Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

First Net Neutrality Lawsuit Will Target Time Warner Cable

Posted by Soulskill on from the beat-comcast-to-the-punch dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. government's new net neutrality rules finally took effect last Friday, and a company is already using them to line up a lawsuit against Time Warner Cable. A firm called Commercial Network Services, which runs a bunch of webcams, says TWC is charging them unreasonable rates to stream video to their customers. "The [FCC's] regulations establish hard and fast rules against slowing or blocking Web traffic, as well as a ban on content companies paying for speedier service once their traffic enters a provider's network. But by design, they don't say nearly as much about how companies should negotiate the private agreements that ensure Web traffic flows smoothly into an Internet provider's network — and to your home." TWC has been arranging "settlement-free peering" with various companies, but refused such a deal with CNS. The complaint will ask the FCC to rule that ISPs must strike free peering deals with website operators.

3 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Frivolous by bhcompy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is a frivolous suit. The net neutrality rules have nothing to do with peering, they have everything to do with throttling. There is no throttling here, only a service provider that is hosted in low grade facilities with low grade connections because they won't pay to be on major network

    1. Re:Frivolous by Spazmania · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Peering IS an Internet "fast lane," at least in a coarse sense. Your paying customers have the most favorable data rates in to and out of your network. Next come your reciprocal peers. Finally, you keep the connections you have to pay for at the highest congestion levels in order to minimize your cost.

      By refusing peering to a third party, you force them to either pay you or suffer degraded data rates through your paid channel. This is throttling.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
  2. Re:Kinda on the fence about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And so it begins. Except a lot of crap like this to happen, and expect your costs to rise in response. Lawsuits are expensive. Being forced to offer agreements to anyone who comes along is expensive. Being unable to throttle traffic, especially abusive traffic, means that either they spend a ton of money to upgrade everything (they won't) or your service will suffer.

    All of you people who thought this was such a great idea, rainbows and unicorns, you just wait.