US Cable Support > Comcast HSI > Comcast Xfinity for Xbox launching soon (possibly next week)

reply to GTFan

Re: Comcast Xfinity for Xbox launching soon (possibly next week)

Looks like Public Knowledge has a "Net Neutrality Issue" with this not counting against the 250GB data cap:

From: Comcast Won't 'Cap' Xbox 360 Access (Updated with Objections)
The Philadelphia Inquirer - March 26, 2012
»www.philly.com/philly/business/t···256.html

"Update: Just received a statement this afternoon from the Washington, D.C. based communications watchdog group Public Knowledge, suggesting that Comcast's favored nation treatment for streaming Xfinity TV runs counter to the principals of "net neutrality." Here it is:

------------------------------------------

Public Knowledge Sees Net Neutrality Issue With Comcast Product

The following is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and CEO of Public Knowledge:

"The reports that Comcast is offering a video product through the Xbox 360 without the data counting toward the customer's data cap raises questions not only of the justification for the caps but, more importantly, of the survival of an Open Internet.

"This type of arrangement is exactly the type of situation the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) rules on the Open Internet were designed to prevent -- that an Internet Service Provider juggles the rules to give itself an advantage over a competitor.

"The Xbox 360 provides a number of video services to compete for customer dollars, yet only one service is not counted against the data cap -- the one provided by Comcast.

"This is nothing less than a wake-up call to the Commission to show it is serious about protecting the Open Internet. It also shows, once again, that the Commission should take the first steps toward understanding data caps."

###"

OK, I can see why use of CDV does not use up any of your HSI service's 250GB data cap, as it is a separate service and uses separate QAM carriers than the HSI service.

However, doesn't the XBox 360 VoD service utilize the same downstream QAM carriers as the HSI service?

If so, then why it it OK for someone to "hog" the neighborhood HSI bandwidth by constantly streaming videos through their XBox 360, but not if they're streaming videos from Netflix?

Was never really about the bandwidth, but the content.

With that said, Comcast has smart people. They know that the majority have STB's that can access on demand services much easier than a Xbox 360 user.

At the same time they know they can't become irrelevant in the online game in regards to streaming. Hulu, Netflix, etc. This is from a customer retention or attraction perspective.

In short, a value add that probably won't measure a blip on their bandwidth radar yet will be quite an attraction for many customers...even though many will never utilize it.

PC Magazine has an article tonight on this XBox 360 VoD issue:

Comcast's Xfinity-on-Xbox Plans Draw Net Neutrality Fire
PC Magazine - March 26, 2012
»www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402149,00.asp

"Comcast has indicated that customers who subscribe to its upcoming Xfinity TV service for the Xbox 360 won't be charged for the service's data use against their cap, which one agency has criticized as a violation of network neutrality laws.

In a FAQ, Comcast said that the Xfinity TV data service on the Xbox 360 will move data on a private IP network, and will not count against the Comcast acceptable usage policy, which caps residential customers at 250 Gbytes of data per month.

"No, since the content is being delivered over our private IP network and not the public Internet, it does not count against a customer's bandwidth cap," according to the FAQ (»xbox.comcast.net/faqs.html). "XFINITYTV.com and the XFINITY TV app stream content over the public Internet and count toward the customer's bandwidth cap."

According to Comcast, just 1 percent of its customers bump up against the cap, with most of its customers downloading and uploading content at 10 Gbytes or less per month.

Comcast's Xfinity TV service was announced last October with both Comcast, Verizon FiOS service, and a host of content providers including HBO. Although it's live on Verizon, the Xbox 360/Comcast partnership has yet to launch, so Comcast has yet to actually route content over its IP network to the service. So far, both services have emphasized prerecorded, on-demand content, rather than live streaming.

But some are already calling Comcast's actions a violation of the net neutrality laws.

"Comcast tries to justify preferred treatment for its own video on the Xbox 360 by claiming that the content is delivered over a private IP network rather than the public Internet," Free Press policy director Matt Wood said in a statement. "But not counting this video against a Comcast customer's monthly data limit gives the Comcast product an unfair advantage against other Internet video services. Unfortunately, such anti-competitive tricks may be allowed by loopholes in the FCC's Open Internet rules, proving once again that the FCC failed to deliver on the promise of real Net Neutrality."

The FCC approved its net neutrality rules in December. The concept argues that no one ISP, site, or service, should be favored over any other. After Comcast was accused of blocking P2P sites, however, the FCC decided to craft rules that would ban ISPs from discriminating based on content as well.

Comcast requires Xfinity TV customers who wish to use its Xbox service to subscribe to both television and Internet data services. Comcast doesn't allow a customer to use DSL in conjunction with Comcast video services, as the data modem is used to identify that the customer is in the home, the FAQ said.

"We are working on a solution that will enable customers to receive the content without an XFINITY Internet subscription, but can't comment on timing yet," Comcast added.

The Xfinity app will also work with the Microsoft Kinect peripheral.

Comcast will also roll out a Comcast-enabled TiVo box in the coming months, first launching in the Bay Area."

reply to telcodad

They could be selling this over differnt IP channels than either resi. or Biz HSI uses, not so different than voice using private/non-public channels

There are no 'different IP channels', so I have no idea what you're talking about. They're streaming from Comcast's internal servers yes, but everything comes down the same QAM channels to your modem (and then to your LAN-attached Xbox and PCs) whether it's from Netflix or Comcast.

I am very glad to see that this is getting the attention it deserves - I hope the FCC gets interested too. I certainly expect Netflix to take action if they don't.

reply to tshirt

yes, exactly.

OK, so how does Comcast discriminate between the XBox bits and your other IP device bits, so as not to count the XBox ones against the 250GB/mo cap?

Do they meter the capacity used from the "XBox VoD app" server and just subtract that figure from your total HSI data usage?

Jeff Baumgartner on the Light Reading Cable site had this comment on the issue:

From: Comcast's Xbox App Raises Net Neutrality Concerns
Light Reading Cable - March 27, 2012
»www.lightreading.com/document.as···r_cable&

"So, at what point do these groups start pointing the finger at any SP that delivers video over a managed IP network and doesn't apply those services toward any sort of data cap? Might as well toss AT&T into that group, along with a bunch of other telcos that are offering managed IPTV services. Though they'd be wrong to do so.

The other interesting aspect here is that MSOs like Comcast will have to embrace IP video if they are to get their services, including linear TV, onto more CE platforms like Roku and the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, not to mention connected TVs. So if managed IP video is the vehicle to get cable services available on more retail devices without an MSO-supplied set-top, it seems a tad ironic that PK and Free Press are trying to lump net neutrality into this when they have been among those pushing for cable to do a better job at supporting services on retail CE devices.

If Comcast reversed course and said it was going to start applying data from managed IP video toward a cap, I think there would be an absolute uproar. After the P2P fiasco from awhile back, I would think Free Press and PK would give Comcast some credit here for being transparent about its policy for Xfinity TV on the Xbox 360, though I am certainly interested in hearing more about how Comcast is going about it, technically speaking.

But I'll admit that this will cause some confusion for customers, who are now supposed to figure out which apps on the Xbox 360 count against a usage cap (ie. Netflix) and which ones don't. I doubt that the average consumer knows the difference between OTT and managed IP video, or would even care to know."

Check out what one CC employee is saying about this in their Help Forums. Specifically message #5;

»forums.comcast.com/t5/Customer-S···3#M20882

So, the question is - at what point is the problem where frequent Netflix users "cause congestion and impact internet performance for [Comcast's] other customers" requiring the imposition of a monthly data cap?

Is it somewhere inside the local HFC plant, or where Comcast interfaces to the public internet?

reply to telcodad
Couldn't the xbox request program 12983 be sent specific IP and port, while this is via IP I don't think CC(or any other ISP) has ever said ALL their available IP bandwidth will be dedicated to HSI delivery.
The network neutrality "pledge"* only applies to the 250GB's included in your residential package with various prices based on the speed you want to use it.

You might have a better case if you are a biz HSI and TV user where your HSI doesn't currently have a cap (keep pushing, they'll change that) and the ToS is different (not sure biz TV includes ON demand products)

CC and the rest of the industry spent a lot increasing total capacity via D3 upgrades (and other emerging tech), and they don't intend to just give it away.
They will continue to find other services (voice, home security, etc) to pay back and even profit from that investment, and many of them will be via the "private IP space".

reply to JohnInSJ

reply to tshirt