Comcast Sued For Traffic Shaping (Again)Class action lawsuit springs up in DC ( old news - 09:47AM Thursday Feb 21 2008) tags: legal · hardware · bandwidth · cable · networkingTipped by funchords  Last November a California man filed suit against Comcast for the company's traffic shaping practices, which involve forging TCP packets in order to throttle upstream p2p traffic. While Comcast insisting their brand of network management is "reasonable" might thwart the FCC's investigation into the practice, the courts may see things differently. A second, class-action lawsuit has sprung up in Washington DC. According to a statement from the law firm involved, Comcast is misleading customers by saying they offer the "fastest Internet connection," because the ISP "intentionally blocks or impedes its customer's access to peer-to-peer file sharing." We're actually (almost) starting to feel bad for Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas, who has been forced to repeat the same stock quote to hundreds of news outlets by now (including us): "To be clear, Comcast does not, has not, and will not block any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services, and no one has demonstrated otherwise," said Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas. Douglas said that a minority of their customers use peer-to-peer. "Sometimes we have to delay [the sharing] because of the volume of it," Douglas said, so that the rest of the company's customers aren't affected by the network being bogged down by peer-to-peer. Comcast isn't commenting publicly on any lawsuits they're facing.
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|
 
ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
clubs: | And the hits keep on rolling.... I see this happening more and more to Comcast in the future. Throttling maybe, but forging packets again is IMHO a bad situation. | |
| 
gaforces
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA
 ·Cruzio Internet
1 edit | Feel bad? Why would you feel bad for a liar?
It has been demonstrated that they are forging the packets numerous times, and not just during heavy load.
--
~ Don't you ever give up, Don't ever give in. Were going to make it ~ Damian Marley | |
|  | quatrix
join:2005-02-11
Davie, FL
| Re: Feel bad? Are you complaining because you legitimately think they're doing something wrong or because you feel guilty for stealing and want to deflect the blame onto someone else? The same goes for everyone badmouthing the RIAA just because they push for enforcement of laws that they broke. | |
| | | 
Lumberjack
Premium
join:2003-01-18
Newport News, VA
 ·Cox HSI
| Re: Feel bad? said by quatrix :Are you complaining because you legitimately think they're doing something wrong or because you feel guilty for stealing and want to deflect the blame onto someone else? The same goes for everyone badmouthing the RIAA just because they push for enforcement of laws that they broke. That type of thinking is not permitted here. How dare you call out the thieves!
The reason Comcast will continually avoid this is because the people that are most affected by the "throttling" are the ones who aren't going to show up to court and say, "So I was downloading a movie that's not out yet and I had to wait two days instead of eight hours... that's not right".
Though, who knows... some P2P crackhead is bound to do that one day for not getting his porn.
--
»www.fairtax.org | |
| | | | AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| Re: Feel bad? said by Lumberjack :That type of thinking is not permitted here. How dare you call out the thieves! The reason Comcast will continually avoid this is because the people that are most affected by the "throttling" are the ones who aren't going to show up to court and say, "So I was downloading a movie that's not out yet and I had to wait two days instead of eight hours... that's not right". Yes, because P2P = piracy. 
Its fair to assume you don't get out much in the computer world, do you?
I participate in legal use of P2P technologies, and I'd be well affected by Comcast's methods...if I used them, that is. However, I'm sure there are plenty of Comcast users playing games that're assisted via P2P: (World of Warcraft being a huge one here), folks that download P2P-distributed large media files (again, legal ones - I've downloaded freely-avaliable audio & video this way), most any Linux distro user, etc.
Let the suit go on. It'll be interesting to see how this breaks down in the courts. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| Re: Feel bad? said by Lumberjack :Maybe if little Joey wasn't downloading the Foo Fighters greatest hits the WoW updater wouldn't suck so bad (if you play WoW you know it's not faster than a direct download). Actually, I do play, and I get my downloads just fine off the Blizzard Downloader (if not faster than the mirroring FTP sites).
said by Lumberjack :Trying to explain the piracy relationship P2P has by citing WoW and some video content is pretty weak. That's like saying the armed bank robber was ok in his actions because he didn't kill anybody. I've never heard that comparison made. Usually the closest comparsion I've seen to criminalizing a protocol is the "banning roads due to escaping criminals". Granted the ratio of criminals : legal drivers is much different, but P2P's ratio would be much less as well if ISPs had been targeting the criminals themselves, rather than lump-sum an entire protocol's user base.
And pardon the earlier "not getting the sarcasm tags". If you read some of the posts made on these topics, you'll notice that there are some that give a 1:1 ratio of P2P users-to-pirates.  | |
| | | | | | |
Lumberjack
Premium
join:2003-01-18
Newport News, VA
·Cox HSI
| Re: Feel bad? Hardly any protocol is single usage. But I'd have to say it's almost fair to say that P2P is 1:1 with Piracy for most people that use P2P knowing it's actually P2P. And more than likely if you ask the general populous for a description of P2P they'd probably say "that's how I download my music and Heros episodes".
So I'm not good with analogies... my point is, trying to defend P2P as a viable protocol for non-pirated content is somewhat pointless (even though you're correct). P2P was created not to share linux distributions, WoW patches or whatever else... it was created to share mp3s ripped from CDs. And even if it's now used for legitimate things it still has and will always have that label.
Technically though I still think it's a spammy protocol and direct transfers or even mirror'd transfers are better. One connection, one stream is less "messy" for a network than hundreds of connections. Hell, that's probably more of an issue to providers than bandwidth... a lot harder for the feds to spy on that  .
--
»www.fairtax.org | |
| | | | | | | | NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| Re: Feel bad? said by Lumberjack :So I'm not good with analogies... my point is, trying to defend P2P as a viable protocol for non-pirated content is somewhat pointless (even though you're correct). P2P was created not to share linux distributions, WoW patches or whatever else... it was created to share mp3s ripped from CDs. That may be true for Napster, and its ilk, but that isn't the same as BitTorrent (AFAIK).
Oddly, I have only downloaded 46 mp3s that can be considered pirated, and I did not use any P2P for those, just HTTP. Pirated in the sense that the distributors were not authorized, that I know of. However, I know that the source albums are out of print, and I searched long and hard for used copies. I drew a blank. They are imports, and I'd probably have to haunt the used CD stores in Akihabara in hopes of finding them.
Technically though I still think it's a spammy protocol...
Not by any accurate definition of "spammy". Of course, we always play fast and loose with words in English, and many words have taken on meanings far from the original. "Hacker", "Pro Life", "Saturday Night Special", and "Assault Weapon" come to mind. They currently have an evil aura, and are used as catch words for ideologically charged arguments.
...and direct transfers or even mirror'd transfers are better. One connection, one stream is less "messy" for a network than hundreds of connections. Hell, that's probably more of an issue to providers than bandwidth... a lot harder for the feds to spy on that .
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
| | | | | | | | AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| said by Lumberjack :P2P was created not to share linux distributions, WoW patches or whatever else... it was created to share mp3s ripped from CDs. Actually, the protocols they're going after (ie. BitTorrent) were created simply as a cheap means to distribute large files over the web - no specific purpose/reason was made or given. It was the pirates that jumped on this, feeling they were "untraceable" at the time, that made the protocol seem so closely tied with the technology.
Is piracy a greater volume of P2P traffic than legit users? Yes.
Does this mean that P2P = piracy? Absolutely not.
As I've said before, get the criminals off legit and legal protocol channels, not just criminalize the entire sect of the technology. | |
| | | | | 
adam henry
@comcast.net
1 edit
thumbs down from:
gaforces
| let me guess...you download linux distros and wow patches all the time right? | |
| | | | | | AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
2 edits | Re: Feel bad? said by adam henry :
so in reality p2p does equal piracy you nitwit. Wow...given all your good points and mountains of research, let me reply appropriately:
Nevermind, I guess the mods did it for me.  | |
| | | | | | NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| said by quatrix :The same goes for everyone badmouthing the RIAA just because they push for enforcement of laws that they broke. The RIAA whines a lot because sales are off from what their predictions claim they should be.
I have not bought an RIAA property in...I don't know when. I have probably spent about $30 on RIAA properties in the last ten years.
I don't download .mp3 music files; especially not those belonging to members of the RIAA.
So I must be rich from all of the money I didn't spend on them, right?
I have nearly 9GB of .mp3 files on my HDD. Probably spent a couple of thousand dollars to get them. A lot of show tunes from 美少女戦士セーラームーン。 All but two are imports. A couple of sound track albums, and an image album from ああ!女神さま!. Also imported. Some tunes from the likes of Hisaishi Joe, Kanno Yoko, Nagata Shigeru, and Namba Hiroyuki. All of which cost about double what the RIAA charges. All of which are licensed by companies who would form the RIAJ (I believe there really is a similar organization in Japan).
I have no sympathy for the RIAA. They promote music which does not suit my taste; the Japanese do, so they get my money instead.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
| 
JTRockville
Data Ho
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-28
Rockville, MD
clubs: | Arbitration Clause? Have all these folks opted-out of Comcast's arbitration clause? | |
| | 
major marco
Res Firma Mitescere Nescit
Premium
join:2003-02-13
Stepford, CA
clubs:
2 edits | Re: Arbitration Clause? said by JTRockville :Have all these folks opted-out of Comcast's arbitration clause? doesn't matter because Federal and Appeals court case law have have struck down forced arb clauses for big players such as AT&T, Overstock.com and Cingular. Further, the Supremes denied cert to hear a case that would make forced arbitration binding on Class action lawsuits. So Comcrap can't rely on some forced arbitration clause to save their dumbasses from this debacle. | |
| | | axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC | Re: Arbitration Clause? Gotta love statutory rights | |
| | | |
major marco
Res Firma Mitescere Nescit
Premium
join:2003-02-13
Stepford, CA
clubs:
| Re: Arbitration Clause? said by axus :Gotta love statutory rights What're you talking about...statutory rights doesn't have jack to do with anything in this discussion. Case law, baby. | |
| | | 
fishmaster
Premium
join:2004-10-08
Rockford, IL
·Comcast
·Insight Communicat..
| Be sure your sin will find you out. Half truths are whole lies. While I understand the 'Network Management' aspect. But to deliberately misrepresent an action or protocol & then blatantly lie about it is as guilty as one could get.
--
Browse Alot - Sign In Little - Post Even Less | |
| | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Be sure your sin will find you out. said by fishmaster :Half truths are whole lies. While I understand the 'Network Management' aspect. But to deliberately misrepresent an action or protocol & then blatantly lie about it is as guilty as one could get. I wonder if that same guilt passes on to those who's very actions are causing the traffic shaping.. and I'm not talking about BT use.. I'm talking about what people are using BT for.
You know,... there's a certain reason why prostitutes don't go to the police when they are beaten by their pimps.. | |
| | |
fishmaster
Premium
join:2004-10-08
Rockford, IL
·Comcast
·Insight Communicat..
| Re: Be sure your sin will find you out. Meaning what? Everyone uses BT for Illegal & Nasty stuff?? Pretty narrow minded aye. Or are you speaking from your own heart. Personally I really don't care much for BT & such. There has been a few times I have used it for legitimate software distributions, One of them from M$ themselves.That's not the real issue...
Sure some folks BT 24/7/365 and abuse bandwidth. The same can be said over people who upload/download large files too & from servers & ftp sites quite frequently. Same can be said over the Video Junkies with the ever increasing HD content. Again, that's not the real issue. 2 wrongs do not make a right.
The real issue is for a Company (Comcast in this case) to do what they are doing, Outright initially lie about it, Media propagate justification for doing so and still not being straight up. They know they are goofing up. Don't you know if the shoes were reversed in some way they would be up in arms over stuff??
Maybe I just don't quite understand your post...If I missed it? It wouldn't be the first time. No Worries.
--
Browse Alot - Sign In Little - Post Even Less | |
| | | gal
join:2006-12-21
Toledo, OH | You do realize there are movie studios selling downloads of thier films over BitTorrents don't you? There are plenty of legitimate reasons this can be used, but maybe your feeling a little guility? | |
| | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Be sure your sin will find you out. Nope.. I'm feeling really good that you, like the other responder, can't read the message as written, nor do you pay attention to the entire thread, rather, you pick one word and jump. Be proud...
I do realize that movie studios use the service as well. When have I EVER said there wasn't lawful purposes behind the service? .. and for that matter, when did I ever say that it was invented FOR unlawful purpose?
Now that I have cleared the bunk from your reply, maybe we can get to the point of who has the guilty conscious. Comcast, as has been said many times (for the blind) is not throttling the downloads of BT users. If, as you are saying, you want to download a movie from the studio who is using BT, you should be fine.. their bandwidth is not being affected by Comcast's traffic shaping. You, if you are a comcast customer, which being in OH I doubt you are, should have no problem downloading from the studio since Comcast's network management isn't going to throttle the studios upload.
I've said this before and I'll say it again.. the cable model is not to handle servers which are high bandwidth users. Only those that want to spin and twist and play these f'd up mental games to justify their abuse of the TOS/AUP will continue to fight the fact that their BT programs also act as a server which is at the heart of the issue. | |
| whiteybulger
join:2003-03-11
Belmont, MA | Does packet forging reduce network traffic? I don't know how this works, but if they're just injecting fake packets to slow a given application, doesn't that actually increase network traffic? | |
| | 
koitsu
Premium
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
| Re: Does packet forging reduce network traffic? said by whiteybulger :I don't know how this works, but if they're just injecting fake packets to slow a given application, doesn't that actually increase network traffic? The trade-off is substantial. Two TCP RST packets are about ~54 bytes in size each. Consider what sort of bandwith savings they're inducing by sending 108 bytes of traffic every time someone tries to seed. | |
| | |
gaforces
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA | Re: Does packet forging reduce network traffic? Its like a smart targeted DoS attack. Interfering with packets = Denial of Service. | |
| |
Jack2131
@sbcglobal.net
| P2P REALLY slows down an entire network. If someone initiates a couple popular torrents on my dsl line, everything screaches to a halt/slow motion browsing. It's why I bought a Ubicom-based router to "degrade" the p2p applications while I'm doing other things. If they didn't do that I'm sure ALOT more people would be complaining. But hey, they could spend more on infrastructure, but p2p can consume an entire line no matter how fast it is. | |
| | | | | | |
koitsu
Premium
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
| Re: Does packet forging reduce network traffic? said by knightmb :It's not just P2P, you realize that someone doing a single file upload on your DSL at maximum send rate will basically produce the same effect. This is why packet prioritisation (read: QoS) is important. The term QoS is used incorrectly all over the place now, which is quite irritating -- so if you want a good read about how QoS can truly improve performance over slower (read: non-100mbit) links, try this. It specifically documents how to solve the above issue (re: downloading a single file at full speed causing all other applications to perform horribly) using pf ALTQ on OpenBSD or FreeBSD. I'm positive Linux has similar.
However, there is one thing I should point out about P2P vs. downloading a file at high speed via HTTP:
From a TCP state perspective (read: NAT, or anything that tracks TCP states in general), P2P is hell. The number of states which have to be tracked for torrents where there's thousands of peers is bordering on nuts. I wouldn't be surprised if a hundred users downloading the same torrent (a thousand peers each) on a single Juniper M20 could cause the routing engine to slow significantly. So from *that* perspective, P2P does in fact slow down a network.
But in that situation, you're overselling capacity, and should look into getting another M20. *shrug* That's just the way it goes. That's reality, and some ISPs want to try and pinch pennies in every way possible rather than realising users are paying for said growth.
--
Making life hard for others since 1977.
I speak for myself and not my employer/affiliates of my employer. | |
| | | | | 
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Skype
| Re: Does packet forging reduce network traffic? Very good points -- just wanted to clear something up (since you cleared up a few things for others)...
said by koitsu :The number of states which have to be tracked for torrents where there's thousands of peers is bordering on nuts. I wouldn't be surprised if a hundred users downloading the same torrent (a thousand peers each) on a single Juniper M20 could cause the routing engine to slow significantly. Although users can often change some of these settings, users generally do not connect to more than (some number between) 30-70 other peers in a swarm. This is by design -- there is no added efficiency in doing so. The knee of the curve of diminishing returns falls between 50-80 (depending on a lot of factors, most of which change from moment to moment).
Also keep in mind that 80%-ish to 90%-ish are on Microsoft TCP/IP stacks. They won't connect at a rate faster than 10 clients per second, and it stops attempting ANY new connections any time there are 10 unanswered connection attempts. (This is a security limit added by Microsoft.) So the problem isn't as bad as some might imagine.
1. The number of connections actually established is far less than many imagine; and
2. The rate at which clients can seek connections is usually limited.
Keep in mind that a lot of these kids have the cheapo router with just a couple of MB of RAM available for maintaining their own NAT tables and other operating variables/caches and etc.. With a few exceptions, most of these work under normal P2P use.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. | |
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See 6 replies to this post | |
| | | | 
espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·voip.ms
·Vitelity VOIP
·Callcentric
·VoiceStick
·ViaTalk
·Comcast
·Embarq
| said by koitsu :I wouldn't be surprised if a hundred users downloading the same torrent (a thousand peers each) on a single Juniper M20 could cause the routing engine to slow significantly. So from *that* perspective, P2P does in fact slow down a network. But in that situation, you're overselling capacity, and should look into getting another M20. It doesn't work that way... at all. Comcast doesn't use Juniper hardware, but the Cisco 7600s they use share a commonality with the M20 in that they're both hardware-based routing platforms. These platforms use TCAM to perform pattern matching that can do access control lists / address translation / NetFlow tracking at line rate.
With standard memory (like that in your PC) you supply an address location and then you can read or write the contents of the memory at that position. TCAM is pretty much the opposite of that -- you give it a bit pattern and it returns the index position where that particular entry exists. This process is extremely fast because it is baked into silicon as a specific operation on an ASIC and does not have the overhead of being a process running in software on a generic-use CPU; it can complete a full lookup in just a few nanoseconds. (significantly faster than the network processing demands of microsecond/sub-millisecond timing)
Whether your hardware based router is tracking a single flow, or the maximum number of flows their TCAM can store patterns for there is absolutely no measurable impact to forwarding performance. The most common use of state tracking on standard routers is gathering NetFlow traffic statistics data. The Netflow tracking flow looks something like this:
You gather statistics for as many flows as your memory will allow and simply forward anything else once you run out of memory to store additional patterns. The lookup time is roughly the same if the pattern matches or not, and the counter increment process uses a negligible amount of ASIC processing time.
The real issue is fairness in TCP flows when the link starts to become saturated. Each TCP session is like a car on the freeway; trying to go as fast as the road will allow but constantly having to adjust for other cars. TCP is greedy just like cars on the freeway as well, as soon as a gap opens up it speeds up to immediately take up that extra space. When congestion starts to occur on a link segment every TCP session slows down to roughly the same top speed because every session follows the same rules when faced with congestion. That's where the problem with BitTorrent really starts to come into play. Normally with TCP sessions slowing down in roughly the same manner that is a relatively fair situation on the network in terms of distribution of impact, but in the case of BT where you have several flows this fairness rapidly disappears. Say congestion gets to the point that flows can't grow to be faster than 40kbps. For you with BitTorrent you can still max out your upstream connection because you're establishing multiple TCP connections with 40kbps each. For me uploading content to my web server via FTP, the most network resources I get out of the deal is 40kbps because I'm only uploading my content in a single flow.
That's why closing down connections is effective: it gets the TCP-Flow per user ratio to be more consistent across the board and helps to give each user a fighting chance at a better share of the available bandwidth. | |
| | | | | |
koitsu
Premium
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
| Re: Does packet forging reduce network traffic? said by espaeth :It doesn't work that way... at all. You're always here to make my life hell, man. Just kidding.
Thank you for the crash course on hardware-based routing. I've always wondered how that was done and whether or not it was just a buzzword for "dedicated routing engine card" for offloading routing vs. on the main CPU (which I believe M20s and M40s use the equivalent of a Pentium II).
I've known Cisco uses hardware-based routing for quite some time, and was always told it was "incredibly fast" but never was given an actual description as to how it worked, so again, thanks!
--
Making life hard for others since 1977.
I speak for myself and not my employer/affiliates of my employer. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
1 edit | said by espaeth :When congestion starts to occur on a link segment every TCP session slows down to roughly the same top speed because every session follows the same rules when faced with congestion. I'm with you so far.
said by espaeth : That's where the problem with BitTorrent really starts to come into play. Normally with TCP sessions slowing down in roughly the same manner that is a relatively fair situation on the network in terms of distribution of impact, but in the case of BT where you have several flows this fairness rapidly disappears. You (and many, many others) are forgetting the fact that the first bottleneck for a residential Comcast user is his modem. You can't send any faster than that modem will accept data -- and that modem is your residential gateway. When it's maxed out, the only open flows you are restricting are your own. Maxing out your cable modem does not affect your neighbors at all.
From the modem to the CMTS, its DOCSIS. This is the second bottleneck, but it doesn't matter for two reasons. First and foremost, the paragraph above. Secondly, since it's not TCP/IP, then it doesn't know about sockets or how many you have nor where they are going. Basically, if your DOCSIS node is saturated, your byte-for-byte throughput is impacted by the same X% regardless of how many TCP/IP sockets you have open. DOCSIS can't give someone with 40 sockets an advantage because it doesn't know about sockets. It only has one flag that says "I have data to send -- tell me when." There is no flag that says "I have 40 sockets with data to send"
The third bottleneck is the Comcast network gateway. Unlike the other two, this TCP/IP to TCP/IP bottleneck is not about technology limits, it's about money. If its irrelevance is not obvious, I'm happy to discuss -- but at that connection point, there's nothing different from Comcast's network to Verizon's network.
WARNING - SHOCKING NEWS AHEAD
Web Browsers open two uploading ports simultaneously to each server to a page. As soon as they're done, they close the port. Typically 2-5 ports are actively uploading at the same time.
Now, here's the shocking piece of news to everyone: Most BitTorrent peer connections are idle at any one time -- SUBSTANTIALLY USING NO BANDWIDTH. Regardless of how many connections you have open, you're only going to be uploading on 3 or 4 sockets at a time -- the rest are choked and are using 4-9 Bytes every 20-60 seconds waiting for their turn.
When congestion happens on a TCP/IP segment, then you are right that all of the sockets that are actively using bandwidth on the bottlenecked segment will be decreased to a lower, roughly equal amount. For us using Comcast, that's the segment between your computer and the Cable modem. But people SHOULD NOT get the idea that because a P2P application has 40 open sockets and a web browser has 5 that P2P has a 40/5 advantage across the Internet. The only sockets that matter are the ones using a high amount of bandwidth (ones faster than the new congestion-created ceiling will eventually be), and in CATV-Internet, the only ones that really matter are the ones that are uploading from your own side of the modem.
This whole Sandvine thing is a farce. It's about saving money paid to backbone vendors -- money to transit the bandwidth customers have already purchased. It has nothing to do with DOCSIS and it has nothing to do with network congestion.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. | |
| | | | | | |
espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·voip.ms
·Vitelity VOIP
·Callcentric
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| Re: Does packet forging reduce network traffic? said by funchords :You (and many, many others) are forgetting the fact that the first bottleneck for a residential Comcast user is his modem. You can't send any faster than that modem will accept data -- and that modem is your residential gateway. When it's maxed out, the only open flows you are restricting are your own. Maxing out your cable modem does not affect your neighbors at all. Saturation on the upstream is an "n-user" problem. My car is only so big, and I can get on the freeway at 3am and maybe not run into a single car. When I get that same freeway at 7:30am all of a sudden it's bumper to bumper and running slow. You can't look at singular TCP connections, you have to look at the situation once critical mass is achieved.
said by funchords :From the modem to the CMTS, its DOCSIS. This is the second bottleneck, but it doesn't matter for two reasons. First and foremost, the paragraph above. Secondly, since it's not TCP/IP, then it doesn't know about sockets or how many you have nor where they are going. Basically, if your DOCSIS node is saturated, your byte-for-byte throughput is impacted by the same X% regardless of how many TCP/IP sockets you have open. DOCSIS can't give someone with 40 sockets an advantage because it doesn't know about sockets. TCP is an end-to-end stateful protocol with sequencing and flow control. It adjusts its flow rate based on a number of criteria including max window size, round-trip time, and observed packet loss. If the DOCSIS node is busy there will inevitably be additional queuing delay, and TCP sensing an increase in round-trip time will back off on the transfer rate a bit. The maximum transfer rate (per second) for a TCP session is the (TCP Window) * (Number of Round-trip intervals per second). Assuming the TCP Window is artificially limited (true for the vast majority of Windows boxen) then queuing delay will result in a steady decrease in the performance of each TCP flow because of the reduced number of round-trip intervals per second.
said by funchords :The third bottleneck is the Comcast network gateway. Unlike the other two, this TCP/IP to TCP/IP bottleneck is not about technology limits, it's about money. If its irrelevance is not obvious, I'm happy to discuss -- but at that connection point, there's nothing different from Comcast's network to Verizon's network. This whole Sandvine thing is a farce. It's about saving money paid to backbone vendors -- money to transit the bandwidth customers have already purchased. It has nothing to do with DOCSIS and it has nothing to do with network congestion. The MSO to Internet gateway points are the cheapest part of the whole service equation. Unless Comcast is being intentionally deceptive with their PTR names (highly unlikely) you can pretty accurately piece together the bulk of their network environment.
The uBR CMTS hardware connects to the UR01/02 user routers via Gigabit ethernet (hence the gi-2-3 PTR records, signifying the gig interface in slot 2, port 3 of the 7600)
The UR01/02 gear connects to the AR01/02 area aggregation routers via 10GigE (hence the te-2-3 PTR records)
The AR01/02 routers connect to their transport peers via 10GigE in the vast majority of cases.
The cost isn't in this part of the network because you get a better per-mbps pricing with bigger circuits and large commits, and having 14 million pairs of eyeballs as a bargaining chip doesn't hurt either. If you look at how Comcast is routing their traffic they have fewer egress points for their national footprint than there are states in the nation. Just skim the Comcast forum and gather traceroute statistics and you'll find that there are only a few dozen external connection points to the Comcast network. It's not the modest handful of Internet connections that drives your costs, it's the hundreds of CMTS units and thousands of nodes deployed across the cable plant. When they turn up additional capacity for Internet peering it can be used by every single customer in the region; the cost/benefit ratio is quite favorable. It's also easily expandable because the limited number of peering locations make for nice places to consolidate fiber interconnects to their transport vendors. This means that it's easy to get more capacity in a big hurry. Need another 10GigE? You can rapidly provision new capacity until you run out of DWDM wavelengths and physical pairs of fiber.
The cable plant is a completely different story: there's a finite amount of frequency space and the frequency range that can be used for the upstream traffic is a minuscule chunk of that. The common example of a node layout is a central hub with "strings" running North, West, East, South. When service was originally built out all 4 strings likely shared the same upstream and downstream channels for HSI, and as the service grew these were eventually split out. That means if you have upstream channes 1-4 available, you can break them out so that North 1-4 are different than South 1-4, etc. The real problem comes when one segment like "West" becomes heavily loaded; at that point once you are out of frequency space your only option for providing more segment bandwidth is to split the copper plant and insert another HFC node. At that point you're talking about 5-6 figures when you work out right-of-way for the fiber path, laying additional conduit, pouring the cement slab to hold the node (if required), getting power to the node, the cost of the node itself, plus the cost of additional CTMS ports at the head-end to support the fiber connections for that node. The labor involved isn't simply a "cut and connect" operation either, as all of the amplifiers for that entire segment will need to adjusted or in some cases moved to more ideal positions on the coax plant.
The major cost of providing the service is in the last mile, not the head-end. | |
| | | | | | | |
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
1 edit | Re: Does packet forging reduce network traffic? As far as I can tell, we mostly agreed, except in two areas -- and one of those areas, I was wrong -- I got angry.
So yeah, I concluded by tirade with "It's about saving money paid to backbone vendors." Just earlier that evening, I was explaining to one of the lawyers for tomorrow's hearing about Comcast's likely motivations for using Sandvine and I gave him a totally different (much less hotheaded) answer.
Here's what I both hope and fear: that the FCC issues a temporary order of some kind and shuts down these devices. I hope it because I hope it is so obvious on its face how wrong it is for Comcast to use this method of "network management." I fear it because I'm afraid that all Cable-TV Internet Providers have had these boxes for 1-2 years, and broadband performance across 2-3rds of the nation is going to take a dump until the cable providers make the necessary upgrades.
I'm "on the record" as requesting the immediate injunction, and I plan to stay that way (it will be too late to change it in 3 days, anyway). Extending a wrong does not make something less wrong. Either freedom is going to take a hit, or it's going to take real time and pain to make up for 1-2 years of neglect.
quote:
If the DOCSIS node is busy there will inevitably be additional queuing delay, and TCP sensing an increase in round-trip time will back off on the transfer rate a bit.
Yes, but again, the impact will be felt across the XXX number of customers, not the YYY number of streams.
I have 10 streams going "full bore", my neighbor has five streams going "full bore", and neither of us are saturating our modems somehow. But due to a hundred other factors, our neighborhood shared upload pool becomes saturated -- the number of sockets we had open isn't going to matter. DOCSIS doesn't know about sockets. Unless TCP/IP starts its recovery thing, we'll all grind down at the same ratio.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. | |
| | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| So that's the reason why when I downloaded Spiderman III from your computer it took forever!! What's your address so I can sue you! How dare you purposely slow my free movie download for your own selfish reasons..  | |
| | gal
join:2006-12-21
Toledo, OH | They are actually sending packets to impersonate one of the machines asking the other to stop sending information therefore stopping the service. It can be restarted if the machines continue to try after a certain peroid of time. | |
| | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Other Providers Look, you just hit the nail on the head.
But, Comcast isn't going to lose. No matter the outcome, Comcast will not lose.
If they do lose and caps are put in place, Comcast wins.
If they put caps in place, customer will not flee. Comcast wins. Most of the customer base won't be affected and/or care, right now.
If they put caps in place, the abusers (and those who knowingly push the limits on the system) who have no where else to go for internet, lose. They'll have to stay with Comcast as their ISP, enjoy their fast BT service and pay the overage charges - Comcast wins!
Caps are put in place with overage charges, see how fast BT disappears from Comcast's networks. (People who enjoy trading freely and snubbing the law SURELY aren't going to pay for other people to take files from them on overage charges and will stop.) .... drum roll..... C-O-M-C-A-S-T W-I-N-S!
The only fall out will be from the very people comcast doesn't want on their network anyway. If there is this mass exodus from Cocmast to DSL, you don't think AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest (and others) aren't going to control their networks too? When one corner gas station raises the price, the rest will follow. Just like gas being a necessity, they know that broadband is only available from so many places so they simply wait for someone else to make the first move. PLEASE tell me one ISP that is customer friendly (and is a major player - even FiOS has a no server policy)
I am not picking on you, MattE, rather, I'm just stating that these predictions that it will be the end of, or hurt majorly, Comcast if this case is won by the plaintiff, which it won't be, these predictions that it will hurt Comcast (or enter ISP name here) never come true.
You are correct, however, if Comcast loses the case/cases, (subs can enjoy their $5 coupon) then other ISPs will obviously not jump on board with this. However, if Comcast prevails, the same can be said in reverse... the others will most likely jump on board, including phone. | |
| 
CUBS_FAN
You're Killing Me
join:2005-04-28
Chicago, IL
1 edit | Fastest internet * (sort of ) It's kind of like buying a Porche, and after paying for it the dealer tells you it won't go over the speed limit due to "limitations" installed. | |
| | 
S_engineer
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL
·Comcast
| Re: Fastest internet * (sort of ) said by CUBS_FAN :It's kind of like buying a Porche, and after paying for it the dealer tells you it won't go over the speed limit due to "limitations" installed. While I agree with your analogy....just how do you justify being a cub fan? | |
| | |
CUBS_FAN
You're Killing Me
join:2005-04-28
Chicago, IL | Re: Fastest internet * (sort of ) Following my heart. | |
| | | jester121
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
·ViaTalk
| said by S_engineer :said by CUBS_FAN :It's kind of like buying a Porche, and after paying for it the dealer tells you it won't go over the speed limit due to "limitations" installed. While I agree with your analogy....just how do you justify being a cub fan? How do you justify supporting the Olympics in Chicago? :P | |
| 
pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| Wrong Headline The headline should read "Comcast Targeted for Lawyers Seeking Unjust Enrichment (Again)."
I agree with the merits of the suit in that Comcast's actions do indeed go against existing net neutrality laws. However, a class action suit will simply net the lawyers involved a nice fat check, the "victims" will get a $10 coupon off their next month's Comcast bill, and nothing else is going to change at all.
--
This isn't fair! I was only supposed to hate just ONE presidential candidate! | |
| | 
LiamJunket
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Ocean City, NJ
·Comcast
| Re: Wrong Headline said by pnh102 :The headline should read "Comcast Targeted for Lawyers Seeking Unjust Enrichment (Again)." I agree with the merits of the suit in that Comcast's actions do indeed go against existing net neutrality laws. However, a class action suit will simply net the lawyers involved a nice fat check, the "victims" will get a $10 coupon off their next month's Comcast bill, and nothing else is going to change at all. What net neutrality laws? There aren't any.
And this lawsuit is just a waste of time. And the only ones that will make money are the lawyers on both sides of the suit. A lawsuit that Comcast will likely win.
--
My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page | |
| | |
pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| Re: Wrong Headline said by LiamJunket :What net neutrality laws? There aren't any. The one I refer to is the Communications Act of 1934 under which Madison River was sanctioned by the FCC for blocking VOIP. While this law wasn't designed with the Internet in mind, I do believe a precedent does exist now that the FCC has made a ruling against an ISP by using this law.
My main problem with Comcast's action is that there are legitimate uses of BitTorrent that are being compromised as a result of what Comcast is doing. I don't want my Linux CD/DVD ISO downloads being crippled because of Comcast's involvement in the fight against content piracy, even if I download such things once or twice a year.
Furthermore, suppose my premise is wrong and Comcast is blocking BitTorrent because it refuses to invest in network capacity needed to sustain its customers consumption instead. What is next? Is Comcast going to selectively block gaming, FTP and web traffic because they "take too much bandwidth?" There's no excuse for that. Verizon and other ISPs are taking the lead here in increasing capacity to meet bandwidth needs. Comcast should do the same.
said by LiamJunket :A lawsuit that Comcast will likely win. Or most likely settle out of court with the lawyer-friendly terms to which we both alluded.
--
This isn't fair! I was only supposed to hate just ONE presidential candidate! | |
| | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Wrong Headline Comcast is most likely choosing to slow/throttle/discourage BitTorrent traffic because it IS a large chunk of the problem, for one, and it does/is used in a VERY high percentage of illegal use.
You're right, it DOES have legal uses and used legitimately too. In high crime areas, do they not put a curfew out to control the problem? Does that not, too, step on the rights of law abiding citizens as well? Why should the good people of a community be told they have to stay in doors past 10pm unless it's a medical emergency simply because there is a rabid crime problem?
What people often ignore here is that Comcast is only throttling the upload part of BT, not the download. Why does everyone ignore this or simply leave this fact out? Are they not paying attention to the fact that servers are not allowed and this is the MAIN reason, I'm sure, that Comcast is picking on this particular item on the network.. and why they are not going after gaming, FTP, or web browsing. Some people refuse to accept the fact that part of the BT client is in fact a server and will spend every last breath to defend that it is not.. at least I give them credit.
I make a strong prediction that even the class action suit will not change a single thing. It's nothing but a cash grab for the pig lawyers.. and even in this case, since the FCC hasn't done anything yet, I doubt that the civil courts will either. I predict this case will be a class action with out action this time. I don't even see this settling out of court. I bet that Comcast will not even settle because it's cheaper to settle than fight.. this is one battle I really don't think they are willing to cave into.
Is it about not wanting to upgrade their infrustructure? While that may be a popular talking point rant, one would have to be blind to believe it. There is, on this very day, a news posting that Moto just unveiled it's line of DOCSIS 3 modems and eMTAs. I kinda think that upgrades are coming... but, because a few people are currently abusing the network for the masses, comcast or any ISP has to install a stopgap measure to bandage this problem UNTIL they can upgrade. It only makes logical sense to those willing to take an impartial look at the situation.
Ask yourselves this.. how many times have you been sitting at home for 4 hours waiting for the cable guy to show up because your internet is slow. If/when he does show up and tells you that it's fine, you say "it happens after 6pm or at night" and he ends up leaving you in the same fix. Blame your neighbor's BT use on that one.
I'm going to side with the ISP anyday on this one. They have every right to manage their networks in a way they want to.. they told everyone up front. (who read the agreement, which most don't) When the use out paces the technology, what do you expect? I CERTAINLY don't expect any cable company to split their nodes over and over until they weed out the problem. Why should they? Cable wasn't designed for serving such as what BT does. (Again, disclaimed if you read) Even if they split that node, the weed can move to a new home and cause the problem in the new location - yet another node split. Why?
There is always a balance.. they can split nodes all day long.. it only adds costs to the company to take on.. two things happen.. upgrades come MUCH slower than they have, OR, our bills will reflect this..
... all little facts that people LOVE to overlook. But, daily, people come here to defend the very side of a problem that will ALWAYS come back to haunt you and slap you in the face. Both sides have to be reasonable.. I think that the ISPs are.. where is the part where the end user is reasonable? That is a HUGE, MAJOR issue with Americans... GREED! The rest of the world points this out to us daily, yet we all ignore it. And here we are.. greed is in the news again.. and it's a two-sided street. Everyone of these threads is always "me me me me!" | |
| 
Swingerhead
Premium
join:2004-04-06
Richmond, VA
 ·Verizon FIOS
·Comcast
| Still having issues with Netflix slowing down I think they are throttling anything that is a "conflict of interest" to their money grubbing eyes. I was fine until a week or two ago, now it takes 40 minutes to load a 22 minute sitcom. All the other VOD sites from the networks directly work fine. | |
| | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
| Re: Still having issues with Netflix slowing down said by Swingerhead :I think they are throttling anything that is a "conflict of interest" to their money grubbing eyes. I was fine until a week or two ago, now it takes 40 minutes to load a 22 minute sitcom. All the other VOD sites from the networks directly work fine. If the other "VoD" sites work fine, I would think it likely that it's a Netflix problem. | |
| | | MyDogHsFleas
Premium
join:2007-08-15
Austin, TX
·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T Southwest
| Re: Still having issues with Netflix slowing down said by openbox9 :If the other "VoD" sites work fine, I would think it likely that it's a Netflix problem. exactly you beat me to it. The first thing to suspect in a case like this is the server-side infrastructure.
Like they say in a medical profession: when you hear the sound of hooves, you expect to see horses, not zebras. Not that it couldn't be zebras, but probably not. | |
| 
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
1 edit | Bunk •Comcast is here to help us
•They are good corporate players
•Profit is NOT their only motive
•Shaping and management are reasonable
•The FCC is also here to help us
•The monkey that few from my arse craps gold bricks
--
Clinton/Obama/McCain/Fascism 08
Edit: is/are | |
| | SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| Re: Bunk said by Titus Pullo :•Comcast is here to help us •They are good corporate players •Profit is NOT their only motive •Shaping and management are reasonable •The FCC is also here to help us •The monkey that few from my arse craps gold bricks You have it all wrong, Titus. Comcast is a benevolent, altruistic mega-corporation whose sole objective is to bring broadband to the world without regard for profit. Besides...they donate their entire profit margin to global warming and other charities. The executive officers have decided they need not be paid since the feeling of knowing that they're helping the planet is all the reward they'll ever need in this life or any other...
/sarchasm | |
| | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| Re: Bunk said by SilverSurfer :said by Titus Pullo :•Comcast is here to help us •They are good corporate players •Profit is NOT their only motive •Shaping and management are reasonable •The FCC is also here to help us •The monkey that few from my arse craps gold bricks You have it all wrong, Titus. Comcast is a benevolent, altruistic mega-corporation whose sole objective is to bring broadband to the world without regard for profit. Besides...they donate their entire profit margin to global warming and other charities. The executive officers have decided they need not be paid since the feeling of knowing that they're helping the planet is all the reward they'll ever need in this life or any other... /sarchasm You're quite correct. I apologize for my lack of deference to the big 'C'
-- | |
| | | jester121
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
·ViaTalk
| said by SilverSurfer :You have it all wrong, Titus. Comcast is a benevolent, altruistic mega-corporation whose sole objective is to bring broadband to the world without regard for profit. Besides...they donate their entire profit margin to global warming and other charities. The executive officers have decided they need not be paid since the feeling of knowing that they're helping the planet is all the reward they'll ever need in this life or any other... /sarchasm Sadly, your sarcasm is a pretty accurate description of how many BBR members think things should be. God help all of us if socialism gets its hooks into this country. | |
| | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| said by Titus Pullo :•Comcast is here to help us Who ever said they were? They're here to provide a service, and in the process, are going to battle for every last dollar they can get from the competition. That's how it works in this country.
said by Titus Pullo :•They are good corporate players Comcast isn't your baby sitter. You buy a service, it comes with terms.. you pay your bill, they deliver... and no where does it say that it will be 100% perfect all the time.
said by Titus Pullo :•Profit is NOT their only motive Who believes that? Profit IS their only motive. To think otherwise is to be foolish. The sarcasm doesn't even work here. Corporations exist to make money... to think otherwise.. I'll just stop there.
said by Titus Pullo :•Shaping and management are reasonable They are.. and I suppose law enforcement should go too... just have no rule what so ever.. everyone just does their own thing.
said by Titus Pullo :•The FCC is also here to help us Technically, they are... they've been absent for years, ever since they (those seated in it) learned how to profit off the public troff. The FCC is a worthless pile of crap - this is obvious and you are correct with your sarcasm here.
said by Titus Pullo :•The monkey that few from my arse craps gold bricks Why is there a monkey up your arse? Nevermind.. I DON'T want to know.
Just as bad as the so-called greed is in this country, and yes, there is greed alive and well, just not always in the places people believe.. jealousy is also just as bad on the other end of the spectrum. | |
| | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26 | Re: Bunk * burp * | |
| 
Morac
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ | Yep reasonable upstream management  | |
| Mutiny32
Network Security Engineer
join:2000-07-04
Lees Summit, MO
| Semantics Comcast is arguing semantics. They are saying half-truths. They don't technically block, but they DO forge traffic (this is illegal in some states, BTW) in an attempt to make the peer on their end think that the connection has ended. This essentially IS blocking a connection because the peer on their end closes the connection.
I hope whoever is investigating this sees through their play on words and tells them to knock this shit off and take the responsibility for neglecting their network in the name of stock price.
But just a thought, why not just use UDP for BitTorrent? It's connectionless. Just use MD5 or SHA-1 to verify the integrity of a chunk of data. The best part is, virtually all BT clients support this already. The clients could also obfuscate the traffic header to look like a different type of traffic, say, for instance SSL over a non-standard port? | |
| | Mutiny32
Network Security Engineer
join:2000-07-04
Lees Summit, MO
| Re: Semantics Also to fight back against RST packets, they could just use a SYN flood back to the originator in some sort of pre-determined port combination to create a static or dynamic number of fake connections. the Sandvine device has a connection table, creating multiple legitimate connections that last 3600 seconds can fill up a connections table extremely quickly. If all clients had a standard to do this, Comcast would have to either invest a LOT of money into expanding the capacity of these devices in-line or just abandon the device.
Assuming they use some sort of agressive aging technique to clear the connections table, one would have to figure out what services aggressive aging doesn't apply to or doesn't recognize the service and thus has to keep the default TCP timeout of 3600 seconds in the table until the connection ends. | |
| | | SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
1 edit | Re: Semantics said by Mutiny32 :But just a thought, why not just use UDP for BitTorrent? It's connectionless. Just use MD5 or SHA-1 to verify the integrity of a chunk of data. The best part is, virtually all BT clients support this already. The clients could also obfuscate the traffic header to look like a different type of traffic, say, for instance SSL over a non-standard port? said by Mutiny32 :Also to fight back against RST packets, they could just use a SYN flood back to the originator in some sort of pre-determined port combination to create a static or dynamic number of fake connections. the Sandvine device has a connection table, creating multiple legitimate connections that last 3600 seconds can fill up a connections table extremely quickly. If all clients had a standard to do this, Comcast would have to either invest a LOT of money into expanding the capacity of these devices in-line or just abandon the device. Assuming they use some sort of agressive aging technique to clear the connections table, one would have to figure out what services aggressive aging doesn't apply to or doesn't recognize the service and thus has to keep the default TCP timeout of 3600 seconds in the table until the connection ends. Why aren't you working with the P2P people to help develop/implement these ideas into the torrent clients? | |
| 
Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs: 
| Sorry but.. I just don't see any reasonable court siding with the plaintiffs.
Comcast..and every other isp..has the right to reasonably manage their network. There are millions of us who use the service and whom expect reasonable access to it.
P2P bandwidth hogs do not solely own the network nor have a right to 24/7 use of it by saturating the entire bandwidth that's available. In addition, we all know that for the most part..what they're ALSO trading is illegal files.
I'm sorry, but I don't see any reasonable court or jury siding with them on this one. If the hogs want an unimpeded 24/7..20Mb line to the internet..let them go out and pay the thousands it would otherwise cost them to buy their own.
Otherwise..what they are subscribing to is a shared network where we all share that line...for a VERY reasonable cost to do so. For 95% + of Comcast customers..this simply is no issue at all and we're simply not here to subsidize the use..or the abuse as the case may be..of the other 5%.
Comcasts primary responsibility is to the vast majority of users who don't abuse this service..not to the 5% who do.
Not to mention that that 5% can probably also be broken down into 95% of them are breaking the law with their illegal file trading on top of everything else.
Sorry..but they just have no case and IMHO..Comcasts lawyers will eat them alive in court and possibly even expose their illegal file trading on top of it via the discovery process.
It should be very interesting indeed as these plaintiffs are forced to produce their illegally traded files.
One can only imagine that the riaa and others are drooling over that prospect.
--
The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! | |
| |
See 20 replies to this post | |
Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL
·Comcast
·Embarq
| Check out the history of the railroads. During the development of the railroad industry the robber baron's who owned the railroads gave preferential treatment and rates to their friends and heartburn to the competition. It took the action of the Federal Government to correct the problem through regulation of the railroad industry. The railroads were declared common carriers and required to treat all customers equally. The railroads were required to published rates (Tariffs) which applied to all customers. It is time that the ISP's are subject to similar regulation. | |
| |
See 8 replies to this post | |
Lithicus
join:2008-02-18 | Thwarted legalities While I do think they have a right to do this because they own the network, I think they need to specify in every agreement that they will do this without warning and can do it for any application. | |
| 
BabyBear
Keep wise ...with Night-Owl
join:2007-01-11
1 edit | Simple! Business 102:
"Lobby Congress for retroactive immunity."  
You could get away with anything..... | |
| | 
gar187er
Premium Alcoholic
join:2006-06-24
Dover, DE
| wow lmao...bait and switch?!?!?! come on!!!!! that statement reads likes its from a high school newspaper....saying they deny access...nope, they just limit it at their discretion
quote:
If Comcast doesn't change its behavior, the word 'Comcastic' is going to become a synonym for fraud."
LOLOLOLOLOL
i love readin these stories!! | |
| | 
N O Y B
St. John 3.16
join:2005-12-15
Forest Grove, OR
1 edit | Re: wow
It's Com-fraud-astic!
| |
| | | digitel
join:2002-10-02
Aurora, CO | Re: wow The new uTorrent should fix this | |
| | | 
TraumaJunkie
Premium
join:2004-03-05
Knoxville, TN
| said by N O Y B :It's Com-fraud-astic! Put your money where your mouth is..hire a lawyer, sue and when you lose pay your lawyer the $400+ per hour fees they charge. If you win then you are rolling in the $$$. But I doubt you have the 'nads to put your own money on the line when you know it is a losing cause, you'd just rather bet a bleeting sheep and follow the kool-aid crowd. | |
| | | |
Bellundo
@teksavvy.com
| Re: wow Hey all it takes is one lawsuit then every subscriber or former subscriber gets paid. I can tell you there's much worst issues up in Canada with these isp's. Some isp is robbing people of 100 bucks a shot just for canceling an account. If that ain't fraud i'd like to know what is? | |
| 
Dogfather
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Yep, and they aren't stopping you from going to LA to NYC They're just making you walk. | |
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Bellundo
@teksavvy.com
| Things are at least 100 times worst in Canada In Canada almost everything is speed throttled and traffic shaped yet the citizens of this country are yet to sue any of these isp's. Like i said 100 times worst and that's probably an understatement to say the least. I hope Comcast loses all their lawsuits then maybe Canadians can sue the Canadian isp's for 100 times what Comcast will owe since it's at least 100 times worst up here. | |
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