Comcast Ordered to Allow Free Flow of File Sharing Traffic

Comcast Ordered to Allow Free Flow of File Sharing Traffic

Censornet In a landmark ruling, the Federal Communications Commission has ordered Comcast to stop its controversial practice of throttling file sharing traffic.

By a 3-2 vote, the commission on Friday concluded that Comcast monitored the content of its customers' internet connections and selectively blocked peer-to-peer connections.

The selective blocking of file sharing traffic interfered with users' rights to access the internet and to use applications of their choice, the commission said.

"Comcast's practices are not minimally intrusive, as the company claims, but rather are invasive and have significant effects," the commission said in a statement.

Comcast denies the findings.

The commission's ruling is a landmark defense of FCC policies on Net Neutrality, which forbid restrictions on the kinds of equipment, communication and content allowed on the Internet. Comcast's discrimination against file sharing traffic violates Net Neutrality, critics say.

The commission blasted Comcast's network-management practices of throttling BitTorrent peer-to-peer applications, calling them unreasonable and a violation of FCC rules.

The commission, without ordering monetary sanctions, ordered a halt to the practice and gave Comcast 30 days to fully disclose its throttling methods.

According to the commission, Comcast uses deep-packet inspection to monitor customers' internet traffic, and routes packets according to their content, not their destination.

"In essence, Comcast opens its customers' mail because it wants to deliver mail not based on the address on the envelope but on the type of letter contained therein," the commission said.

Comcast's throttling was widespread -- up to three-quarters of all file sharing connections in certain areas, the commission said, resulting in a significant disruption to internet traffic, the commission said.

Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said the company was "gratified that the commission did not find any conduct by Comcast that justified a fine." She said the company did not throttle traffic.

But she added that "we are disappointed in the Commission’s divided conclusion because we believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices and that we did not block access to websites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services."

Fitzmaurice said Comcast was "considering all our legal options and are disappointed that the commission rejected our attempts to settle this issue without further delays."

The commission speculated that Comcast's motives were profit-oriented.

Noting that BitTorrent files allow online surfers to watch high-quality video, "such video distribution poses a potential competitive threat to Comcast's video-on-demand (VOD) service," the commission said in a statement.

(It should be noted, however, that BitTorrent, while having many legitimate uses, is the protocol of choice for the illegitimate trafficking of movies, software and other copyrighted content.)

A nonprofit digital rights group, Public Knowledge, brought the complaint against Comcast to the FCC months ago.

"Comcast’s throttling of legal internet traffic had nothing to do with network management as the company claims," said Gigi Sohn, the group's president. "It had everything to do with a big company trying to exert its power over a captive internet market."

Martin, a Republican, proposed Friday's order. Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, both Democrats, signed on with Martin. Republican commissioners Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate voted against the measure.

In 2005, the commission adopted a policy of net neutrality rules to ensure the internet was "accessible to all consumers."

McDowell said the decision politicizes the internet.

"The majority has thrust politicians and bureaucrats into engineering decisions," he said in a sharp dissent. "It will be interesting to see how the FCC will handle its newly created power because, as an institution, we are incapable of deciding any issue in the nanoseconds of internet time. Furthermore, asking our government to make these decisions will mean that every two to four years the ground rules could change depending on election results."

Illustration: M3Li55@/Flickr

See Also:

* Lawmaker Crying Foul Ahead of FCC Net Neutrality Decision
* Comcast Hijackers Say They Warned the Company First
* Comcast.net Hijacked, Redirected
* Stop the Blocking, Feds to Tell Comcast
* Comcast Beginning 'Net Neutrality' Testing
* Comcast Makes a Deal with BitTorrent
* Comcast Using Malicious Hacker Technique Against Own Customers ...


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I can't make any sense from this ruling. We are making life unbearable hard for the ISPs by fluffing the net neutrality lines. Net neutrality is now becoming a farce and a detriment to the internet: Net Neutrality Violations: Worth a Closer Look(http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=539&doc_id=160123&F_src=flftwo)

Posted by: jamalystic | Aug 1, 2008 9:19:44 AM

This is the reason I chose DSL over cable. And my DSL is with a private company and not AT&T or earthlink, etc.
I have Comcast for Cable TV (too many trees for Dish). In a sense, they do the same thing with their so called HiDef. They compress it so much to get so much on a cable that it degrades the program/movie. Don't believe me? Watch a cable hi def movie and then the hi def DVD

Posted by: john | Aug 1, 2008 9:36:55 AM

There may be hope for the FCC on this, and the big picture, yet. There should be fines to discourage this practice in the future.

Comcast is a lying sack of shit. If this is "industry practice," then the Net Neutrality concerns are valid. There are other ways to manage bandwidth that are not invasive at the content level.

Posted by: explorer | Aug 1, 2008 11:43:24 AM

Posted by: jamalystic | Aug 1, 2008 9:19:44 AM

@jamalystic: I think I speak for everyone: STFU...thanks.

Posted by: Philopoemen | Aug 1, 2008 11:58:51 AM

@jamalystic:

Seems pretty straightforward to me from the statement:
.
Throttling is not bad in itself (when used to shape traffic to ensure reasonable transfer times across the network).
.
Throttling an entire service, regardless of other traffic concerns, time of day, size of files, etc., is questionable.
.
Unfairly using your advantage as an ISP to limit people's access to competitors to other services you provide is bad. That's what it looks like Comcast was doing, and the FCC wants other companies to know that they will call them on it.
.
(Plus, Comcast trying to hide the fact from their customers that this was their policy didn't help.)

Posted by: EJ | Aug 1, 2008 12:08:52 PM

"(It should be noted, however, that BitTorrent, while having legitimate uses, is the protocol of choice for the illegitimate trafficking of movies, software and other copyrighted content.)"

This is a disingenuous statement, akin to stating "(It should be noted, however, that the Internet, while having legitimate uses, is the mechanism of choice for pedophiles trading illegal images of our children.)"

To even give a disclaimer like that is buying into music and movie industry propaganda. I use BitTorrent for downloading large files, typically CD and DVD ISO images of open source operating systems. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, do the same thing.

The real issue here is Comcast attempting to save money and avoid competition with their own services by illegally and unfairly degrading their own users network performance, all the while lying about it.

Posted by: Nick | Aug 1, 2008 1:10:37 PM

@ Nick
To add to legitimate uses, Revision3 also uses torrents as a means of delivery. They were also DDOS attacked by MediaSentry when they updated their whitelist. There are many legal websites that use torrents as a method of delivery; And I'm glad Comcast got slapped before the rest of the ISPs followed suit. Now I hope they focus on MediaSentry and their unnecessary attacks on legitimate sites.

Posted by: Xaine99 | Aug 1, 2008 4:24:46 PM

I pay an ISP. They give me bandwidth. If they do not provide me the bandwidth promised, or if they block my traffic based on contents, they are in violation of their agreement. I say fine the hell out of them or open their networks to competitors who will give me more privileges and a better deal.

Posted by: Diginess | Aug 1, 2008 8:10:31 PM

Is this going to stop Comcast? Really? How will we know they are compliant? I'm skeptical that a ruling like this (while appearing to set a precedent) can actually change industry practice.

Posted by: oe | Aug 1, 2008 9:08:48 PM

"we are disappointed in the Commission’s divided conclusion because we believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices and that we did not block access to websites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services."

Sounds like we need to re-define for these guys "industry standards" because the bandwidth is ours and while we are letting the internet companies manage it for us, they make a TIDY profit, which is fine but in no way does that management imply ownership. It is up to us to fight for what is ours, you know, "we the people"!

Posted by: KoreyAusTex | Aug 1, 2008 9:47:04 PM

A call to arms for the free peoples of the internet:

On the internet, we are under attack.

CAPTCHA is broken. SPAM is growing. CRIME is rampant.

We have few defenses, and our respective nations lack the jurisdiction and the will to protect us.

Therefore, we must, with no delay, create an INTERNET MILITIA to deal with these crimes and protect the innocent, and

We must form the FIRST INTERNET CONSTITUTIONAL CONGRESS and pass the first CONSTITUTION OF THE INTERNET in order to guarantee our rights in this digital era.

The first step is to create a forum where everyone can read and contribute.


“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

“We the people of the Internet, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure online tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Internet.”

Posted by: ironcoconut | Aug 2, 2008 12:34:00 AM

are they going to go after at&t next? they most certainly throttle. as do a dozen or so other companies. some smaller isps, in fact, throttle the netflix "watch instantly" service.
.
what exactly is the point of broadband, if they're going to take away every (legitimate and illegitimate) reason for it? if more bands follow radioheads lead and release their albums online legitimately, will those be throttled? youtube? the dozen other live-video services?
.
comcast wasn't trying to protect the riaa or mpaa, they were just being cheap and trying to save money by cutting bandwidth to high-use customers. if this practice were allowed to continue, soon the download speeds of every user would be diminished until viewing websites was all that one could accomplish.

Posted by: dnynumberone | Aug 2, 2008 9:06:55 AM

Glad I dont have comcast, Charter is good

Posted by: Keagan | Aug 2, 2008 10:34:43 AM

Ha! Score one for the Good Guys! Eat that Comcast!

Posted by: Ben_neB | Aug 2, 2008 8:38:03 PM

lol @ throttling peer-to-peer traffic being an "engineering decision."

But also lol @ calling BitTorrent a "competitive threat" to Comcast's video-on-demand services.

If people were using BitTorrent for what they were supposed to be using it for, it wouldn't be a competitive threat. What the FCC should have said is that, because we can't tell whether peer-to-peer traffic is illegal, blanket throttling practices potentially harm legal uses.

The FCC"s decision was a victory for consumers, even if it might have been based on faulty reasoning.

Posted by: Omar | Aug 2, 2008 9:07:12 PM

"Furthermore, asking our government to make these decisions will mean that every two to four years the ground rules could change depending on election results."

Maybe, but I think the Internet -- as a global network -- will be relatively unaffected by the ebb and flow of what amounts to (relative to the global scale of the Internet) local politics. ISPs are far more likely to be affected by the demands of their customers (e.g., having the ability to vote with their pocketbooks) than the mandates of the FCC. That said, I think the FCC finally has taken a solid stand on an issue that has broad implications for the future of the Internet, at least in the United States.

Companies and governments play the game of pushing the limits until there's a public backlash, then they pull back a bit and the fuss dies down. While I don't agree at all with what Comcast has done, it seems they knew full well the potential negative public reaction, and simply decided the potential benefit of not getting caught was worth the risk if people complained.

In that sense, it's prudent that the government doesn't tend to make decisions in the "nanoseconds of Internet time" as argued by McDowell. The slow, deliberative nature of government is a good thing. And, I highly doubt Comcast makes any decisions in the "nanoseconds of Internet time."

Posted by: just a guy | Aug 3, 2008 9:31:00 AM