NCTA Reaction to FCC Decision on Comcast/BitTorrent Complaint
During an Opening Meeting this morning, the FCC issued an adjudication in the matter of “Formal Complaint of Free Press and Public Knowledge Against Comcast Corporation for Secretly Degrading Peer-to-Peer Applications.” The FCC said that Comcast’s “degrading” of certain Internet content was in violation of “federal policies” and were against the policy of reasonable network management.
In response, the NCTA has released the following statement from Kyle McSlarrow, our President & CEO:
“One need look no further than today’s FCC decision for proof that engineering challenges on the Internet should be solved by engineers, not government officials. In second-guessing reasonable network management techniques (with no notice or guidelines in place) that benefit the overwhelming number of broadband subscribers in America, the FCC has inexplicably elevated the interests of a few bandwidth hogs over everyone else.”
As we further digest the decision, we will be following the reaction from others in the telecom policy sphere and will comment further and share what others are saying.
Tags: Comcast, FCC, Free Press, net neutrality, network management, P2P
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August 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Comcast selectively targeted only BitTorrent packets, large or small. Comcast did not have a publicly disclosed data throttling policy. FCC reacted accordingly. Comcast would like the public to think that its network management policy is to protect QoS for its customers. Others may view these network management policies as a means to stifle competition from internet VoD services. If it was truly a case of a few using all the capacity, Comcast could selectively implement a policy which targets those few. Targeting all BitTorrent traffic, independent of packet size, doesnt seem to address the root of the stated problem.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
If we were in phase with foreign telecom technologies this wouldn’t even be an issue. For instance, in Japan, I could have a 50meg fiber line all to myself and have a 30gig a day consumption limit! How bout telco’s quit making excuses and blame laying on customers who want what was advertised. This is all because they don’t want to tell shareholders they need some “capital expenditures” for upgrades! Just because I am an American consumer I shouldn’t have to pay more for a poorer consumer experience.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:15 am
I agree. I see this as Comcast’s attempt to hinder a technology that, in the near future, will probably pose a threat to their cable tv service. Perhaps another reason Comcast is “allegedly” having problems with congestion is because they raised their customers upload limit higher than their network can support. Perhaps it would be wise for Comcast to examine how much upload traffic their network can support and set customer upload limits based on that figure instead of trying to “oversell” their bandwidth service.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I don’t think you’ve proved your case, Robert. If competition was the reason, then why do universities also manage P2P apps? A far more likely explanation is that P2P is a bigger drain on the network.
As for your charge that Comcast raised the upload limit higher than the network can support, where does that come from? What’s your proof? I’m not aware that this is an issue at all.