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Comcast Not Counting Their Video Service Against Bandwidth Cap
tekgoblin writes something not quite worth rejoicing over. From the article: "Comcast Internet subscribers can rejoice. Comcast has recently announced that they will not be counting content streamed via their Comcast Xfinity App on the Xbox 360 against their bandwidth caps. Comcast claims that since the data is only traversing their internal Comcast network that it will not count towards your 250 GB limit a month."
Comcast is claiming this does not violate net neutrality laws (and it very well may not); a number of folks are not very happy about it. I've always been perplexed by the large media interests of most U.S. last-mile providers.
Cuts both ways? Does that mean I can FTP an unlimited amount of data to my neighbor that also has Comcast too? Where all part of one giant happy WAN, right?
Life is not for the lazy.
Why do we get so crazy when data is sent over IP rather than another way? If they had done this with their cable lines and not used TCP/IP, nobody would bat an eye. In fact, that's how content was always served in the past. When they decide to cut costs and use the newer, better infrastructure for the old stuff, people freak out.
A company serving their own service over their own lines is nothing to freak out about.
I will agree that if they were doing this with other companies' data, it would be worrisome. But not their own.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
These companies see themselves as gatekeepers, not service providers. In other words, they think that they will make money from their ability to control what you do or see, not by providing you with the ability to do something. Getting them to realize that their business model has, in fact, changed and that they now are, in fact, service providers is going to be a long and messy project.
Things are different in Aus. You don't have very good connectivity off the island so it's a big advantage for the ISP to encourage you to get files domestically.
In the US the weakest link is the last mile; transit between ISPs is dirt cheap. I think it's pretty clear that they're doing it as an abuse of their near-monopoly, and not as a result of their costs.
Part of the deal to purchase NBC Universal required that Comcast offer equal access to NBC content over other networks. But making it free bandwidth for your customers, but not for other customers, seems to violate the intent of that requirement while perhaps adhering to the letter of it.
*This* is why you cannot have one company as the service provider and the content provider.
Prior to the merger, the justice department released a Competitive Impact Statement which is concerned with Comcast not allowing access to NBC (and others) content. But it did not consider the possibility of Comcast offering special benefits to the content for their subscribers. Now that I think about it, nothing stops Comcast from offering content cheaper, faster, better quality, in 3D, etc.
Comcast's web site has the regulatory approval document which explains their limitations. It doesn't seem to specifically say they can't do this, but it looks like other people figured they couldn't do this. This blog entry from Mediapost says that the ruling:
Does not disadvantage rival online video distribution through its broadband Internet access services and/or set-top boxes. Does not enter into agreements to unreasonably restrict online distribution of its own video programming or programming of other providers.
So I think most people believed that this was illegal.