The End of P2P Throttling: FCC Slaps Comcast
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced its orders on Comcast, a major high-speed internet provider, to halt their practice of throttling selected peer-to-peer file sharing traffic. The commission voted 3-2 on the said ruling stating that Comcast has been monitoring the contents of their customers’ internet connections and has been blocking traffic, particularly in BitTorrent peer-to-peer networks. The commission claims that such practices are invasive and have significant effects on the rights of internet users.
According to the commission, Comcast uses deep-packet inspection to monitor the contents of the customers’ internet connection, instead of the destination. “In essence, Comcast opens its customers’ mail because it wants to deliver mail not based on the address on the envelope but on the type of letter contained therein,†the commission said.
The commission also claims that the effect of Comcast’s throttling is widespread, to the point that they have managed to control the traffic of up to three-quarters of all file sharing connections in some areas.
The Comcast Violation Run-down
Comcast violates FCC policies on Net Neutrality, forbidding any kind of restrictions on the kinds of equipment, communication, and content allowed on the internet. In particular, Comcast violates the policy on the grounds of discriminating against file sharing traffic.
Comcast admits performing network management practices in allegiance with Sandvine and claims that its actions are in accordance with the law and are reasonably consistent with industry practices. It denies the FCC statement that the company is blocking any file sharing traffic whatsoever. It also asserted that the company does not have anything against peer-to-peer networks, let alone, anything specific against BitTorrent.
Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice said that the company was “gratified that the commission did not find any conduct by Comcast that justified a fine,†still claiming that the company never did meant to throttle internet traffic. Comcast was not asked any monetary sanction but was ordered to completely halt its monitoring practices. The commission gave the company 30 days to fully disclose its throttling methods.
The FCC believes that Comcast’s motive in halting BitTorrent network traffic was profit-oriented. It has to be considered that BitTorrent provides high-quality video downloads accessible to all internet users. Such wide scale video distribution provides a tough competition to Comcast’s own video-on-demand services.
Public Knowledge, a nonprofit digital rights group brought the said complaint to the FCC months before the ruling was announced. Gigi Sohn, president, said that “Comcast’s throttling of legal internet traffic had nothing to do with network management as the company claims.†The group shares the speculation of FCC that the practice was clearly profit-oriented stating that what Comcast did has “everything to do with a big company trying to exert its power over a captive internet market.â€
Net Neutrality is a policy adopted by FCC as a result of a hearing done back in 2005. The rules have a mandate to ensure that the internet is “accessible to all consumers.â€
The ruling against Comcast was proposed by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican and was voted on by Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, both are Democrats. Republican commissioners Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor voted against the said ruling.
McDowell believes that the decision has the potential to politicize the internet. “It will be interesting to see how the FCC will handle its newly created power because, as an institution, we are incapable of deciding any issue in the nanoseconds of internet time. Furthermore, asking our government to make these decisions will mean that every two to four years the ground rules could change depending on election results,” he said.
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