Vuze Petitions FCC To Restrict Traffic Throttling 159
mrspin writes "Vuze, an online video application that uses the peer-to-peer protocol BitTorrent, has petitioned the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to restrict Internet traffic throttling by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Vuze has been keenly aware of Comcast and the "bandwidth shaping" issue. Vuze filed its "Petition for Rulemaking" (PDF) to urge the FCC to adopt regulations limiting Internet traffic throttling, a practice by which ISPs block or slow the speed at which Internet content, including video files, can be uploaded or downloaded. As readers may remember, back in May, Slashdot discussed the issue of packet shaping and how ISPs threaten to spoil online video."
Someone with standing, ... maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
Now this company might actually have some standing to say their product is being blocked. Unfortunately, I don't think anybody has Comcast (or others) over a barrel quite yet. Comcast never agreed to deliver this content, or any other specific content. What did they agree to deliver? Probably not much, and nothing specifically. You aren't guaranteed email, web browsing, VPN or any other service. They didn't define what services they are delivering, what quantities of these services or anything else.
I think the company already looked at suing Comcast and found out there isn't anything there. The only avenue would be rulemaking or legislation. Probably not much going to happen there either.
Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
I will say this about Comcast, they're a hell of a lot better than Cox.
Re:Someone with standing, ... maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as Comcast sucks, it sounds like you're taking the position that the federal government should have the authority to regulate how networks work. I think that's awful, and endangers just about everyone.
Comcast should be bitchslapped (and probably at the state level) for fraud: they fail to supply what they lead prospective customers to believe they supply. And in states where there are laws against impersonation, that should be enforced as well (or else repealed).
But for feds to regulate-away throttling itself, is a nightmare. Networks need to be able to deal with congestion problems, even in cases where they are not overselling or otherwise engaged in fraud. Throttling large transfers to increase the performance of interactive stuff, is a perfectly sane (and fair) way to do it. FCC better keep out of this.
Also, remember we're talking about feds. Comcast's monopoly, AFAIK, is provided by local governments. That's who should be setting terms. Kicking it it so far up the hierarchy of government, just reduces The People's power in the decision.
Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice (Score:4, Interesting)
I know...how about they just make people pay for the bandwidth they use?
They could offer X GB/month packages, where bigger X means bigger monthly fees. They could even get fancy and say that traffic between the hours of 1am and 7am doesn't count, or counts less.
There are all sorts of ways for them to ensure they don't lose money while still giving unfettered access.
How should get what bandwidth/priority (Score:4, Interesting)
P2P traffic will slow down if there is a lot of it or if there is other long running traffic, without Comcast doing anything.
The bigger issue is that our connections are a shared resource. I it fair for you to get all of the bandwidth and leave me with slower response for my web traffic just because you want to download movies. Should we all get an equal slice. The only way for the ISP to do this is traffic shape - limiting the amount of total available bandwidth available for high use protocols like P2P traffic. Ding this means that when I try to load my web page or shoot a dragon in my MMOG there is some bandwidth left to give me a decent response.
Now, you could say that all the ISPs should have enough backbone to supply each of us with full time use of the bandwidth that the ISP talks about providing. The problem is that this would cost a HUGE amount of money and your bill would up 10-50 times what you now pay (depending on your ISPs contention factor).
The so called "net neutrality" debate is mis-named. The question is who pays for the cost of infrastructure and who makes the profits?
Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice (Score:4, Interesting)
No; ISPs could throttle the bandwidth-hogging customers while remaining ignorant of protocols.
Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice (Score:4, Interesting)
The root issue here is the 'last mile' problem. A bunch of competing cable and phone providers would result a mass and tangle of wire going everywhere. A government enforced monopoly (which is what we have) is not much better, but it's more aesthetic. What we really need is a proliferation of secure wireless based services, much like how satellite TV competes with cable TV. Unfortunately, consumer grade satellite internet has horrible latency and other problems. I think the answer is some type of cellular or mesh solution. Some companies use long range wifi and other directional antenna based systems, and mesh networks are pretty awesome if you can get enough people to participate. There also needs to be enough competition among all of these services to foster innovation. So more than one wireless provider for any given service area.
Again we run up against the FCC, which allocates wireless frequency spectrums here in the US. There is a lot of artificial and real scarcity - with the most innovation happening on the unlicensed bands (2.4ghz and it's multiple 5.8 ghz).
Internet connectivity (fiber optic) as a public utility is interesting - but only if it is done on a local level. Anything bigger than that, say, statewide, is bound to become mismanaged and horrible. (just think of the DMV...)
Comcast is just trying to protect its bandwidth, but as the parent poster mentions, the way they are doing is potentially dubious.
Also, to correct a misnomer from another post, their principal purpose is not to -stream- video via torrent (although they are now experimenting with that using their internal player) but to allow downloads of very large video files that people then watch locally.
I am a Vuze / Azureus user and so far this is the only good solution I've found for hosting my legal original HD videos on the web short of running a legal torrent server myself, which wouldn't get as much exposure. Vuze has also set up a system where you can sell downloadable video content for a price if you wish, a boon to indepdendent video producers.
Some things that they have done recently have been aggrivating (re-compressing files to a semi-proprietary format) but on the whole they have the right idea. And they are the textbook example of a company that is the most hurt by bandwidth throttling if it is done to an extreme as Comcast is doing (completely denying a download session)
Unlike Comcast itself, Vuze provides an outlet for speciality video producers to get their stuff out there.
Re:I Agree in Theory but Not In Practice (Score:3, Interesting)
You can pay more to increase X, but there's no fear of getting cut off or ending up with a large bandwidth bill to make people wary of buying a 'limited' or 'metered' service.
The huge bandwidth users will either have to pay more or deal with slow downloads, while the "normal" users don't have to worry about it at all. If they do go over one month, their web browsing and MMORPGs aren't affected, and they don't get hit with a bunch of extra charges. Most people want very fast transfers for a few seconds at a time, and this seems like a perfect solution.