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ISP Breaking Net Neutrality? The FCC's Got a Complaint Form For That

Posted by timothy on from the handy-dandy-forms dept.

Presto Vivace writes with news from The Consumerist that the FCC has updated its consumer help center with a revamped form for complaining about an unsatisfactory ISP. From the article: Among the issues concerned consumers can complain about, the form now contains "open internet/net neutrality," right there alphabetically between "interference" and "privacy." So what, specifically, qualifies as a net neutrality violation you can complain about? The FCC has guidance for that, too. In general, paraphrased, it's a problem if there's:

Blocking: ISPs may not block access to any lawful content, apps, services, or devices.
Throttling: ISPs may not slow down or degrade lawful internet traffic from any content, apps, sites, services, or devices.
Paid prioritization: ISPs may not enter into agreements to prioritize and benefit some lawful internet traffic over the rest of it on their networks.

6 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Best list of ISP monitoring SW / services? by sdw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What is the best list of ISP monitoring software, services, or related techniques to detect, collect information on, and work around these kinds of problems?

    Has anyone created an automated test, detection, and complain system that uses minimal resources?

    --
    Stephen D. Williams
    1. Re: Best list of ISP monitoring SW / services? by bemymonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem with having a single such tool is that the ISPs will prioritize traffic generated by it, just like they do with speedtest.net etc.

      How would you work around that without implementing measures that make the measurement of net neutrality related parameters impossible? VPN, for instance, would stop the ISP from prioritizing the measurement tool's data, but it would also prevent any of the potentially Net Neutrality threatening QoS/Blocking you're trying to measure in the first place. Any ideas?

  2. So is there a form for the ISP by Revek · · Score: 4, Informative

    I really want to know so I can get people flagged for making false statements to that effect. We don't have a firewall at all on our internet customers. Its wide open and has been for years. We found throttling ports was self defeating in that the torrent hoarders used encryption and other means to hide their activity anyway. The filter we had was actually causing an additional 30ms of latency and I have missed it at all.

    1. Re:So is there a form for the ISP by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why would you be throttling ports? There's nothing illegal about using torrents.
      Sounds like these people are simply using the service they paid for.

    2. Re:So is there a form for the ISP by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Assume you have more demand for bandwidth than you have bandwidth."

      Translation; Company horribly oversold the bandwidth and is too cheap to buy a bigger pipe.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. What site? by jd2112 · · Score: 5, Funny

    My ISP appears to be blocking fcc.gov.

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.