AfterDawn: News

Comcast appeals FCC ruling on net neutrality

One month after being found guilty of breaking net neutrality laws, the large U.S. ISP Comcast has appealed the decision in hopes of having the ruling overturned.

On August 1st the Commission found Comcast guilty of improperly "throttling" P2P and BitTorrent traffic without letting its users know that it was doing so. In court the ISP admitted that it temporarily slowed down service for top bandwidth users when the network was congested.

"The commission's action was legally inappropriate and its findings were not justified by the record," Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen added in a press release.



"I'm certainly disappointed they ended up appealing," FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin said. "The commission has done a very thorough job on investigating the complaint. We thought we needed to step in and protect consumers' access to the Internet."

In related news, Comcast recently announced that it will begin implementing a 250GB monthly bandwidth cap on its users as a way to satisfy their need to turn the Internet from unlimited to limited.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 6 Sep 2008 15:29

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• 16 comments

• windsong

  So Comcrap is looking for a 2nd asskicking as well? No problemo!

  6.9.2008 15:44 #1

• Pop_Smith

  The FCC needs to do something to Comcast, I was playing with a Linux distro earlier this week and everytime my upload hit ~80+Kb/s it would be throttled or even cut off completely.
  
  So, from what I could tell, they are still throttling traffic and then they impose a 250GB cap starting in October.
  
  I am not sure what the FCC will do to them but let us hope it is something severe and doesn't involve fines because the bill for said fines ends up getting footed by the consumer anyway in the thin guise of "Rate hikes" that stay long after the fine has been paid off.
  
  Peace

  6.9.2008 16:02 #2

• shummyr

  Originally posted by windsong: So Comcrap is looking for a 2nd asskicking as well? No problemo!I Second That Every Person Should Sue For There Actions of throttling and bandwidth restrictions

  6.9.2008 17:21 #3

• JOHNSTARR

  All I can say is if you go over 250 gb in a month your probably up to no good ;)
  

  Premium 360 Benq 1.3
  XBOX 1.4- Zenium Chipped 300 Gb Maxtor

  6.9.2008 18:42 #4

• mganey

  They took our money (Government Tax Incentives) in the 90s and when Bush to office and now they want to punish us for their theft ( Hell You Say)I hope the FCC makes them do what they were supposed to do for the benefits that they received or how about the Justice System holding the Top echelon of Comcast to the same laws that you and I are held accountable to ! "If we forget the past, we are sure to pay in the future!"

  7.9.2008 11:21 #5

• seejaydee

  When is the FCC going after the state of Wisconsin. It uses a lame excuse to tax the internet via our phone bills. Is the state to big for the FCC?

  7.9.2008 18:28 #6

• overkill

  FCC needs to show Comcast whos boss. Not the other way around.
  They are sneaks,and rip us off.
  
  1st. We pay for unlimited internet---then they go and put a cap on it.Now were limited. Run a bandwidth meter and see how fast the bandwidth builds up.I run 2 computers in our house,and a PS3,watch streaming videos(including YouTube) and play PS3 games online everyday. Oh No,We gonna get punished....
  
  2nd. We pay them for our HD programming.So,without notice to their customers,they go and compress the High Def. channels to make room for more channels. Hmmm,Is this fair?
  I just think the FCC needs to make (these bullys)Comcast pay their customers back money as their penalty,and watch Comcast so they don't do anymore unfair practices.
  Some of us don't have the choice to choose another provider,so we are stuck with Comcast.
  I'm waiting for Fios to come in my area,then bye bye Comshaft.

  7.9.2008 19:17 #7

• rockjckey

  LIMEWIRE IS BACK!!! Those bastards at Comcrap not only throttle bandwidth, they shut down access to sites like Limewire completely. I was not able to use it for months until the FCC stepped in and slapped their hands. Now it's up and running again like magic after I wasted hours trying to figure out why I couldn't connect. Those SOB's owe me for my wasted time. So Limewire is back in action on Comcrap.

  7.9.2008 19:52 #8

• hermes_vb

  I hope when they start with the caps they don't market their service as UNLIMITED. If so that would bring some law suits...

  7.9.2008 20:24 #9

• susieqbbb

  Comcast!!!
  
  The new mob...
  
  They search machines without warrents.
  
  They search and look at the sites you are visting.
  
  They send out trucks to your house to track you.
  
  So Comcast the new mob.
  
  I hope you get the everloving Crap kicked out of you.

  8.9.2008 01:45 #10

• Mez

  windsong, Comcrap does not care about the FCC. Any fines are not signicant against re-cabling. I do not think they have reacted 1% because of the FCC. They have their plan and they have been sticking to it. They want to avoid FCC fines if they can avoid them with lip service. I would be surprised if they kept records of the sandvines attacks. I bet the attacks are under the table. I will be hard to prove anything but the users know Comcast can shut down P2P activity at will.
  
  Hey Pop, if you believe in the 250 G number, I have a nice big bridge to sell you CHEAP!
  
  If you want to down load anything significant do it off hrs or on the weekend. Otherwise, you will have that pit bull Sandvines bitting your ass for a week or so.
  
  I bet the final count will be 50-100 G/ month. I bet there will be a prime time penelty.
  
  rockjckey, could there have been some prime time issues? Comcast has been the market leader for crushing heavy users on prime time. They have been working on torrent clients all year. They have learned to neutralized them one by one. They may have had a change of mind reguarding off hours traffic. They may not want to lose customers who can play by their rules. Their watch dog, Sandvines, can take out all the heavy users apps at will, probably by node. This is the first I heard about Lime Wire getting blown out of the water. My suggestion is get it while you can, off hrs. They may change their minds or start charging for usage.

  8.9.2008 08:10 #11

• rockjckey

  As far as prime time issues with Limewire Mez, that really wasn't the problem. The connection problems occurred at various times of the day. I tried to connect several times on Sunday mornings with no success. I usually do most of my downloading after midnight so that wasn't the problem. Comcast purposely blocked all access to Limewire at least from my IP address. In my mind this is not unlimited access to the internet.

  8.9.2008 14:35 #12

• Mez

  I like to keep up on what the different ISPs are doing. What Sandvines is doing doesn't vary much between ISPs even in different countries. They are obviously comparing notes and I like to do the same. The attacks from Sandvines against torrent users where targeted by general use. The heaviest users being attacked first. Until they were not heavy users any more then when to the current heavy users. Persistent offenders would get so throttled they could not browse for a week. I have not herd of anyone getting that kind of attack across ISPs that use Sandvines. The newer attacks seem to be more targeted to the actual torrent flows than web browsing. I don't know anyone that uses an ISP protected with Sandvines that tries to push the envelope any more. No one is willing to take on that robot thing. I know it can disrupt your router. I think it can destablize your client or your OS so you need to reboot.
  
  Now to Lime Wire. So how much were you down loading? A torrent user could easily average 500 K for 24 hrs. I don't think you can do that with LW. If you are lucky, you might do that for a few hrs.
  
  Was only LW affected?

  8.9.2008 16:24 #13

• romanka

  Comcast screw me once ONLY once.
  I changed cable to satelite TV and internet to DSL.
  I got more Tv channels faster speed with no restrictions for, yes lower cost. My internet/Tv bill came down from $168.00 to $98.00 per mo. Just drop them if you only can.

  9.9.2008 19:29 #14

• earthasa

  If they are going to cap people, they better be careful to cap users of their phone (voip) service which requires their internet service as well. If they pass those connections through, or don't count them towards the cap, that's not net neutrality.

  12.9.2008 08:08 #15

• Mez

  earthasa, I wouldn't worry much about that. Even though you can hear a pin drop with Sprint, phones use very little bandwidth. I am sure Comcast will become metered in some way. I suspect they will have to take that into concideration.
  
  I do believe they will take their time before they meter. They have P2P on a leash now so they do not need to do anything hasty. As long as they can tollerate the FCC I think they are where they wanted to be.

  12.9.2008 10:17 #16