said by sousademiami :

Did AT&T throttle any traffic on their network without letting customers know in advance?

said by djrobx :

Yeah, this is an interesting issue for sure. What you're saying is that the FCC's neutrality principles prevent an ISP from prohibiting any sort of activity in their TOS, and I don't think that's right.

said by JasonOD :

TK, the FCC has no authority over how ISP's manage their network, plain and simple. Comcast knows this, but whether it's worth fighting a slap on the wrist is for them to decide. AT&T clearly knows this as well, and with the likely exponential growth of their 3G wireless services (the iPhone is only the begining), they're prudently setting usage rules up front, rather than deal with the problems of P2P on their wireless network at some later date.

As to Martin, if he does take any kind of hard line with AT&T or any provider regarding managing their network, 1) The FCC will be sued & 2) They'll be consequences when Martin comes looking for work when his tenure is over. Neither of which I believe the man wants to see.

said by LiamJunket :

They prohibit P2P on their wireless network.

said by ninjatutle :

P2P thieves are going to ruin it for everyone. More legislation's, restrictions, laws, etc is what's in store for everyone.

said by hopeflicker :

When you cant dont want to change your business model then you buy your laws.

said by BF69 :

Since one has a right to pirate anything? And since when should business change the way it does business to accomadate them? I find the people that defend pirates usually are pirates.

said by ninjatutle :

Sorry, I don't have an MBA. This business plan would be?

said by ninjatutle :

I didn't earn an MBA within the past half hour but isn't there a thing called iTunes, Walmart Music, Yahoo Music, Rhapsody, Napster, etc etc etc.

said by hopeflicker :

Also, people are tired of paying for a CD.

said by Nightfall :

Fixed it for you.

said by hopeflicker :

Also, people are tired of paying $15 of a CD. It's grossly overpriced

said by hopeflicker :

Any smart business should change their business model when there is potential to make money through other channels.

said by DaMaGeINC :

Pirate and proud of it.

said by ninjatutle :

P2P thieves are going to ruin it for everyone. More legislation's, restrictions, laws, etc is what's in store for everyone.

said by digitalfreak :

Did you open a another account TK?

said by Nightfall :

I can vouch that BF69 is a separate person.

said by digitalfreak :

Did you open a another account TK?

said by dentman42 :

TKJunkTAYLORBF69?

said by ninjatutle :

Everyone who is on the interweb is also a thief.

said by funchords :

I'm not sure if you're just bitching now, or if you really want to bring up something.

The right to make a VCR copy of an OTA program is pretty much settled (in the USA anyway). I think that Tivo piggybacked on that logic, but they've added a few features that have placated the studios. And there's a whole bunch of industry practices and allowances (I don't know if they raise to the level of law or legal precedent) for making backup copies of your purchased copies.

Robb "I need my nap" Topolski

said by BF69 :

to use p2p over 3g anyways? They have a 5 GB monthly cap. Doesn't at&t charge overage fees? Verizon's is $256 per GB so I'm sure they don't have a p2p problem.

said by funchords :

BF69,

Your point is exactly why AT&T shouldn't ban P2P, at least as it appears on the surface. A 5 GB cap is a clearly disclosed limit on the amount of bandwidth being purchased. Cut and dry. So why ban P2P?

Is it something technical? I'd like to see actual data before I make a judgement ... is there something about today's P2P protocols that make 3g incompatible with them, and if so, what is that? (Wireless efficiency is considerably less than wired -- usually 1/3 or 2/3 as efficient, owing to interference, multi-path, hidden node, perhaps other reasons too. But that doesn't automatically make P2P a non-starter. We need data.)

said by Nightfall :

They are probably banning it to prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. Imagine your laptop has a P2P client on it. A lot of users don't know how to shut those off. Now you hook up via 3g and 5gb won't take long to hit.

said by Nightfall :

The only unfortunate part is that not everyone is responsible.

said by funchords :

Probably, but that's just lazy. It's surgery with a sledgehammer.

When Verizon Wireless was caught preventing NARAL from getting a short code, they realized and admitted that what they were doing was a mistake. That took a hot story and extinguished it, pronto (perhaps cooled it too much for some). But I liked that tactic -- "we goofed, we're going to reverse our position."

Hopefully they'll do something like that.

We can't live in a PlaySkool world.

said by Nightfall :

The only unfortunate part is that not everyone is responsible.