wallet, even though DSL is slower. Well, the phone company is Verizon. And I'm already "voting against" them with my wallet because of how badly they cheated me when I was their cell phone customer (hidden fees, secret automatic contract extensions, all that stuff). So now what do I do? All these telcos hold monopolies in various areas. Time Warner is the cable provider. No one can compete in the cable arena, so it owns land delivered TV. It therefore treats customers like dirt. Verizon owns the phone lines. No one can compete in the phone area, so it owns phone calls. It therefore treats customers like dirt. They screw customers in their individual areas, and then screw them again on Internet, especially since there is no real risk of competition. Even if you appear to have two options, this isn't a free market in any way, and EACH choice will screw you, because they know they own the lines into your house and know that no competitors can rise up. And they also know that they are relatively immune to competing with each other too, again because they each monopolize a certain core area (phones and phone lines, or TV and the cable lines). So you actually have no choices at all, and should an innovative competitor even attempt to rise up, such as Vonage who tried to move phone off the POTS and onto any wire that could carry IP traffic, they will use the money they obtained with their monopoly to try to sue said competitor into bankruptcy (again, look at Verizon v Vonage).
So you are stuck. Every choice is a monopoly, each will try to screw you, and you really have no options whatsoever.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
I think having volume caps and network neutrality is a good compromise. Once there are volume caps, however, there shouldn't be an preferential treatment to one kind of traffic or another. ISPs simply aren't in a position to decide which network traffic is important and which network traffic is not. For example, I'd like my VNC-over-SSH to be treated as just as important and real-time as someone's VoIP traffic.
In my area I refuse to pay for Comcast internet because of their plans. It costs more for internet alone than it does for their internet+cable. I refuse to pay for cable tv when all I want is the internet and that it costs more for internet alone means to me that I pay for cable tv if I use it or not.
If Comcast wins the appeal or actually implements the 250gb cap...two things will happen.
#1: large-scale transfer of clients to open-access alternatives, including the creation of local area WAN services with direct backbone links. FreeWAN will finally be viable!
#2: Violence against Comcast. People are just plain FED THE FUCK UP with the fascist surveillance state here in the USA, and it is too hard to get a hold of the testicles of the people responsible. It will start with base vandalism, graffiti and rocks through Comcast office windows. But if the Reich-wing manages to steal a THIRD presidency...all bets are off. Riots in the street, mob murders, and arson will become commonplace...half of it done by pissed off SOLDIERS. During this period the corporations that pissed people off, such as Comcast, will find out a very simple fact: you don't need fertilizer to make explosives.
So wise the FUCK up Comcast, and upgrade your equipment instead of giving raises to your executives and paying for it by limiting or screwing with "unlimited" accounts. You have a 50/50 chance of facing a population in open revolt in 6 months...do you want to be seen as a friend of the populace or another corporate asshole?
The raw unbridled short-sighted STUPIDITY of corporations, and 28%ers, never cease to amaze me.
This is what I thought of first, too.
Comcast has the FCC wrapped around the idea that it's -slowing- P2P traffic, that it's packet-shaping or throttling P2P. I would be totally fine if they just did that, it's their network, and it -should- be prioritizing VoIP, ICMP, interactive services, browsing, and file transfers (in that order) over P2P. What they are doing is -NOT- throttling, QoS, packetshaping, or whatever you want to call it, they are actively mangling the IP protocol to -drop- connections, making P2P actually unusable.
I'm a Cox customer, and they have a Sandvine appliance that does the same thing. I -cannot use bittorrent-. It's not that bittorrent is slow, or that they put it at a lower priority than my neighbor's porno, they -actually prevent it from working at all-.
The documents and PR I've seen from Comcast all seem to indicate that they are 'managing' the traffic, not 'mangling' it and the FCC has responded as if they were QoS'ing P2P.
Either the FCC doesn't understand what's really happening 'on the ground' here, or Comcast itself has a disconnect between Management and Network Management.*
*I worked somewhere once where there was a seriously overzealous network guy who would throttle services and block things at random. He always said he wasn't when I went to the boss and complained, but when I actually got access to the Packetshaper configs, I could see that he was in fact blocking and throttling services, except on his own machines and the boss'. I've been paranoid ever since.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
By the time Comcast (aka Concast) actually gets the FCC to look into the matter or take a vote, Barack Obama will be President, which means more government regulation of big business! Hopefully he orders ISPs to abide by net neutrality, which he fully supports. However, God help us if ... McCain wins.
If they put caps on service, there will be a lot of competition making out good on it. I will cancel that day if they put caps on bandwidth. This includes TV, internet access and phone. Sure, I know it will cost me more per month to do it. But, I am ok with this.
Comcast is about to make a big mistake and it will cost them the farm.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
... delay the traffic of the highest bandwidth (ab)users. By doing this without regard to the content of the traffic, or its TCP port numbers, etc., then they are in a neutral position. How to do this delaying is another matter. They need to avoid focusing on peer-to-peer file sharing just because it happens to be the activity of the biggest users. As long as that is true, focusing on the actual bandwidth hogging will effectively slow down whatever usage is involved.
How to slow down users needs to do something other than forged RST packets. Aside from the legal issues, protocol developers will figure out ways to become RST immune. One simple way is to carry on as of there was no RST and see if a normal packet comes along within a certain time frame (a couple seconds). If not, then the RST is considered real. If there is a normal packet soon enough, then the RST is forged. Comcast is using this technique because it is NOT practical for them to selective drop individual packets in transit; RST forgery is a lower cost injection method. But if they continue this method, geeks will figure out ways around it (plural ... there's more than one way to do this).
Ultimately they will have to make it dynamically adjust the bandwidth rate on the customer attachment equipment. If a customer bursts traffic at high rates too much, gradually lower their bandwidth burst rate limit until it reaches the level where continuous traffic solidly for a month equals 250GB.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The download cap is a poorly disguised attempt to head-off video downloads via the internet.
And I'm referring to the legal ones - like iTunes+Apple TV and Netflix's Roku player.
You can get video and voice from many other companies. These services require bandwidth. Buy these services from companies other than your cable company, and you will find yourself potentially hitting the cap. Buy these services from the cable company (delivered digitally) and the caps disappear.
This is a classic case of monopoly abuse.
-ted
Quick everyone, back to dial-up!
I hate the fact i cant download torrents.. idc about a 250gb cap. i don't have that much i want to D/L however i like using SuSe and love being able to download all of everything i use for SuSe with Torrents.. i just switched form Time Warner to Comcast.. and hate the fact i cant use my normal sources for Distros..
It is a BAD example of government OVER regulation! In most cases, its a LACK of stronger regulation that is the problem! Many cities would love 2 cable companies and probably give them incentives!
Public resources are owned by government which has a "monopoly" on them. The error I often see is that some think government is a form of corporation; it can not have any monopoly because it represents all citizens (government corruption is off topic; its OUR fault if we become corporatist, etc.)
In my area the local governments created a NGO with a board appointed by the cities it serves and it manages the public lands in regard to communications use by private orgs. This board isn't great; however, it is generally the best thing we can do in our area. Problem is the cable and phone companies are too powerful for our 10 cities and nobody will MOVE IN to compete without massive government welfare (which the existing monopolies initially HAD.) Every legal fight is a loss for us and even if the 10 cities directly used their relatively "vast" funds it quite likely would still loose in the end (they just lobby the state when at risk.)
Government could run fibre and make a NGO to manage ISPs sharing the line and could run that line non-profit or even at a loss; unlike the PHONE corp which is required by law to share its lines and does a poor job of it for obvious reasons. This is next logical step since a few fibre lines over public land is nearly the same monopoly situation and consumers would have to subsidize the waste of many extra lines (we already subsidized all the phone/cable/water/gas lines...)
My downtown roads are a mess; why? because corps keep changing around their lines running under the roads and get permits to dig it all up. Yes, I agree that the city needs to force them to all do their changes together at a more REGULATED time. But if we extend that to non-profit shared services under our roads... like we have for water...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
http://preview.comcast.net/music/bb101/article2.jsp?fn=/data/music/bb101/article2Center1.html&cookieattempt=1
Comcast Rhapsody Unlimited: Your Wish is On Demand
Comcast Rhapsody Unlimited is for the user who wants to take their music listening experience to the next level. If Comcast Rhapsody Radio PLUS is like having a radio with over 100 channels and a direct line to the program director, Comcast Rhapsody Unlimited is like having free reign over the biggest record store in the world. For $12.99 a month, you have on-demand access to over two million tracks on 100,000 albums, with dozens of new albums added every week. Imagine waking up every Tuesday and finding 100 new albums sitting in your living room, or having over two million songs in your MP3 collection. Comcast Rhapsody Unlimited brings all that music streaming directly to your PC.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Is someone dloads HD movies from them exclusively. Then, when they are not warned because they watched all the commercials, they can bust them.
Just a thought.
qz
You are talking about a very different situation! Most municipalities do not suffer from that.
The poster to whom you replied has it right, and that is the way it is in most larger cities: government-imposed lack of competition. I have seen this first-hand, and discussed it at length with people around the country.
The BIG communications problem in this country, on a large scale, is lack of a competitive business atmosphere.
If I didn't think I'd go stir-crazy with no internet and no cable TV, I'd dump Comcast and just have nothing. But it's just not an option, I'm stuck with it. Doesn't mean Comcast shouldn't suck it up and stop being a crybaby about having to play fair with us paying customers.
Or better yet file a case in court asking it to throttle your payments to comcast: If comcast throttles your connection speed to a lower level for 20 mins, you can throttle your payment to a lower rate calculated exclusively by you for 20 mins. (say 8Mbps DSL costs $100 a month unlimited; that works out to 2 cents a minute. If the speed drops down to 15Kbps for 20 mins each day for 30 days it amounts to 8/100*0.0015*(600).
State to small-claims court that comcast is violating a contract by "damaging" goods: so you want to pay only for correctly arrived goods. Comcast's high-powered lawyers can't do shit here.
Get a court order allowing you not to pay for damaged goods: then apply your own definition of damaged goods and send off a payment you calculate along with the court order: If comcast refuses to accept the same, they are in violation of a court order: in which case you can "demand" they fulfill their contract. If they accept, then you have set a precedent.
Either way you win.
Use ingenuity instead of anger: corporates do the same. Logical, emotionless, greedy: be like them. Play them at their own game with a home advantage=Small claims court.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
The dirty secret is that Comcast sells Cable TV channels.
So if you have an Internet Only plan with them you can use that to watch p2p TV channels.
Some of these channels they don't even OFFER!!
When you run p2p tv for your entertainment, they can't sell you Cable TV.
There's your REASON for killing p2p.
Now, the 250GB data cap is to prevent Joe 6-Pack from starting an Independent News Station and help to keep an informed population. Simple fascist greed.
Now if you step back and look at the big picture, if this trend continues, it will eventually destroy the first amendment, which is already under heavy attack from many different angles.
In short, your ability to stay informed is dying by a thousand cuts. Your ability to communicate is dying by a thousand cuts. Your privacy is gone because someone broke their oath of office, your ability to use the vote to get these people out of office is gone because of electronic voting machines. And the economy as it crashes and burns is going to be the burden of the taxpayer, because these same corrupt people (cough Senators) won't stop the market fraud, or lock up stocks that are being manipulated from outside of the US. Neither McCain nor Obama will address this.
Your homework is to figure out how to stop this.
Or you can flame me and say I am full of shit.
I'm just amazed that Comcast still have enough customers left that they feel they can still push them around some more with this monthly limit thing.
If you (still) have Comcast as your internet provider, please can you post a reply here explaining why you haven't moved already?
(note to moderators: this is an honest question, I'm interested)
I don't have comcast, as I'm in the Cincinnati, OH region and they aren't the local incumbent but. . .
The main reasons people would still use Comcast might be that they are the only Cable internet provider in their region, there might not be any access to DSL (rural areas, small towns, etc), or any alternatives to Comcast (e.g. Satellite ISPs) might be significantly more expensive.
Seriously, in most places in the US, at least, if you want broadband Internet, you have basically two choices - the local Cable monopoly, or the local telephone monopoly. Sometimes they compete against each other and provide better service and prices, but as often as not, the very limited competition of a duopoly doesn't provide sufficient market incentives to give better service or lower prices.
In particular, with a relatively obscure policy like this P2P bandwidth throttling/blocking, most of the population doesn't know about the issue at all and doesn't care, a small part of the population only partly understands it, but thinks that this is just affecting 'them illegal pirates, so it don't affect me', and a tiny, tiny percentage of the population knows and cares enough to switch providers. I think comcast will just laugh at the tiny percentage of the population that Slashdotters represent, until something bigger forces them to care. That something bigger might be the FCC or other organ of the US government, or it might be that the tiny fraction of the population who cares enough also happens to be the same people that all their relatives and friends ask "can you help me setup my internet", and that the tiny, literate fraction of the population could *eventually* 'move the needle' by switching enough customers to a different provider, that they could get some notice, eventually, from the monopoly like Comcast.
And to add to that, when you sign up for an "unlimited" plan tell them before they get one red cent you want the whole thing in WRITING. This way when they throtle your bandwith you can sue them for breach of contract! If they want to play the "contract" game you can too. With Charter I got the contract for "unlimited" in writing then I submitted a letter to them stating that if they "throttle" my bandwith they will be in breach of contract. So I put them on notice from day one. NO bandwith throtleing yet and I've had my 10meg pipe for a little over a year now.
You just have to look for ways to give the big ole' middle finger to corrupt greedy corporations!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Choice of broadband Internet providers is often limited by the degree to which you have choice of cable subscription. DSL struggles under the "new" content heavy net and dial-up is a joke. FiOS is another option, but infrastructure is regionally limited. Comcast usually swallows up most of the local cable services in an area, because often, the local cable services just don't have the capital to keep up with the services that Comcast already supplies.
Quite often Comcast is the only game in town when it comes to broadband service. This is WHY net neutrality is so important. Internet access is almost as important a "utility" these days as electric and gas and often can only be provided in a similar manner, direct hookup. Net neutrality provides a regulatory buffer against willful degradation of service by your provider even if that provider (in the same manner as your local phone land-line provider or electric/gas provider) has a monopoly on the infrastructure which delivers that utility.
According to the Glasnost test, for the first time since I've had access to a tool to test for it, Comcast isn't fscking with BitTorrent transfers:
Comcast residential "bandwidth" is allocated to three primary services: Video On-Demand, Internet Telephones, Standard Internet Service.
They're only capping the standard internet service. Therefore, they seem to be saying they'd rather my use their VOD service than download a film/program from the Internet.
Is that right?
Or, does their VOD service currently take up such low bandwidth that it hardly matters? (Any reliable estimates?)
It seem that there is more to Comcast's strategy than meets the eye.