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.

[Thanshin]

Of course they will, because corporations have infinite memory and infinite patience.

However, corporations just have a winning strategy for the present game. But this game can never be completely won until humanity extinguishes. Nobody wins forever.

It's time for a messiah of the fight of the productive force against the non-human corporations.

Not one who explains why it is a problem and how much worse it will get. We've had several of those in the last century. We now need one who actually finds a solution and has the charisma to put it in practice.

And I say charisma because, fortunately, power is still based on human beings. Thus, change will only come from someone who finds the solution and manages to convince enough people to apply it.

I wonder how much money do corporations spend in finding those guides to the next system and silencing them.

I suspect they spend nothing, because such person does not exist. Because enough people is too much people, and "too much people" is a very stupid beast.

Re:Window Dressing.

[Tengoo]

In fairness to the president, there was no way single payer could have made it through the Senate.

Re:Window Dressing.

[sjames]

He shoul;d have pushed it anyway. Then keep a running kill count attributed to every senator that voted it down. Ask the people to vote out the biggest serial killers of the 21st century at the midterms.

Re:Window Dressing.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many Republican votes did that awful piece of garbage pick up in the senate? Zero! How can you reason that the ACA was caving in to republicans when none of them voted for it? The reason why we got the crap that we did was to get the moderates of his own party on board, which they almost failed to do anyway (see Nebraska). They never would have agreed to a single-payer system, and this was the best they could do to try to get coverage for everybody.

Re:Window Dressing.

[fahrbot-bot]

When President Lawnchair ...

You do know that President Deer in the Headlights wasn't any better. :-)

Re:Window Dressing.

[penix1]

How can you reason that the ACA was caving in to republicans when none of them voted for it? The reason why we got the crap that we did was to get the moderates of his own party on board, which they almost failed to do anyway (see Nebraska). They never would have agreed to a single-payer system, and this was the best they could do to try to get coverage for everybody.

Where were you when they were drafting the act? The reason we got what we got was the Republicans were given an equal footing at the drafting table. There were 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans drafting it in the false belief that if they had a hand in making it they would support it. The reason it almost failed the Senate was totally Harry Reid's failure to take Mitch McConnell at his word to "make sure that President Obama was a one term president" and use the "nuclear option" to fix the filibuster rule at the start of that session. Even to this day it still hasn't been fixed.

The only reason the Republicans are fighting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the FULL title of the act) is their fear it will be as popular as Social Security and the fact that President Obama was backing it (at that stage I argue he would have backed anything that had a positive effect on the broken healthcare system we still have).

The insurance companies are against it because it requires 80% of the premiums be spent on healthcare while trying to eliminate the arbitrary denials. The doctors don't like it because it requires them to be more transparent and stop unnecessary tests that only line their pockets. It also cracks down on the waste, fraud and abuse by hospitals. So that is why they are against it.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans now have some form of healthcare that they could never get before.

Re:Window Dressing.

[penix1]

Forcing me to buy something does not count as "getting it for me".

I would agree with you if and only if the hospital could refuse to treat you when you show up at the emergency room until you pay up front. Because, you see, when you show up and they have to treat you regardless of your ability to pay it raises the cost for all the rest of us who do have insurance.

Re:Window Dressing.

[whistlingtony]

I should note, 80% spent on premiums would start a RIOT in other countries. They get pissed when the insurance companies are keeping 5% for "overhead". Our 20% is a joke.

It should be obvious to everyone that the only reason Republicans are opposed to the ACA is "Because Governement is bad!" and that they've gerrymandered their own districts so much that Ronald Reagan couldn't win a Republican primary any more... He's too far left!

Re:Window Dressing.

[whistlingtony]

When Clinton was proposing to his health care fix back in the 90s... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C..., the Republicans came up with this brilliant plan of using mandates to buy private insurance. Sound familiar?

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... ... "An individual mandate to purchase healthcare was initially proposed by the politically conservative Heritage Foundation in 1989 as an alternative to single-payer health care. From its inception, the idea of an individual mandate was championed by Republican politicians as a free-market approach to health-care reform.[13][14] The individual mandate was felt to resonate with conservative principles of individual responsibility, and conservative groups recognized that the healthcare market was unique."

So, yes, some of us are a bit irked that the Great Hope passed a conservative health care reform bill.....

Re:Window Dressing.

[Attila Dimedici]

Wow, talk about revisionist history. The Republicans had NO input in drafting PPACA. As to the reason they opposed it, it was not because they thought it would be popular, but because it was, and is, unpopular. Furthermore, the insurance companies were not, and are not, against this law. They actually supported its passage and still support the law because it forces everyone to buy health insurance and guarantees that the Federal government will bail them out if they lose money.
And it is not healthcare that millions of Americans have, it is health insurance. As to actual health care, as a result of this law, it is harder to get than it was before because it has led to many health care professionals leaving the business. Oh yeah, most of those millions with health insurance have it because Obama is illegally giving subsidies in states that did not set up their own exchanges.

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.)

Re:Executive Orders

[Thanshin]

Executive Orders will now come from Comcast.

We agree — and that is our practice.

Bullshit

[jsepeta]

Comcast throttled me. Fuck them.

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[QuietLagoon]

...Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network....

The problem with Netflix was not whether or not Netflix gets special priority once on Comcast's network.

.
The problem with Netflix was Comcast allowing its edge router to saturate, thus effectively throttling Netflix traffic until Netflix started paying Comcast for a private link.

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[andydread]

You miss the fucking elephant in the room. Comcast has failed to upgrade their peering points so video traffic suffers as a result forcing VOD sites to pay Cuntcast for a direct link. You know better so...Fuck you.

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[Thanshin]

In the case of Comcast, Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network. The direct links simply lets them bypass the naturally occurring bottlenecks that occur at internet peering points.

In case you are truly sincere and just not intelligent enough to find the flaw in that reasoning, let me help you.

It's at "Naturally occurring". Analyse that part of the equation.

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.

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[TheGratefulNet]

Anyone who believes that buying private links into a providers network is the same as your traffic getting paid priority knows jack shit about network ops.

ever hear of TE (traffic engineering)? I call bullshit on your statement. even inside large isp networks they will give qos to some data more than others. it can be by traffic type or endpoint identity or a combination of many things. my day job is at a major router company and I can (or can't, uhm, ...) tell you many things about how you can prioritize traffic with modern core and edge routers and switches.

to say that traffic is not engineered is to lie to us.

we are not stupid, you know....

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[sjames]

There's more than one way to prioritize traffic and I suspect you know it.

For example, you can consistently ignore an overloaded peering point that just happens to carry the traffic of a 3rd party you want to pressure into buying a private connection. Then you can refuse every reasonable offer of a cache server that would eliminate that overload even though it would result in a cost savings and greatly improve service to your own customers.

It amounts to the same as applying a policer to the port.

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[mjm1231]

In network operations, priority is a very specific concept.

So you admit that you are arguing over semantics.
Most of us don't care which concept or method is used. We only care what the end result is. And the end result is they paid, and now their traffic gets there faster than the people who didn't pay.

Bullshit.

[khasim]

Anyone who believes that buying private links into a providers network is the same as your traffic getting paid priority knows jack shit about network ops.

The Fallacy of Equivocation.

You've substituted the more specific network-jargon "priority" for the usage of "priority".

Once Netflix PAID Comcast then Comcast gave Netflix PRIORITY access to the Comcast network. The PRIORITY access means bypassing the choke point that Netflix was previously restricted to.

No one is saying that Comcast changed the QoS or priority of individual Netflix packets. But that is what you are denying.

Now I'm sure a bunch of people (who are not network engineers) are going to argue over the wording and philosophy as to whether or not buying paid links into a providers network constitutes priority or not. It's not.

Again, you are substituting a more specific network-jargon usage of "priority" that no one other than you is using.

And you are denying something that no one else is claiming.

That is the Fallacy of Equivocation.

The only difference that buying direct links in meant was that they got to skip the congestion in the peering points.

Which is what everyone, except you, is saying.

Once Netflix paid Comcast, Comcast users could suddenly get better access to Netflix.

But Comcast refused to do anything to address that congestion UNTIL NETFLIX PAID THEM.

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[NotSanguine]

Full Disclosure: I am a network ops engineer for Comcast.

Anyone who believes that buying private links into a providers network is the same as your traffic getting paid priority knows jack shit about network ops. In the case of Comcast, Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network. The direct links simply lets them bypass the naturally occurring bottlenecks that occur at internet peering points.

Now I'm sure a bunch of people (who are not network engineers) are going to argue over the wording and philosophy as to whether or not buying paid links into a providers network constitutes priority or not. It's not. In network operations, priority is a very specific concept. It means that you treat one class of traffic better than others, usually to the detriment of other classes of traffic. As an example, e911 voice traffic has the *highest* priority on the Comcast network.

Comcast does not treat Netflix traffic any better than anyone else's traffic. Nor is it treated any worse. It is forwarded as Best Effort within the Comcast network.

The only difference that buying direct links in meant was that they got to skip the congestion in the peering points. Comcast has alot more bandwidth internally and once traffic makes it into the network, congestion is not usually a problem (things do break, redundant links become saturated, etc. It's a big network, but in normal operation mode, congestion doesn't exist). What little prioritization we do has alot more to do with latency than with congestion (ie, your phone call is more important than your massive porn transfer, since voice is alot more sensitive to delay than bulk data transfer).

All of what you say is normal and reasonable, although I assume you don't honor QoS tags from VOIP traffic that originates outside your network. Which isn't a criticism, no one does. As for the paid links, that's not an issue, IMHO. I would point out that Comcast did refuse to install netflix CDN/caching servers, which would likely have resolved the issue much more cleanly for everyone. But the cable TV and content divisions must be "protected."

What's an issue for me (NB, I'm *not* a Comcast customer, you guys aren't even near me) is the surreptitious throttling of P2P and VPN traffic (and then lying about it), blocking port 25 and abusive (no servers, outrageous prices for static IPs if you guys even give those out at all on consumer links, I'm sure I could come up with a few more if I was a customer.) terms of service, not to mention the "retention" and upselling tortures your customer service reps put consumer-grade customers through.

At my previous employer we had a (not by choice -- we needed a redundant provider and you were it) Comcast Business link and, while the link was fairly stable and we got the speeds we paid for, anytime there was a problem (which wasn't often, in your defense) the tech support guys were worthless.

With the scripts and no (at least not exposed to me) ticketing reference numbers, no status updates and no follow up, it was awful.

Compared with the nine or ten other ISPs I dealt with globally, you guys were marginally better than Deutsche Telekom and that ain't saying much.

Sorry to dump all that on you, but if you want to talk about your organization, we should get it all out into the open. I didn't touch on the lobbying, the partnering with ALEC to block municipal broadband and the lawyers and the FUD from the front office and lobbyists. And don't even get me started on the huge subsidies provided to upgrade/build infrastructure that somehow never made it to very many truck rolls. So let's just let all that lie.

The truth is that, yes your networks are big and complex. Yes, there are areas where I can understand why you guys see some of the TOS as necessary to stop abuse, and yes I know that most folks (even here) are completely clueless about what it takes to run a large, heterogeneous, mu

If Comcast gets their way it won't matter

[kheldan]

If, through one means or another, Comcast becomes the de-facto Internet in the U.S., it won't matter what they 'agree to publicly', they will be able at that point to do whatever the hell they want with it, and it'll take an 'act of God'-level effort to dislodge them.

Re:When Net Neutrality is not Net Neutrality

[NotSanguine]

Comcast / AT&T / etc absolutely do not want this. Being classified as common carriers is about the worst business move they could forced into. Why? Because Title II equates to a lot of regulations - that's what Title II is. Title II is why phones are heavily regulated by taxes, where they must be laid, and other regulations that have been in place since 1934 (and updated in 1993). If Comcast / AT&T / Verizon / etc get lumped into Title II, then it'll cost them millions of dollars in employee costs, plus any additional costs from possible additional regulations that may be imposed now or down the road.

Bzzt! wrong. I don't believe you are who you say you are. If you were, you'd know that up until 2002, cable internet services were classified as "common carriers" under Title II. The same was true for DSL providers until 2005.

As I recall those guys did just fine. the regulations aren't as onerous as you're making them out to be and the FCC has wide latitude (which it has used repeatedly) to waive portions of Title II for specific reasons.

Also, the update that you mention was the "Telecommunications Act of 1996," and was not passed three years earlier. Yes, there will be more regulation than there is now, but that regulation, made for more competition, more innovation and better service. That's what the FCC is *supposed* to do.

There IS still the debate on whether Comcast is genuine on wanting net neutrality. I've been told that there's more to the Netflix story than is being told (and that Comcast was only looking to be paid for the bandwidth consumed), but I don't have enough evidence to substantiate this either way. We currently mostly have net neutrality now, without regulation, due to market forces.

That ship sailed, friend. Comcast Is already paid for that bandwidth -- by it's own customers. That data was requested over links that were paid for by Comcast's customers as a pipe to bring them data from the Internet. Netflix tried to deliver the data requested to Comcast's customers Comcast was either unwilling or unable to do so. Comcast sold services and then claimed it couldn't deliver those services unless it was paid more.

I'll be the first to admit that Comcast is perhaps one of the most vile companies that currently exist in the US. However, what we have now mostly works *without* additional regulation. I'm fearful what additional regulation may do to this - our government doesn't have a great history of making things better with more regulation.

Just be sure you look through the politics and look at the actual arguments. This isn't about Net Neutrality. Rather, Obama is using Net Neutrality as a keyword to push for Title II. And *that* won't end well.

You are correct. Title II reclassification by itself is not "network neutrality." Network Neutrality is dumb pipes providing unrestricted IP (v4 and v6) connectivity. Full stop. Title II reclassification is just a small part of that. Much more needs to be done to effect and ensure real network neutrality. It does not exist on Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and most of the other big ISPs. I know, because I actually have (at least as far as I can tell) an ISP that gives me a "dumb pipe providing unrestricted IP (v4 but not v6 yet) connectivity. Full stop."

The issues of surreptitious throttling, abusive terms of service and lobbyists (probably guys just like you) taking to the statehouses to cripple or outright ban competition for the big ISPs is a much bigger part of the problem. If there was real competition, Comcast wouldn't be able to protect their content distribution arms or compete effectively in the ISP market.

The more I read your apologist tripe, the more I'm certain that you're a shill (paid or not -- for your sake I hope you're paid for this) and not who and what you claim to be. You're here to attempt to sow FUD. Unfortunately for you, there are still a bunch (dwindling, but st

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[QuietLagoon]

...It's at "Naturally occurring". ...

Correct, "naturally occurring" because of Comcast's passive-aggressive neglect of the peering points.

Re:Bad submission

[green1]

And if that works, we just permanently stop upgrading all links that don't have someone handing us piles of cash from the other end.

We get to claim that we don't throttle any connections, and at the same time, we get to extort money from anyone trying to send our customers more than a ping reply.

Comcast is claiming that not upgrading does not equal throttling, but that's exactly what it is. Their customers are paying for access to the internet, if they don't provide adequate bandwidth on their peering points to support that, it's them that are in the wrong.

This whole thing is really just an attempt to stop government regulation though "you don't need to regulate us, we're already doing what you want!" which really just shows that they're scared because they AREN'T already doing what they fear would be in the rules.

Re:You are a whiney little brat.

[NotSanguine]

Umm...How about the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Thee Voting Rights Act of 1965? The "Great Society" (that's our modern welfare state as well as Medicare and Medicaid, BTW) programs, The Clean Air Act? Medicare Part B coverage? All progressive legislation, all much more significant in terms of impact on the US than the ACA. There's more, but I'm not your history teacher.

Learn a little history, friend.

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[silas_moeckel]

Comcast not being a tier 1 is free to drop peering and then pay for the transit. They failed to upgrade the peering and failed to pick the traffic up via paid transit. So yes they are at fault they stopped delivering the traffic to the people that pay them to do so. And yes I am a network engineer in the public internet space. Hell they could have split the difference and threw some netflix vod servers into there network, this was a pure play to reach our customers eyeballs we do not care that they want your content.

This guy drank the koolaid.

Re:Comcast May Be Lying Scum ...

[drinkypoo]

It becomes simple to understand: you and I will be paying for maintaining roads that we hardly use (compared to truckers, taxis, commuters and the like).

It becomes simple to understand: by paying for the roads to be available for everyone, we derive benefit even when we're not using them, for example when we purchase goods brought to the store by truck. And even if we used trains, we'd still need to do that, because the trains won't go everywhere.

If everyone pays according to their usage, it makes a LOT more sense, is a lot fairer, etc.

Well no, not really. Everyone has to pay for their bandwidth, because just providing the peak bandwidth costs money even though it's often unused. And in fact, actually sending data down the pipe (once it's established) costs basically nothing; the device is already turned on, and it's already powering the line (or the line is already powered for it) and actually sending data barely makes the equipment consume more power. So different people pay different amounts for different bandwidth caps, and you get the same result but with less confusion.

You cannot convince me that enough investment in Internet links, throwing in more comm links, etc. will magically solve all the problems.

Maybe not. But the major ISPs have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that not enough investment will cause problems, and there is nothing magical about it. The telcos in particular have not been spending the money we gave them for building out broadband infrastructure on actually doing that. Pac bell (under SBC) said in 1999 that we would have DSL everywhere by 2000, and just look how that's worked out. I still don't have it, and yes, I am in what used to be Pac Bell territory. You can tell because of how shit the copper is.

Re:Private Links != Paid Priority

[pedrop357]

They're also free to throttle traffic that causes the peering connection to become imbalanced and/or just watch as their peer irresponsibly saturates the link.