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Comcast Finally Files Suit Against FCC Over Traffic Shaping
Following up on their threat last year to sue the FCC over sanctions imposed, Comcast has finally filed suit, stating that there are no statutes or regulations that support the FCC's authority to stop traffic shaping procedures. "First, let's recap: After months of proceedings, hearings, and investigations, the FCC concluded on August 1, 2008 that Comcast was discriminating against certain P2P applications using deep packet inspection techniques. These methods thwarted the ability of users to share video and other files via BitTorrent. 'Comcast was delaying subscribers' downloads and blocking their uploads,' declared then FCC Chair Kevin Martin. 'It was doing so 24/7, regardless of the amount of congestion on the network or how small the file might be. Even worse, Comcast was hiding that fact by making [affected] users think there was a problem with their Internet connection or the application.'"
So the argument you are offering is "everyone else does it"?
That argument doesn't fly in any court. Not in traffic court for a speeding ticket and not in criminal court.
And to have a fair discussion, we have to agree on certain things and one of the most significant ones is whether or not blocking specific protocols can be considered traffic shaping. I hold that it is not and cannot be considered shaping traffic. You are ignoring the fact that Comcast's activities were not merely prioritizing packets, but also forging packets to close communications between peers. This packet forgery is definitely not "traffic shaping" but is quite literally a DoS attack performed by the ISP.