Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Discloses Throttling Practices
Wired reports that Comcast finally provided information on its network management practices late Friday. In a report to the FCC (PDF), the cable company admitted to targeting P2P protocols Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FasTrack, and Gnutella. Quoting:
"For each of the managed P2P protocols, the [Sandvine Policy Traffic Switch] monitors and identifies the number of simultaneous unidirectional uploads that are passed from the [Cable Modem Termination System] to the upstream router. Because of the prevalence of P2P traffic on the upstream portion of our network, the number of simultaneous unidirectional upload sessions of any particular P2P protocol at any given time serves as a useful proxy for determining the level of overall network congestion. For each of the protocols, a session threshold is in place that is intended to provide for equivalently fair access between the protocols, but still mitigate the likelihood of congestion that could cause service degradation for our customers."
That is better because now consumers can make an informed decision when choosing a internet provider.
An 'unlimited' internet connection at an affordable price may look like a good deal but if you knew in advance it was actually limited in some way you might have chosen another provider with a better offer. Now at least you know what you're getting for your money and you can make a fair comparison between different providers.
This improves transparency and thus competition and ultimately benefits the consumer.
Comcast will enforce bandwidth caps. How's that better than throttling?
Even if it turns out that 250 gig limits make for a shitty service, at least Comcast are honest about the limits they put on you, so you know what you're buying and you can take the limits placed on you into account when deciding what to download.
You have to love how the text is carefully crafted to be virtually incomprehensible to the average person. Actually, check that - totally incomprehensible to the average person and virtually incomprehensible to all but the hardest core network tech geeks. Of course, it's intentional because saying, simply, "we slow down users who utilize programs we don't like" is too easy to understand and rally against, which, of course, is exactly the opposite of what Comcast wants. This Byzantine text just sounds like a lot of techno-mumbo-jumbo so it has to be ok, right? Thankfully, Slashdot is filled with hard core network tech geeks so I'll be reading comments with interest to get an informed synopsis rather than staring at Comcast's text and thinking "huh?"
That is better because now consumers can make an informed decision when choosing a internet provider.
Only one high-speed Internet provider offers service in many areas of the United States (home of Slashdot). This means choosing a high-speed Internet provider is like choosing any other public utility such as your power or water provider. What recourse do people dissatisfied with a public utility have?
you can make a fair comparison between different providers.
You get this provider if you live here; you get that provider if you live there. Should people really be choosing where to live based on the only ISP that isn't dial-up?
I'm not an American - so my understanding may be off.
I thought "Free Speech" meant literally that you couldn't be arrested for saying "stuff".
Specifically it doesn't mean:
So, with that in mind. How is imposing a bandwidth cap in any way related to free speach?
Sure I could see if they didn't let you visit some, politically derived, blacklist of websites then you could argue they were suppressing some topics. But otherwise?
Hyperbole - and the more times you do that the less people pay attention. Cry Wolf, anybody?
The idea isn't to guarantee the service you would want to have in your wildest dreams. It is to receive all terms and conditions prior to sale so that you can make an informed decision. It is fraud prevention.
People forget what "unlimited" Internet means when used in marketing access plans. Back in the "old" days, your connection to the Internet was metered by time since everyone pretty much got the maximum available and you didn't have bandwidth tiering you have with today's massive capacities. You usually had X hours of service per month in your plan. This is the "limited" part of the sales pitch. Eventually the ISPs were able to offer "Unlimited" access, meaning you could leave it on 24/7 all month and only pay the monthly fee.
Now some people are clamoring that they were sold "Unlimited" service and they are being cheated. Bullshit. Your still allowed to stay connected for an "unlimited" amount of time which is exactly what your paying for and my guess is that your service contract states this, you get X bandwidth available 24/7. Even then, that 24/7 isn't guaranteed but it's the exception not the rule when there's a problem with connectivity [Insert chosen ISP bashing here].
I'm not saying this is a Good Thing(TM), but it's not like anyone has been cheated. It's just been a case of very slimy marketing by the ISPs.
This was put in place per Comcast's talk at the IETF largely to IMPROVE VoIP service from Vonage et al. You look back to 2006, before this was deployed, and there were lots of complaints about "Comcast is disrupting Vonage and other voip services..."
Those complaints largely dissapeared after Comcast started policing P2P uploads.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Okay, simple example.
Just like their "up to" line, they want to advertise more than they can do while lying, as many businesses do. This is like having a 160mph speedometer on a bicycle. Sure, you can do up to 160mph, or have unlimited usage, but they hid the reality, which is "no, you can't have what we promised or else we will disconnect you".
Per that PDF, on page 10 Comcast described how they "delay" the packets, using "reset packets." Stop letting them get away with calling forging reset packets "throttling". Instead, they are blocking connections via forgery.
Except, they admit that packets with the reset header are only supposed to be used by the two end computers, and not by any of the routers in between, which should be handled by ICMP.
They say, in that pdf, "As used in our current congestion management practices, the reset packet is used to convey that the system cannot, at that moment, process additional high-resource demands without creating risk of congestion.", which is just crazy.
Reset isn't a "slow down" message, it is a "stop sending me any kind of data on this connection" message.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me