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.

Comments

UVerse?

[realityimpaired]

I'm pretty sure that's what the competition is called in the US... they don't count their video/vod streams against your monthly data cap either, do they?

I know that their competing services offered north of the border don't count... you'd blow through the monthly cap in less than a day if it did. So how is this any different? They're offering a VOD service and saying it doesn't count against your monthly cap.

Re:UVerse?

[dkf]

Which are overall reasonable plans on capacity and speed, terrible on price, but well, that's the price we pay for living in a large country slightly larger than the US but with the population of california.

California has about 5 million more people than Canada; it's so large that it would count as a medium-sized European country (with a very strong economy too).

Re:UVerse?

[Sponge Bath]

...they don't count their video/vod streams against your monthly data cap either, do they?

Correct. Step by step, major ISPs are transforming your internet connection into just another cable TV connection. Expect fees and restrictions to "outside" content to increase in an escalating war of combined telecom/content providers.

Re:UVerse?

[NeutronCowboy]

Someone mod this guy up. This is exactly what this is all about. It is about the central core of network neutrality, it is about making sure that no one can ever threaten the business model of the incumbent telcos, and it is about turning the Internet into TV. And it is the entire reason behind the marriage of content and ISPs.

The Internet is dead. Long live TV.

I just hope Sonic.net can grow their network fast enough so that I can get more than a 1.5 Mbit connection from them.

WAN

[DigiShaman]

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?

Re:WAN

[nolife]

They have inconsistent acceptable use policies with data transfers or different definitions of public and local network bandwidth? I don't know, I am more confused now.

This is from http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/common-questions-excessive-use/#excessive22 stating that the cap indeed still applies for XfinityTV.com which I would assume is on the Comcast local network just like the Xbox service. It was last updated Updated 3/9/2012.

Does the Comcast Usage Meter measure data that I consume from XfinityTV.com?

Yes. XfinityTV.com is an Internet web service from Comcast that you receive using your XFINITY Internet service. Comcast treats its affiliated services the same as it treats any unaffiliated services that you use your XFINITY Internet service to access. All data that travels over the public Internet on our high-speed Internet service (and all data that XFINITY Internet users send to one another using the service) is counted toward the monthly Data Usage Threshold, regardless of the source.

Doesn't violate network neutrality?

[TheRaven64]

This is the core issue of network neutrality! A network provider should be a neutral network provider, it should not prioritise one vendor's service over another vendor's equivalent service. Network operators being content providers at all is a violation of network neutrality in its purest form. Imposing limits on other services' traffic but not on their own is a blatant violation by even the loosest definition.

Re:Doesn't violate network neutrality?

[subreality]

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.

IP Insanity

[Aladrin]

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.

Re:IP Insanity

[SilentChasm]

The problem is the reason for the bandwidth caps to begin with was that the last mile was the weak link (cable being shared, your heavy usage affected your neighbors, thus the cap to get you to limit yourself). Now they want to put data from their service over that same link, causing the same congestion problems but not counting it towards the cap. This limits the spread of competing services that might use enough bandwidth to hit the cap.

Either congestion on the last mile is a problem requiring caps or it isn't. It shouldn't matter what's in the data packets or where they're from.

Re:IP Insanity

[javakah]

There are a couple of problems.

Cable companies used to simply be mechanisms to get content created by other companies to users, and they did so through the TV.

As time progressed, the cable companies also began providing Internet access over the cable lines.

The cable companies also changed from simply being mechanisms for transferring the content that others have created, to owning some of those content creating companies as well.

New companies sprung up (such as Netflix) which realized that they could serve content through the internet, and serve it to more devices than just TVs.

This tends to drag on the profitability of Cable TV if people start feeling they have a better costing, reasonable alternative, so customers started dropping cable. Meanwhile, content creating companies not owned by the Cable companies were given a new outlet for distribution, not having to rely essentially on their competitors (the Cable companies) for distribution, possibly at unfair terms.

So around the time that the Netflix user base was really exploding, the Cable companies started putting caps on their Internet service, along with creating their own clones of the services provided by other websites that were now serving up content.

The problem now is that the cable companies seem to be unfairly using the arm of their company that provides internet access in order to artificially help it's Cable TV and content creation arms. By keeping the caps artificially low, they keep people from being able to use the Internet to get their content, pushing people towards their Cable TV. Now, by allowing their own sites to not count towards the cap, they are telling people that they can go back to getting content from the Internet again, but only if it's provided by them.

This is compounded by cable companies being granted local monopolies, so many people don't have a choice than to use these Companies that are trying to limit what content they can receive.

Imagine Walmart buying out USPS/UPS/FedEx. People have to go through Walmart to get anything sent to them. Now imagine Walmart saying that you are now limited to receiving 3 packages per month. This would be terrible for Amazon, a competitor in getting a good number of things to customers. This is now the equivalent of Walmart saying, "You are limited to 3 packages per month, but any packages you receive from us won't count, so order from us!". This has a chilling effect then beyond simply winding up costing customers more. A student is studying WWII. They want to read Mein Kampf. Walmart doesn't like it, so doesn't sell it. They've killed Amazon. You can't get it.

TL;DR- So the issue is that because the Cable companies are controlling several parts of the entertainment business, this is monopolistic behavior that will cost customers more and limit customer options.

This is surprising, how ?

[mbone]

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.

Re:250GB

[Ken D]

That's what I thought too.
Then since we got a Roku and Netflix for Christmas, our monthly data usage has steadily climbed up from 10GB to 125GB. If our data usage continues to climb we will be at the limit in a few months and we have done nothing except basically replace cable TV with internet TV.

This violates the FCC deal

[MobyDisk]

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.

Re:Hosting providers to move on-net

[skids]

Easy out for Comcast there: a connection to a server owned by a separate entity would constitute a peering arrangement, with an associated SLA etc.

Now, for a small provider who's peering arrangments (or purchase if they cannot qualify as a peer) consititute a large chunk of their network expense (sometimes even more than half) exempting local network traffic from bandwidth caps is justifiable.

For Comcast -- well, I'd venture that running an entire distribuition system to millions of customers dwarfs the expense of peering. They are using an excuse that only applies to "small guys" to justify behavior which is aimed at squashing competition for their other services. They are only incidentally a bandwidth purchase aggregator, and should not be allowed to use this pretense.