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FCC Asks Comcast About Traffic Shaping
Begins formal inquiry into practices...
On the heels of FCC boss Kevin Martin's statement that he'd look into Comcast's throttling of upstream BitTorrent traffic, the FCC has sent letters of inquiry to the cable giant. A coalition of consumer groups recently urged the FCC to stop Comcast from discriminating against certain types of traffic, though Comcast will be arguing that their traffic shaping practices constitute "reasonable network management."
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Current FCC rules make it perfectly reasonable to employ such technology if you're doing it to protect your network.
quote:
"We look forward to responding to the FCC inquiries regarding our broadband network management," said David L. Cohen, an executive vice president at Comcast, in a statement. "We believe our practices are in accordance with the FCC's policy statement on the Internet where the Commission clearly recognized that reasonable network management is necessary for the good of all customers," he added.
Consumer group the Free Press issued a statement that Comcast's practices are anything but reasonable:
quote:
"Blocking more innovative competitors doesn't constitute reasonable network management. The FCC needs to make it clear to these companies that blocking consumer access to the Internet will not be tolerated. The longer the FCC waits, the more these companies will continue to invest in blocking technologies similar to those used in China to censor the Internet. Chairman Kevin Martin should nip this in the bud."

Most recommended from 119 comments



Cabal
Premium Member
join:2007-01-21

1 edit

2 recommendations

Cabal

Premium Member

Stop misusing "Net Neutrality"

Net Neutrality refers to ISPs double dipping on charging/extorting fees for both users paying for their connections and web sites paying for prioritization of traffic according to origination and destination. It does not refer to protocol-based QoS. It does not mean a flat, unmanaged, unQoS-ed Internet. By repeatedly and deliberately misusing this phrase, its importance is being weakened.

dadkins
Can you do Blu?
MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA

1 edit

2 recommendations

dadkins

MVM

Ok...

I used to use BT for the random TV show and an occasional movie.
Since it is impossible to keep a ratio that people won't boot you for now, I have moved to other sources.
I guess they accomplished their goal with me, huh?

Thing is, I am still getting my "items", just not over the BT protocol - so, in reality, they accomplished nothing.

The lack of me uploading is more or less ok - no MPAA nonsense.
Pretty soon, even you anti-sharing people will be getting hit when these blocking actions bleed over into whatever it is that you use your fast connection for.

Looking forward to y'all saying it's ok when that happens.