FCC Chief Says Comcast Violated Internet Rules 174
Several readers sent in word that the FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, is calling for sanctions and enforcement actions against Comcast for resetting BitTorrent traffic. "Mr. Martin will circulate an order recommending enforcement action against the company on Friday among his fellow commissioners, who will vote on the measure at an open meeting on Aug. 1... Martin, a Republican, will likely get support from the two Democrats on the commission, who are both proponents of the network neutrality concept. Those three votes would be enough for a majority on the five-member commission."
Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what sort of precedent might this set for other attempts to block access? Numerous states have attempted to block access, by law, to what they deem to be illegal content. Would a ruling like this tie the hands of companies like Comcast so that they're in a "damned if you do damned if you don't" position, or would one ruling likely supercede the other?
I also find this amusing. Comcast is whining about it, but they're effectively been told off and punished for not disclosing to their customers what they were doing to paid services. It really says a lot about the company that they're complaining that they have to inform their customers before they make significant service changes.
Hell if customers should be informed and able to make competent purchasing decisions... informed and self-interested customers would utterly destroy Comcast's entire business model.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Would a ruling like this tie the hands of companies like Comcast so that they're in a "damned if you do damned if you don't" position, or would one ruling likely supercede the other?
After all the government has given to the telecommunication companies, like Comcast, such as permitting monopolies (which Comcast is in many of its markets), I couldn't give a flying rats fucking ass what position they're in. As far as I'm concerned, they should be fined and then regulated to reduce cost to their subscribers (note: I'm not a Comcast subscriber but I have been one in the past and they are not in my market, we have Charter which is just as bad -- if not worse) for at least 15 years.
If they don't like it, they can sell off their shares and get out of the business. Make it a lose-lose-lose situation for the bastards. I'm glad that the FCC commission wasn't swayed by the money I'm sure Comcast was trying to bribe them with.
Remember Sony and the rootkit scandal? (Score:5, Insightful)
FCC v. FTC (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this isn't entirely surprising. What we may be looking at here is less a fully-developed FCC position on net neutrality and more of a turf war between federal agencies.
Both the FCC and the FTC have expressed concern about Comcast's activities. The FCC is concerned as the federal telecommunications infrastructure regulator. The FTC is concerned as the chief consumer protection agency. The FCC really doesn't want the FTC getting in the way of regulating the Internet, which the FCC has been struggling with since the 1996 Act was first passed (you try applying what is essentially a voice communications act to any IP network, let alone all of them!). By acting now, even arguably prematurely, the FCC has essentially staked a claim to the issue, signaling to the FTC to keep away.
Re:wow, a sudden outbreak of commonsense? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at this, the FCC taking action --- don't look at the man behind the curtain listening to your phone calls, scanning your emails, etc. without a warrant.
Re:Is Martin acting within his bounds? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd be surprised if there were provisions in the contract that insinuated that Comcast wouldn't shape traffic.
Can you provide an excerpt that says as much?
Re:BT Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus, in a world where the routers along the way are fundamentally trusted to do their job and route packets, you're not going to have much luck protecting yourself against this sort of attack by your provider.
That's why this is one of the few... VERY FEW cases where government is needed to step in and say, "you can't do that."
Re:BT Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know... as much as I agree with the actual decision, it sends a chill down my spine to hear the FCC start defining the "internet rules".
Re:BT Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
... except when you want it (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm. I'm not convinced. What about VoIP? I *like* my low-latency reliable VoIP, and I like the fact that my ISP is able to prioritize it over bulk traffic like BT. Ditto small HTTP traffic bursts, DNS requests, etc.
Rather than force all traffic to be treated equally, the more sensible approach would seem to be to provide incentives to flag bulk traffic as such.
Here in Australia, for example, we have small download quotas - often 5GB or less, but up to 40GB or so for "premium" connections. ISPs also generally offer extra download allowances during off-peak times to encourage file-sharers etc to mostly hammer the network when nobody else cares. Why not treat all IP traffic with the IP TOS throughput flag set as low-priority traffic to be sent only if nothing else of a higher priority is waiting, and charge it to the off-peak allowance at all times?
The only issue I really see with that is that ISPs might not feel the need to expand capacity when they're "only" dropping low priority traffic. However, that's when commercial incentives come into play - if they don't have the bandwidth, find a better one that does.
Legislation will be counterproductive in the long run and will impair services like VoIP - and even basics like ensuring that DNS responses are fast. If legislation tries to include exceptions then they'll always be 5 years out of date and will be inconsistent around the world, so they won't really be much good.
Making it in the end users' best interests to flag their bulk traffic as such just seems to make so much more sense. That's the direction where Internet QoS is headed already.
Re:BT Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
I gotta agree that the FCC is actually doing something it should do here. In this case Comcast was filtering there users and lying right to them about doing so. The users caught on and made a stink to the officials and they are doing as they have been asked.
Now about the telco's...
Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which government? The cable companies are lightly managed by the federal goverment - if you don't like having only a single cable company in your community you need to go after your state and local governments. Oh, and if you are not in a tier 1 city good look trying to attract a new overbuilder. I know its not popular on this site but economics will win out - (1) companies need to make profits and (2)you ultimately decide - you can choose to not purchase from the monopolist - while I would hate life without a broadband connection I can still get food, water, air and shelter without it...
Protocols not Illegal, Anti-competitiveness is (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what sort of precedent might this set for other attempts to block access? Numerous states have attempted to block access, by law, to what they deem to be illegal content.
Comcast wasn't blocking illegal traffic - they were blocking traffic they felt was expensive to handle and a plausible threat to their video content business.
On the first point, I use BitTorrent every few weeks and it's always to download FLOSS. I set my upload ratio to 3 to be reasonable but helpful. There's nothing illegal about this - compare with doing a Google search for My_Favorite_Song.mp3 and downloading it over HTTP.
On the second point, the FCC has previously barred a DSL ISP (ILEC) from interfering with VOIP traffic as an anti-competitive measure.
Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
Moreover, telecommunications advertising is a dirty, competitive game.
Just telecommunications?
Re:... except when you want it (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm. I'm not convinced. What about VoIP? I *like* my low-latency reliable VoIP, and I like the fact that my ISP is able to prioritize it over bulk traffic like BT. Ditto small HTTP traffic bursts, DNS requests, etc.
One solution would be per-user bandwidth allocation - as it has been on the proposed list for ages now... Then all you have to do, is you yourself decide not to run BT when you are making a VoIP call... How hard is that? Yours is the responsibility and yours is the power to decide what is important for you, and not the ISP, which has no business whatsoever, deciding your preferences for you...
How is this not a denial of service attack? (Score:5, Insightful)
I still can't figure out how sending a forged packet is not a denial of service attack. If I started putting forged packets on Comcast's network, wouldn't they treat it as a criminal matter? Why doesn't somebody report them to the FBI?
Re:BT Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
Jonah HEX
what is going on? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is going on? Did I wake up in a parallel universe this week? Are we going to die?
Won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds nice, but it relies on ISPs not overselling capacity.
You can get service with ISPs that don't oversell, and actually have enough upstream bandwidth to service all their customers downloading and uploading at max speed all the time. It costs 20-30 times as much, but it's available. After all, most ISPs operate at a contention ratio of between 10:1 and 30:1, where they have enough bandwidth for 1 fully utilized connection for every 10-30 signed customers.
What might be a more reasonable compromise is for ISPs to reserve a fixed 64kbps or so per user. Even that, though, will quickly get expensive. They really need to be allowed to use QoS to provide acceptable performance for latency-sensitive applications while continuing to service bulk traffic - and doing it all cheaply.
Likely to be disappointing (Score:4, Insightful)
If the FCC does move forward with this, Comcast is going to sue. Obviously.
What's likely to make this disappointing is that if the case does get to court, it is almost certainly not going to be decided on substantive grounds. The real question is one of administrative law: does the FCC's "statement of principles" constitute a legally enforcable document? The FCC can't point to a specific statutory provision that gives it what it wants. And as it classified cable modem service as an "information service"--a classification which was upheld in 2005 in the Brand-X [wikipedia.org] case--Comcast is exempt from all of the Title II provisions in the Telecommunications Act, including the common carrier requirements. The FCC is going to have to rely upon its "ancillary authority" under Title I, and the question to be resolved is not whether net neutrality is a good idea but whether the FCC has the authority to do this under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946.
Needless to say, unless you're an administrative law geek like me, this isn't going to be a very interesting case. But the FCC has largely trounced the cable industry in almost every conflict in the past ten years, so I'm optimistic.
Re:... except when you want it (Score:3, Insightful)
Or allow the user to define their QoS. Or let the user's equipment define the QoS. Or allow the option of turning it off.
If their network damages one set of users when another set is using BitTorrent, it's not set up right.
That and the fact that even if they did want to throttle BitTorrent to benefit VoIP, sending RSTs is not the way to do it. You just speed and queue-limit it like every other QoS implementation does
Re:... except when you want it (Score:3, Insightful)
so who gets to choose which bits are "good" bits and which bits are limited to the slow lanes? if i invent super-mega-new-tech-protocol that needs low-latency, reliable communications, do i need to register that with the telco-what-we-think-are-worth-while-apps-dept? what happens if they don't like it?
because, you know, that's how cell phones work...
I am curious, how long before unlimited plans go (Score:3, Insightful)
away?
I saw references to it going away on some blogs and even one or two news sites.
think about it, the more restrictions that are placed on their being able to QOS types of traffic or such the more likely they will introduce hard caps by simple removing the unlimited as an option.
I look at it this way, if I can get cheaper access with caps I will take it. I don't care to subsidize anyone. This isn't the government holding a gun to my head and as such if someone comes along as says "rate X for price Y" and its cheaper I'm there.
It will be curious what happens in the market
Re:BT Encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
Comcast abused their power and the trust of Intern (Score:2, Insightful)
When Comcast bought up large systems to become the largest Cable MSO, it did not buy the Internet. Comcast has no right to change how the Internet works -- not one byte of it.
How the world-wide Internet works is defined by all of us, through our participation and trust in the Internet Society and the Internet Engineering Task Force. To ensure interoperability and access for all, changes must be carefully deliberated and standardized there. The responsibility of operating the Internet in accordance with those standards is entrusted to companies providing access to it. It's not Comcast's job to change how the Internet works nor can it decide who or what gets preference upon it.
I haven't seen anything other than the press reports about something to be circulated around the FCC. I am hopeful that when the details are released that it serves to preserve and protect the Internet from those who would abuse their power and change it.
Re:BT Encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
companies that pull stuff like Comcast would simply go out of business.
Not true at all. Tell Joe Q. Public that you offer high-speed Internet for $25 a month less than the competitor with the small detail like "we limit your P2P activity", Mr. Public takes the cheaper offer. Comcast can afford to offer the service for cheaper, because they are throttling the bandwidth (or whatever technical cost-cutting method they introduce). If anything, I could see how this could actually lead to MORE customers (just not savvy customers). Most Americans are cheap and there are more Internet users that have never even heard of P2P than users who actually use P2P.
Re:BT Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Likely to be disappointing (Score:3, Insightful)
Or the FCC could point to Comcast themselves to support the FCC's position. According to this report at DSLReports [dslreports.com], Comcast is arguing before a Federal judge that plaintiffs in California don't have standing to sue Comcast over the throttling because the FCC has sole authority over matters like that. If Comcast does win that argument, then all the FCC has to do is point to Comcast's successful argument and say "They've won the argument that we do have authority over this, they don't get to argue otherwise now.".
Re:BT Encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
All the FCC has said is using arguably illegal techniques to send forged traffic to unsuspecting users and irregardless of existing network traffic fail to meet the standard of reasonable traffic management. This isn't that much different to a slum-lord committing arson by burning down his rat and cockroach infested buildings and claiming it's a reasonable pest control technique!
Re:BT Encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
What Comcast did wrong was to change the service and not inform their customers.
Re:BT Encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
The level of faith Americans have in corporations is utterly astounding. I don't quite get why it's okay to have huge, powerful organizations dictate policy undemocratically merely because they're doing it to make a profit. How does making a profit make the unilateral actions of powerful entities so much more trustworthy? Why is government by corporate fiat so much better than government by elected representatives?
If the FCC tells you what you can or can't do on the Internet, people are up in arms. When Comcast does it, people only grudgingly admit it might be a good idea for the FCC to tell them "don't do that". The mind boggles...
Re:Won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
What might be a more reasonable compromise is for ISPs to reserve a fixed 64kbps or so per user. Even that, though, will quickly get expensive. They really need to be allowed to use QoS to provide acceptable performance for latency-sensitive applications while continuing to service bulk traffic - and doing it all cheaply.
If they did that, VoIP becomes more expensive to provide than standard telephone lines.
Traditional telephone companies don't have a phone line reserved for every single customer. They know what their trunk usage patterns look like and provision accordingly. Very rarely, you might get an "all circuits are busy" message, when they have over-provisioned their trunks.
You save money on VoIP because the over-subscription capability increases, making the service cheaper to provide. Over-subscription is a Good Thing that saves money. Over-provisioning is not.
What we really need is an Internet-wide QoS policy. This could be implemented simultaneously with the transition to IPv6.
But assuming that happens, the ISPs still can't trust users to flag their own traffic, because all the l33t gamers would quickly realize that their pings are lower when they flag all their traffic for the high-priority queues. Or worse, the user flags all their BitTorrent traffic as high priority because they want more bandwidth for themselves and don't care if they are screwing their neighbors.
So that means that the ISPs have to put devices in place that they control that can effectively determine the traffic type and tag it accordingly. So they'd need either uber-fast deep inspection and packet modification engines ($$$) or they need the intelligence built into the devices installed at the customer premises ($$$). Both of these things are a lot more expensive than what's in use today.
And then there's the maintenance issue. What happens when a new real-time protocol rolls out (e.g. Skype)? All the ISPs would have to modify their infrastructure to identify and tag the traffic, and if one ISP in the middle failed to do so it breaks the whole end-to-end QoS model.
I've no doubt we'll get to a QoS-enabled Internet... one day. Might be a decade or two away though.
Re:... except when you want it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:BT Encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
What Comcast did wrong was to change the service and not inform their customers.
No, Comcast actively engaged in sabotageing their customers communications.