June 11, 2008
February 29, 2008
Comcast caught blocking access to public hearing on Internet management practices
This is truly amazing. I have been told this happens at FCC hearings, but here Comcast is caught red handed and then admits to paying random people to sit through Monday’s (Feb. 25) public hearing held by the FCC in Boston to investigate Comcast and other ISPs blocking practices. (See my previous posts on this blocking: AP Report: Comcast Blocking Certain Web Traffic and More About Comcast Internet Blocking.)
Comcast does this to prevent the actual public, people who care about these issues, from attending the hearing and providing testimony that is antithetical to the company’s practices of throttling traffic (mostly from peer-to-peer services) with ZERO TRANSPARENCY. FreePress has photos of these hired human roadblocks actually asleep during the hearing. (see video below). Wow.
Best headline on this: Comcast is Blocktastic!. See also this article from Save the Internet
October 25, 2007
More about Comcast Internet blocking
Eric Bangeman at Ars Technica hits it on the head. Read it here.
Comcast’s attempts to clarify its traffic shaping practices are having the opposite effect of what the company intends. As is the case with its nebulous bandwidth caps, customers can find themselves running afoul of what appears to be an arbitrary limitation imposed by the ISP. As a result, Comcast’s customers don’t really know that what they’re paying for, aside from a fast connection that may or may not give them access to the web sites and applications they want.
In a perfect free market, customers would be free to pack up in leave Comcast for greener and more open broadband pastures, but the competitive landscape in the US doesn’t always provide that kind of choice. More than a few Comcast customers are faced with the choice of Comcast or dial-up, leaving them with the Hobson’s choice of hoping their data packets can evade Comcast’s traffic shaping police or not having broadband service at all.
Deja vu. I was just thinking the same thing…
October 19, 2007
AP report: Comcast blocking certain web traffic
Comcast is secretly blocking peer-to-peer web traffic because, they argue, it takes up too much bandwidth. If consumers are paying premium prices for broadband access and Comcast ads are touting super-fast internet connections so that we can achieve “ultimate comcastic enlightenment” or whatever the cheese-marketing slogan is, then comcast should be investing in upgrading their networks rather than covertly blocking certain types of traffic. Yes, it’s within their legal rights to do this, because net neutrality is not mandatory under the law. So if Jane Consumer is an independent film maker who wants to distribute via Bit Torrrent (or if she wants to pirate music), good luck. But if she don’t like it, Jane Consumer can always switch her ISP. Wait, there are no other cable ISPs. Damnit.
January 12, 2007
Net Neutrality Vid II (or Net Ninjtrality)
Here’s a slightly different take on the net neutrality debate.
Undead Net Neutrality Bill Proposed in Senate
Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) reintroduced legislation this week regarding net neutrality and stand alone broadband services. The bill is very similar to one proposed last year that never made it to the floor for a vote. So, this bill is somewhat of a zombie, but in a nice way.
Known as the Internet Freedom Preservation Act (S.215), the bill would require network operators to run their network in a “nondiscriminatory manner”—certain types of traffic or traffic from certain sources could not be hampered or prioritized, but operators would still be free to offer different tiers of service. The bill would also require broadband operators to offer “naked” DSL and cable modem service that does not require the purchase of other services.
Notable is that the bill enjoys a happy dose of bipartisan support from the two primary sponsors, (Snowe is a republican, Dorgan a democrat). Although all six co-sponsors are democratic party members, including Illinois own Barack Obama.
Source: Ars Technica
Read the bill here (pdf)
The New New Thing, Not the Gravel Road
Senator Dorgan has posted a vlog regarding his recently introduced Internet Preservation Act of 2007. Watch it here on YouTube. He specifically addresses the “special interests” who are seeking “gatekeeper” status over the net, i.e. the telcos and cablecos. If nothing else, this is a good way to get his message out to a younger demographic. Although it would have helped had he been lipsinking Mariah Carey. But one step at a time people, one step at a time.
January 8, 2007
How AT&T’s Concession May Help Net Neutrality Proponents in the Long Term
One of the telecommunications companies’ major arguments against net neutrality legislation has been the supposed haziness of the term itself. In a debate facilitated by the Wall Street Journal, industry lobbyist Michael McCurry asked “what exactly is the definition of ‘network neutrality’ anyhow?” This sentiment has been expressed throughout the life of the discussion. “How can we possibly legislate if we cannot clearly define the concept,” has been a mantra of the telcos, and rightfully so.
Now it seems as though the industry has answered its own question and in the process, possibly aided their pro-neutrality opponents. By expressing in writing, under contractual agreement, exactly how they define and plan to uphold net neutrality (for two years), AT&T and BellSouth have seemingly removed a leg of their own arguement against legislation.
In advance of that brewing battle in Congress, the very words to which AT&T agreed negated one argument that telephone and cable companies had used against their Internet opponents last year — that net neutrality is so vague, it could not even be defined.
“This language is crafted as a practical implementation of neutrality,” Columbia University law Professor Tim Wu wrote about AT&T’s concessions. “As the first working rule, it may serve as a model and an experiment for what follows.”
Read Full Article from Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle, 1-7-07
From the same article, a decent overview of the net neutrality issue:
Most people may find it difficult to understand what all the fuss, is about given that net neutrality raises issues as big and complex as, well, the Internet.
Blair Levin, ex-aide to former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt and now a telecommunications adviser for the Stifel Nicolaus investment bank, offered this primer:
Until recently, the telephone and cable companies that own the two wires leading to the American home also pretty much controlled what services were delivered over those wires. They essentially controlled both the transport layer — the wire — and the service layer that traveled over the wires, be it a television show or a telephone call.
But broadband — or high-speed — Internet changed this. Now the same wire — whether the phone company’s DSL or the cable company’s modem — can carry any service from e-mail to a movie from any vendor in the world.
The crux of the debate is that wire owners want a free hand to charge Internet companies a bit extra for speedier service. Creating preferential delivery deals would make the new broadband world more like the old world, in which the wire-owner had greater control over what flowed through its lines, Levin said. Conversely, net neutrality advocates fear this pricing power will allow phone and cable companies to pick which Internet services get the fastest and best delivery.
January 4, 2007
FCC Commissioners Statements regarding AT&T-BellSouth Merger
FCC Chairman Martin and Commissioner Tate issued a joint statement regarding the recently approved merger of AT&T and BellSouth that made AT&T the largest telecommunications conglomerate in the US. The back story is this: The merger was previously stalemated because democratic FCC commissioners Adelstein and Copps, at the bequest of consumer and advocacy groups, refused to let the merger go through without provisions for net neutrality. The merger occurred earlier this week shortly after AT&T agreed to maintain neutral network business practices for two years.
Martin and Tate:
The conditions regarding net-neutrality have very little to do with the merger at hand and very well may cause greater problems than the speculative problems they seek to address. These conditions are simply not warranted by current market conditions and may deter facilities investment. Accordingly, it gives us pause to approve last-minute remedies to address the ill-defined problem net neutrality proponents seek to resolve.
Adelstein:
A historic merger warrants historic conditions. I don’t pretend that we addressed every possible issue presented here or that it is possible, or even appropriate in this context, to try to rectify years of decisions that have undercut competition. Yet, drawing on the full record, I have tried to counter-balance the effects of this transaction by asking for meaningful conditions that protect the open and neutral character of the Internet, benefit consumers by promoting affordable broadband services, and preserve competitive choices for residential and business consumers.
Network Neutrality is an extremely complicated issue (see my previous post w/ video for one side of the argument). There are good arguments for and against regulation, but my bias leans toward protecting the historical underdog, the citizen, contra big business.
January 2, 2007
AT&T – Temporary Net Neutrality Concessions
AT&T has been given the go ahead to merge with BellSouth, but only after promising to uphold net neutrality provisions for at least 24 months. This, among other consessions, such as a plan to offer low-cost, stand-alone broadband access, stems from two FCC commissioners (both democrats) refusal to approve the merger absent of such public interest addendums.
The battle for more permanent net neutrality safegards will undoubtedly take place in congress, perhaps in the coming session.
