Comcast Kisses-Up To Obama, Publicly Agrees On Net Neutrality

MojoKid writes Comcast is one of two companies to have earned Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" title on more than one occasion and it looks like they're lobbying for a third title. That is, unless there's another explanation as to how the cable giant can claim (with straight face) that it's in agreement with President Barack Obama for a free and open Internet. Comcast issued a statement of its own saying they back the exact same things, it just doesn't want to go the utility route. Comcast went on to list specific bullet points that they're supposedly in wholehearted agreement with, such as: Free and open Internet. We agree — and that is our practice. No blocking. We agree — and that is our practice. No throttling. We agree — and that is our practice. Increased transparency. We agree — and that is our practice. No paid prioritization. We agree — and that is our practice. Really? Comcast conveniently fails to address the giant elephant in the room whose name is Netflix. Earlier this year, Netflix begrudgingly inked a multi-year deal with Comcast in which the streaming service agreed to pay a toll to ensure faster delivery into the homes of Comcast subscribers, who prior to the deal had been complaining of frequent buffering and video degradation when watching content on Netflix. Comcast would undoubtedly argue that it's not a paid fast lane, but it's hard to see the deal as anything other than that.

Comments

Window Dressing.

[damn_registrars]

This is just Comcast trying to get some good PR before they force their agenda through. There is no purpose in companies kissing up to President Barack "Lawnchair" Obama, as he has consistently caved to the demands of conservatives and big businesses every time it was important to do otherwise during his administration.

Every. Single. Time.

Remember how he said he was going to stand up to insurance companies, and offer a single-payer option for health care? Remember how that was going to be his crowning achievement as president? Did we get any of that? No.

Remember how he said he was going to help the middle class instead of helping wall street fat cats? Remember how that worked out?

Comcast is just waiting for the attention to blow over. Eventually public attention will wane and then Comcast will kill off the net neutrality proposals and get their way.

Re:Window Dressing.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Well, they have good reason to be scared of being declared the utility thing, and this goes well beyond forced net neutrality.

I recall way back when the Clintons tried Government Health Care 1.0. Eventually, at one point, the insurance companies threw up their hands as a last defense and said, "Fuck it. We'll just cover everybody at our own cost." This wasn't good enough, of course, because the goal wasn't universal coverage, but universal government coverage.

But that's an aside. Here, being a utility means ultimately becoming more like a water or gas or electrical company, with even less competition than now, and then service quality and rates become a game between their lobbyists and the politicians, where they whine they need an increase, slacking off, and the politicians play a game between believing it so they approve the increase, and their own political base, who wants no increase at all because democratic threat.

That's a whole different corporate world and game to play. Companies can play it, but it cuts profits way, way down from a freewheeling bleeding edge high tech.

I am for net neutrality ("You agreed to participate in this common pure data transmission service called The Internet without subverting and perverting it.") but declaring it a utility? Oh god hell god fucking god no.

I has a major sad if that's what it takes to get the laws done. (We'll leave for the moment the disturbing constitutional improprieties philosophically of such massive changes being done via a regulatory agency fiat rather than directly by Congress.)

What is it?

[jamesl]

The term "net neutrality" is bounced around over and over and now even our technically challenged president is for it. But what exactly is "net neutrality?" What does it prevent from happening. What is required to happen?

I'll bet that three different people will have five different definitions.

Thank you

[davidwr]

Thank you for having the guts to come here and say that. On behalf of the Slashdot community, I apologize for the rude tone of some of the replies.

Having said that, the replies above are essentially correct: It is part of Comcast's job to make sure its peering points don't get saturated under routine use. They owe that much to their customers (and of course they can pass that cost on to their customers).

Now, if the problem is at an upstream peering point that Comcast does not participate in, then I can understand that Comcast is not to blame. However, a company as big as Comcast should participate in peering points around the country, Comcast owes its customers that much. Every major network provider - including Netflix's provider - should be peering directly with Comcast* in the regions in which they and Comcast have a significant amount of traffic to exchange and in which both companies have a significant physical presence.

The same goes for ATT, Time-Warner, and the other major ISPs and network providers.

*If the peering at the peering point isn't, technically-speaking, direct, it should have the characteristics of a direct link from a customer-satisfaction point of view. That is, the connection is good enough that if you turned it into a direct-peering connection there wouldn't be much improvement.