throttling

Comcast and BitTorrent make nice

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:59:50 -0400

Comcast and BitTorrent Inc. last week agreed to bury the hatchet and work together to try and make BitTorrent software run more smoothly on Comcast's network. The deal ends a contentious battle between the two companies that saw users and the FCC lambaste the company after it admitted delaying the transmission of data among BitTorrent users at peak times.

When legislators and some advocacy groups began to play hardball and suggest Comcast was intentionally blocking BitTorrent's P2P file sharing for its own gain, the issue earned some serious cred and the two foes began to play nice. Comcast has agreed to reconfigure its network management systems, creating a traffic management technique "more appropriate for today's emerging Internet trends." For its part, BitTorrent tacitly acknowledged Comcast's need to allocate bandwidth, with the understanding it no longer would be targeted by the company.

Comcast said it's deploying wideband Internet services using the DOCSIS 3.0 standard in about 20 percent of its households by the end of this year. It also plans to more than double the upstream capacity of its residential Internet service in several key markets by year end 2008. "We plan to take advantage of multi-carrier technology to further increase upstream capacity for all of our broadband customers in advance of the full DOCSIS 3.0 roll out," Comcast said.

For more:
- Read the Philadelphia Business Journal story
- And Comcast's release

Related articles:
Comcast defends P2P management to FCC
Vuse complains about Comcast throttling

Vuse complains about Comcast throttling

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:59:30 -0500

Some believe that rather than peering being the evil that Hollywood claims, P2P will be the savior of the internet as video continues to block up bandwidth. Which is what is so significant about Vuse's complaint last week to the FCC alleging Comcast was limiting applications using the peer-to-peer bit torrent protocol. Vuse is a start up and offers near HD video based on peering technology.

The suit alleges Comcast's limits on peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent violates federal computer fraud laws and is in breach of contract well as anti-fraud advertising statutes.

Comcast says it was only managing its network -- one of the biggest domestic systems in the world. Maybe. But the Vuse action is a quick reminder that the argument about net neutrality is not about to go away.

More Reports:
- Vuse takes Comcast to FCC Report
- Wired Report

Related articles:
- Comcast delays P2P traffic Report
- Comcast draws throttling criticism Report

Network neutrality debate heats up

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:59:50 -0400

The U.S. Department of Justice created a stir in the Internet community when it came out against network neutrality last week. In an ex parte filling with the Federal Communications Commission, which has an open docket on the subject, the DOJ said current network neutrality proposals could "inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation and diminish consumer welfare."

Proponents of network neutrality legislation say it's necessary to keep the Internet functioning in the current egalitarian mode. Otherwise, startups like YouTube could never get a foothold because broadband providers would charge them out of business. Broadband providers, on the other hand, say they need to make speed tiers--charge web businesses based on traffic--because high-use sites are hogging bandwidth.

Two Washington lobbies, Public Knowledge and the Open Internet Coalition (of which PK is a member), are pushing for network neutrality legislation because they see speed tiering as a way for the big broadband gatekeepers to control what is and isn't available to web surfers. The DOJ said there is no evidence of that type of discrimination other than when a Madison River, N.C. ILEC blocked a VoIP competitor. There is, however, growing evidence broadband providers are tightening the spigot on subscribers, a practice aka "throttling." The Washington Post recently confirmed reports of throttling by Comcast, which cut off some heavy downloaders. Media pioneer Mark Cuban, who told Congress earlier this year words to the effect of, "it's the bandwidth stupid," would be grinning smugly if he weren't already disinterested in the Internet

For More:
- The DOJ filing is here (if downloading is coincidentally sluggish, try the associated press release here)
- Comcast says, "yeah, so what. We throttle" here
- Canadians are "caught in the throttle," too