Comcast Appeals FCC's Net Neutrality Ruling 242
Ian Lamont writes "Comcast has filed a court appeal of an FCC ruling that says the company can't delay peer-to-peer traffic on its network because it violates FCC net neutrality principles. A Comcast VP said the FCC ruling is 'legally inappropriate,' but said it will abide by the order during the appeal while moving forward with its plan to cap data transfers at 250 GB per month."
commiecast doesn't get the law (Score:1, Interesting)
they have gone past the 1949 definition of a cable company as a protected common carrier... they originate material, aka internet, guide channels, phone service, and are now modifying that material that traverses their system. they are therefore subject to regulation. if they don't want regulation, go back to being a coax that brings other folks' TV signals into homes, and do nothing else.
Delay = suck (Score:2, Interesting)
The delaying is BS. Even as a large downloader the 250gig limit doesn't bother me that much. Before it was the lack of transparency that bothered me so much. Saying unlimited and then cutting people off for some unknown arbitrary amount? No. Now I can at least choose to stay with a KNOWN limit or go somewhere else. I really hope they lose this appeal.
Re:Sounds like Comcast's death-knell... (Score:5, Interesting)
Want != Need (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm so sick of this argument. There is no valid alternative where a lot of people live. Where I live we are too far away for DSL. Satellite is *not* an option and FIOS isn't even a gleam in someone's eye. As for TV I don't watch TV anymore so that doesn't affect me.
I understand that and I'm sure the OP understands that - most folks know about the local monopolies. I don't have cable because I don't like the way ANY of the local providers operate. The only reason I have a cell phone is because someone else has purchased it - I refuse to get any cell phone under my own name because I think ALL the cell providers offer shitty terms in their horribly one sided contracts.
We're not talking about food, water, shelter, power, or even health care: this is just the internet. Need it for work? Fine, bend over and pay it.
I don't like the way corporate America works in many cases either (let's face, they can bitch and moan all they want but when it comes down to it, the laws favour them!), but if I don't need the service and I don't like the terms, I don't get it: regardless of how badly I want it. And you know what? I save money and I'm happier.
Want != Need.
absofuckinglutely right (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone that has read my comments for awhile will know that I tried to point this out months ago, and got flamed for it basically.
The problem with letting Comcast or any ISP that also provides content do anything to shape or filter traffic is that there is no oversight on how they will do this to their advantage. In this case, anything that limits your video usage/sharing in favor of using their video delivery systems is an unfair advantage. This is exactly why bundling 3 or more services together is a bad idea for the consumer... very bad idea.
If Comcast is allowed to mess with traffic on their ISP services, they WILL do so in a way that favors their other services and content. I don't believe there are any scientific studies on the probability of this happening, but you won't find many people (or rocks, walls, monkeys etc) that will tell you that it's unlikely that a big corporation will act unethically if given the chance to do so when nobody is watching.
As in the case of P2P forged packets, they will do whatever they can get away with. Comcast is, and has shown themselves to be an unethical company. period. They should not be trusted. Class actions suits should follow shortly.
Re:D'oh! (Score:5, Interesting)
Would you like to have the electricity cut off at your house when you go over some amount in a month?
Right now, that limit may very well be enough for you, but what will happen in a year or so?
Returning to the electricity analogy, the power company sets the limit to a value they determine in let's say September, at a house where two old people live.
Everything's fine but summer comes and you turn air conditioning on, or maybe you have a kid and the kid starts watching tv 6 hours a day. Or maybe you start working from home instead of working at the office.
Once you accept limits and restrictions, the only way it's towards more restrictions and limitations.
Re:commiecast doesn't get the law (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing that has me curious is why they haven't been taken to court over this.
It seems to me that forging packets is both a form of communication interception, and impersonation. Which should be landing them in hot water with a number of state and federal laws.
Comcast internet forces cable. (Score:1, Interesting)
In my area I refuse to pay for Comcast internet because of their plans. It costs more for internet alone than it does for their internet+cable. I refuse to pay for cable tv when all I want is the internet and that it costs more for internet alone means to me that I pay for cable tv if I use it or not.
Re:To: MODS -- Comcast is NOT a common carrier! (Score:5, Interesting)
Safe Harbor, not common carrier, is what protects Comcast as per the DMCA and the CDA.
Common carrier is a completely different concept that affects telcos, not cable companies.
Modifying TCP streams--however repugnant--does not automatically mean the ISP is liable for the content that traverses its network. That's the law, like it or not.
they have begun monitoring and demonstrating preference for and against certain content crossing their lines. That, under the DMCA, removes all safe harbor protections.
Where is the MAFIAA when you actually WANT them to sue someone?
Please mod parent up! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is what I thought of first, too.
Comcast has the FCC wrapped around the idea that it's -slowing- P2P traffic, that it's packet-shaping or throttling P2P. I would be totally fine if they just did that, it's their network, and it -should- be prioritizing VoIP, ICMP, interactive services, browsing, and file transfers (in that order) over P2P. What they are doing is -NOT- throttling, QoS, packetshaping, or whatever you want to call it, they are actively mangling the IP protocol to -drop- connections, making P2P actually unusable.
I'm a Cox customer, and they have a Sandvine appliance that does the same thing. I -cannot use bittorrent-. It's not that bittorrent is slow, or that they put it at a lower priority than my neighbor's porno, they -actually prevent it from working at all-.
The documents and PR I've seen from Comcast all seem to indicate that they are 'managing' the traffic, not 'mangling' it and the FCC has responded as if they were QoS'ing P2P.
Either the FCC doesn't understand what's really happening 'on the ground' here, or Comcast itself has a disconnect between Management and Network Management.*
*I worked somewhere once where there was a seriously overzealous network guy who would throttle services and block things at random. He always said he wasn't when I went to the boss and complained, but when I actually got access to the Packetshaper configs, I could see that he was in fact blocking and throttling services, except on his own machines and the boss'. I've been paranoid ever since.
Nope (Score:3, Interesting)
It is a BAD example of government OVER regulation! In most cases, its a LACK of stronger regulation that is the problem! Many cities would love 2 cable companies and probably give them incentives!
Public resources are owned by government which has a "monopoly" on them. The error I often see is that some think government is a form of corporation; it can not have any monopoly because it represents all citizens (government corruption is off topic; its OUR fault if we become corporatist, etc.)
In my area the local governments created a NGO with a board appointed by the cities it serves and it manages the public lands in regard to communications use by private orgs. This board isn't great; however, it is generally the best thing we can do in our area. Problem is the cable and phone companies are too powerful for our 10 cities and nobody will MOVE IN to compete without massive government welfare (which the existing monopolies initially HAD.) Every legal fight is a loss for us and even if the 10 cities directly used their relatively "vast" funds it quite likely would still loose in the end (they just lobby the state when at risk.)
Government could run fibre and make a NGO to manage ISPs sharing the line and could run that line non-profit or even at a loss; unlike the PHONE corp which is required by law to share its lines and does a poor job of it for obvious reasons. This is next logical step since a few fibre lines over public land is nearly the same monopoly situation and consumers would have to subsidize the waste of many extra lines (we already subsidized all the phone/cable/water/gas lines...)
My downtown roads are a mess; why? because corps keep changing around their lines running under the roads and get permits to dig it all up. Yes, I agree that the city needs to force them to all do their changes together at a more REGULATED time. But if we extend that to non-profit shared services under our roads... like we have for water...
Better yet ask a court to throttle your payments.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or better yet file a case in court asking it to throttle your payments to comcast: If comcast throttles your connection speed to a lower level for 20 mins, you can throttle your payment to a lower rate calculated exclusively by you for 20 mins. (say 8Mbps DSL costs $100 a month unlimited; that works out to 2 cents a minute. If the speed drops down to 15Kbps for 20 mins each day for 30 days it amounts to 8/100*0.0015*(600).
State to small-claims court that comcast is violating a contract by "damaging" goods: so you want to pay only for correctly arrived goods. Comcast's high-powered lawyers can't do shit here.
Get a court order allowing you not to pay for damaged goods: then apply your own definition of damaged goods and send off a payment you calculate along with the court order: If comcast refuses to accept the same, they are in violation of a court order: in which case you can "demand" they fulfill their contract. If they accept, then you have set a precedent.
Either way you win.
Use ingenuity instead of anger: corporates do the same. Logical, emotionless, greedy: be like them. Play them at their own game with a home advantage=Small claims court.
Re:D'oh! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:D'oh! (Score:3, Interesting)
Holy crap, I missed the perfect example of how ludicrous the situation is.
Bell's main analog telephony switching station in town here is on prime real estate. It wasn't prime real estate back in ~1950 when it was built, but now it is, and they absolutely cannot relocate for obvious reasons. So they are paying top property taxes and drawing huge electricity to provide the crudest phone service.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine runs one of dozens of VOIP providers in town that nets over $8k a month, and the server cluster is in a spare closet, located in his posh pad two blocks from the Bell analog hub.
Take a wild guess which company provides his DSL for a mere $200 a month.