"The carefully Limited measures that Comcast takes to manage traffic on its broadband network -- including its very limited management of certain P2P protocols -- are a reasonable part of Comcast's strategy to ensure a high-quality, reliable Internet experience for all Comcast High-Speed Internet customers," read the company's statement. It added that the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol "utilize(s) immense amounts of Bandwidth in ways that are unpredictable and inconsistent and that can threaten to overwhelm network capacity and harm the online experience of other users."
The company's comments include some specifics on how BitTorrent traffic is handled. It explains that during certain peak hours they disrupt traffic from subscribers who are uploading using P2P applications, but not downloading at the same time. It also states that neither downloads, nor uploads taking place simultaneously with downloades, are affected.
The big problem with Comcast's claims is that they don't seem to match up with reality. For example, according to the company sending reset packets that claim to come from remote P2P clients is completely legitimate becuase of the potential for this traffic to affect other users. If, in fact, company executives believe that claim it begs the question of why they refused to even admit the practice until the issue was forced by the government.
Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 13 Feb 2008 23:22
