Comcast's Latest Helps The Net Neutrality Cause
As Josh pointed out, now Comcast is joined the Bell companies in helping to make the case for Net Neutrality. They didn’t do this of their own volition, of course, but that’s the effect of the latest incident in an ever-increasing list of actions that lead to the inevitable conclusion that broadband companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon can’t be trusted to keep the Internet free and open.
Let’s start with this latest incident. Comcast decided that network traffic generated by peer-to-peer networks was taking up too much capacity. Peer-to-peer (p2p) services are unique because they engage individual computers not only in downloading material, but also uploading. To some network engineers, p2p is a more efficient way of shipping big files around. To be fair, lots of bootlegged movies and other things are also sent over p2p-enabled services.
Comcast decided that in the interest of keeping its network flowing to the most people, it would crack down on these p2p users by blocking their uploaded transmissions. It didn’t block any other uploads, or any other big downloads. It only targeted p2p uploads, and it did it in a particularly sneaky way. Comcast configured the network so that the site to which users were connected thought it was getting an instruction from the uploading user to break the connection. Except that the users never sent that instruction. Comcast spoofed their identity. There are lots of ways to manage a network. Discriminating against one particular type of traffic, in disguise no less, is not a good one.
Then again, that’s what Comcast does. The Washington Post reported a few weeks ago that Comcast has cut off customers for using too much bandwidth. It’s not that the customers knew they were doing anything wrong. No one told them. Comcast simply decided it was in the best interest of the network to do so.
In acting as arrogantly to its customers as it does, Comcast joins the recent doings of Verizon and AT&T in helping to make the case for legislation. Verizon, of course, famously blocked NARAL Pro-Choice America from signing up for text messages to its members. Verizon reversed course after a page-one story in the New York Times and subsequent coverage. But we still don’t know whether Verizon will do it again. AT&T, of course, censored a webcast of Pearl Jam after Eddie Vedder started criticizing George Bush.
The Verizon and AT&T incidents may not strictly be Net Neutrality. They are indicative of the type of control that companies will exercise over the communications of Americans given the opportunity and the ability. Comcast, in picking on p2p traffic, is discriminating against a particular type of traffic that is, until proven otherwise, perfectly legal. It is all about control. The telephone and cable companies have it. We should have it.
In all, the fact that these items exist should have caught the attention of Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). After all, those politicians have been saying for years that Net Neutrality was “a solution in search of a problem.” Well, we have a problem. We have companies willy-nilly interfering with your right to communicate.
So far, however, Congress and the FCC are unmoved. The hold that telephone and cable companies have on them is too tight. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) are trying to keep the Net Neutrality/Internet Freedom issue alive. They want the FCC to look into the Verizon incident.
A coalition of companies and public interest groups, including my day-job employer Public Knowledge, want Congress to get on with it and recognize the dangers to the Internet. So far, Congress is too busy granting immunity to telephone companies for illegal spying. Perhaps later.
Comments (10)
It looks like Comcast has used its position as service provider to gain information and codes that it then used to send a forged communication over the internet in the name of one of its users.
I bet if some college kid did that the FBI would say it was a serious crime.
Fred in Vermont
October 19, 2007 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I’m not that knowledgeable about all this, but it’s obvious how important a free internet is. As a counterbalance to a more repressive government, a more consumerist world and a more corporate-censored media, it has proven an invaluable alternative just in the last decade. I understand that the limited commercialization of the web may have been necessary for its growth and the pressures by corporations to control it are constant. I can’t even imagine the untold ways that the big telecoms could control the flow of digital information and media, but I’m sure they are hard at work on business plans for profitable future endeavors in that regard.
Still, it seems they may have shown their true colors with their cooperation and work in the Terrorist Surveillance Program. That AT&T, Verizon and others readily provided private communications and data on millions of Americans to federal law enforcement and the military (while some refused to do so because of the clear illegality) exposes them as a serious threat to the public. I don’t think I’m overstating it when you consider that the telecoms cooperated in this blatantly criminal project only because the government was dangling hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts in front of them.
Of course, they completely denied involvement at first and then pled ignorance but at least one judge has ruled that their data dumping was obviously illegal. They managed to get future immunity and are close to buying immunity for their past spying. The process of these huge corporations pouring money into key Senator’s campaign chests and hiring the most influential lobbyists is astonishing. Top pundits in major media outlets deliver patriotic appeals to immunize these guys because they were only trying to protect America.
Almost all of our information , data and media is being digitized now and those controlling the delivery systems have to be regulated closely. I remember the ‘60s movie The President’s Analyst with AT&T as the hidden, all-knowing power controlling everything but in the real world, the government wisely saw fit to break up the all-powerful corporation. Well, they're back and I’m still shocked to see the kind of influence they have and their willingness and eagerness to screw their customers just to make another buck.
October 20, 2007 12:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why doesn't Comcast invest in speeding up its technology rather than degrading P2P?
Japan provides Internet speed that is 20X faster than U.S.
Ashwin Navin, co-founder and president of BitTorrent got it right in the AP article by Peter Svensson which can be linked to at talkingpointsmemo:
Comcast is "using sophisticated technology to degrade service, which probably costs them a lot of money. It would be better to see them use that money to improve service," Navin said, noting that BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer applications are a major reason consumers sign up for broadband
October 20, 2007 7:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I wonder about is whether acting in such a way that the "average man" might interpret those actions as to opening themselves up to litigation constitutes a failure to perform due diligence?
I have stock in several of these telecommunication firms, and am very concerned that their reckless actions might affect my net worth. Anybody interested in a class action suit?
October 21, 2007 7:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Corvid
I've read this too, that Japan has internet service 7 to 20 times faster than anything available in the US, and at a much lower price.
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Why is that? The internet is largely an American development, but the Japanese get the good stuff while we're left with expensive, degraded, second-rate and opaquely undermined service that isn't even all that widely available.
October 21, 2007 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is being discussed, in detail, on the North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) list, who have generally not been fans of Comcast. While Comcast is something to bring up in the MSM, the reality is that universities are increasingly doing things like this to protect their networks for academic and research functions.
I don't have a link to the actual 2006 study, but a summary in the trade press said, with reference to BitTorrent -- which is one of the more efficient P2P applications --
Especially if everybody else is using "normal priority" services, like e-mail or Web surfing, which is what tech people tend to call "best-effort" traffic.
One highly respected expert on network reliability suggested:
Comcast may not have handled it well, but there is a real technical issue here, without any good solutions. It's been a year or so since I did an analysis of the BitTorrent protocol, so if anyone needs a more mathematical analysis, I'll either have to dig back in my notes, or find a relevant study.
Certain user behavior, including P2P, may not be neutral toward the network, and certainly doesn't reflect the traffic patterns for which the network was designed. A provider's Acceptable Use Policy may very well allow them to throttle unusually demanding applications.
On a network intended for home and small office applications, many service providers do not allow customers to run open servers, since they do not conform to traffic expectations. I'm having to educate my business partner, who is an expert in other fields than networking, that having backup servers at our home office may not be a good idea. It may be far more appropriate to have them at a hosting center, which has connectivity that expects servers there.
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Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 21, 2007 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The sad thing is, the Japanese situation isn't necessarily new. I had to do some digging, but here's a link to a report I read back in 2005.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Come visit PROJECT: Lucidity
Where everybody knows your name...
unless you use a pseudonym
October 22, 2007 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
South Korea has even more broadband availability than Japan. This is a side effect of widespread use of huge apartment buildings in their cities, which are remarkably easy to cable.
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Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 22, 2007 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The FA article addresses South Korea, as well. It really is a good read, whether to gleen the technical aspects of broadband in Japan, the social aspect of broadband, the market forces involved, or the way the government used resources to reach rural areas.
I mean, 26MB/s for only USD22 per month is pretty amazing.
In addition, Japan has a significantly higher percentage of rural users than the U.S. or South Korea.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Come visit PROJECT: Lucidity
Where everybody knows your name...
unless you use a pseudonym
October 22, 2007 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Part of the reasons are the lesser emphasis on deregulation in East Asia than here. It's not that they don't have private companies, or even some competition, but it's not as wide-open as Judge Greene and subsequent FCC decisions made it.
The old AT&T wasn't perfect, but there's such a thing as going too far in deregulation -- the breakup of Bell Labs was one unappreciated result. There have been even more serious unforseen consequences in electrical power deregulation.
"Customer choice" was more meaningful for large organizations, with a network engineering staff, than for "consumers." I once completely covered a 4x8 whiteboard, admittedly fir the exceptionally complex California regulatory system, with all the choices -- and this was before VoIP. There were, however, things like toll and non-toll intra-LATA call provider, as opposed to intrastate inter-LATA, as opposed to interstate, as opposed to last mile provider...
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Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
With the integration of all these services over the Internet, we have enabled their ability to waste time at the speed of light.
October 22, 2007 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink