CES 2008: FCC chairman promises investigation of complaints against Comcast

CES 2008: FCC chairman promises investigation of complaints against Comcast
Apparently hoping to benefit from the visibility of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who gave Tuesday's keynote address at CES, FCC chairman Kevin Martin spoke with reporters about complaints filed with his agency in regard to the cable giant's "network management" practices.

Last year Comcast came under fire for "delaying" some network traffic, causing a small number of applications, including software using the BitTorrent P2P file sharing protocol, to have connection problems. When asked repeatedly about the issue at the time, Comcast representatives would say only that they don't block any applications on their network.



Comcast's defense for their actions has been that they are allowed to perform "reasonable traffic management." under current FCC regulations. For many this is at the heart of the case against Comcast, because they feel there's malicious intent toward file sharers that's clearly indicated by the methods being employed. Although they don't technically block BitTorrent connections, or those of any other application, their practice of delaying the delivery of certain traffic results in disrupting some customers' connections.

"The question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" Martin said Tuesday. "When they have reasonable network practices, they should disclose those and make those public."

"We look forward to responding to any FCC inquiries regarding our broadband network management," said David L. Cohen, executive vice president at Philadelphia-based Comcast.

Ironically, in this morning's address Roberts spent some time detailing the company's plan to start offering internet service at up to 100Mbps over the next two years.

Source: Associated Press

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 9 Jan 2008 1:15
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  • 9 comments
  • B33rdrnkr

    yeah, and I bet soon enough he gets a large sum of money deposited in an off shore account under someone else's name that is untraceable..

    9.1.2008 01:59 #1

  • b18bek9

    yea if u've ever seen the movie boomerang how crooked most of the ppl running our country were think about how much its so true. But yea all those big corps throw money towards all the campaigns of ppl they need in their pockets.....

    9.1.2008 03:27 #2

  • 7thsinger

    Quote:"The question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" Martin said Tuesday. "When they have reasonable network practices, they should disclose those and make those public."
    No, i don't think throttling is "reasonable network practices"

    Quote:"reasonable traffic management." Is that what the customers are paying for? I doubt it.

    9.1.2008 08:47 #3

  • varnull

    This is the endemic ISP ripoff tactics..

    You should get exactly what you pay for.. It says 4mb/s it should be.. apart from in exceptional circumstances 4mb/s.. not 2 or 1 or 512k (if we are lucky sometimes).. You don't go and buy a gallon of fuel, pay for a gallon and only get 6 pints !!because the pump is old !! A business that tried that excuse would be sued into history.. Same goes for these ripoff isp's.. they will not invest in the network infrastructure (cables/nodes/servers) because all they care about is maximising profits.. Same situation here.. The cable to my house was laid by a long defunct cable tv company in 1991.. never been upgraded, goes off in wet weather.. best speed ever was 3.12mb/s in the middle of the night..
    My package with my original ISP was unlimited.. they were bought out by yet another business.. and suddenly there is some "fair use" download limit and traffic shaping.. and they put the price up..
    I don't consider the new business have any signed legally binding agreement with me.. I never agreed to their terms and conditions re: fair use. As they are the only non-telephone based isp here they have an unlimited monopoly.. put up or shut up...

    RIPOFF RIPOFF RIPOFF!!!!

    DO NOT BUY YOUR INTERNET FROM VIRGIN MEDIA .. THEY ARE LIARS AND THIEVES


    9.1.2008 09:20 #4

  • tester22

    100-Mbps down with 384-Kbps up for Comcast's shady and shit*y network. Do they not realise that download speeds are strictly regulated by the website(s) visited. It's the uploads that I want increased.............to that of a T1. Geez, to utilize the 100-Mbps you'd have to be downloading from 50 Microsoft equivalent websites at the same time while pullin' down dozens of files via the Bittorrent network at like 300-Kbps. 6-12-Mbps per user is really fine for the most part. Anything else is indicative of terrorist activity. HA HA HA.

    9.1.2008 10:52 #5

  • ZippyDSM

    HEIL!! commiecast HEIL!

    9.1.2008 14:23 #6

  • ivymike

    100 MB/s from Comcast?!? Who the HELL are they kidding?

    I'll have to look where I step. I don't want to trip on the string that's attatched.

    10.1.2008 00:33 #7

  • ZippyDSM

    for this is a no brainier split the service in half offer cheaper plans with more caps and limits, say for 20 a month you get 300-600kbps speeds but are limited to 4-8GB a month then the speeds drop to around 20kbps.

    For heavy usage plans they start at 40 and focus on speed, 40 gets you 400kbps and are 12-20GB a month, for 10 more the speed doubles but the limit stays the same for 10 more the limit doubles.

    Simple plans to promote the cheap limited rates over rest.

    10.1.2008 01:45 #8

  • borhan9

    This is opening a major can of worms and i am sure we have not heard the last of this.

    10.1.2008 18:46 #9

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