FCC Chairman: Comcast Blocked Traffic At All Times

[CoFree]

FCC Chairman: Comcast Blocked Traffic At All Times
by: Tom Corelis
Says Comcast's equipment didn't distinguish between a network that needed management and one that didn't

Testifying before Congress, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin presented a damning contrast (PDF) to Comcast’s claims that it blocked traffic only when needed.

“Contrary to some claims, it does not appear that [Comcast’s BitTorrent technique] was used only to occasionally delay traffic at particular nodes suffering from network congestion at that time,” said Martin. Basing his statements on testimony received, he added that Comcast’s blocking equipment is “typically deployed over a wider geographic or system area and would therefore have impacted numerous [regions] within a system simultaneously.”

Martin further accuses Comcast of not using “content agnostic” management equipment, a point that violates FCC policy and inadvertently conceded by Comcast, who recently announced a switch to “content agnostic” network management techniques.

Comcast says it expects to have its network switched over by either the end of this year or early 2009 – a timetable that many, including the FCC, have found unsatisfactory. Comcast claims that it can’t implement a change instantly as such a tactic would overwhelm its network.

Regardless of Comcast’s stated intentions – and prior praise for the change, taken entirely on Comcast’s own initiative – Martin expressed doubts on Comcast’s commitment: “Indeed, the question is not when they will begin using a new approach but if and when they are committing to stop using the old one,” he said.

However, the seemingly adversarial relationship between ISPs and the FCC enjoys at least one common ground: Kyle McSlarrow, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, urged Congress not to regulate (PDF) ISPs’ management of their networks – a point that Martin agrees with.

“Congress should resist calls to interfere with broadband providers’ freedom,” said McSlarrow. “The disaster scenarios voiced by network neutrality proponents for many years have never happened. In fact, the opposite has happened — the Internet is booming without regulation. There is quite simply no problem requiring a government solution.”

[Sesshomaru]

Net Neutrality is very important, middle to low income people are going to be the ones getting screwed with higher fees for the same content. Telecommunications companies could care less where they get their revenues. The rich can afford outrageous service fees for broadband. The middle and lower class can not. If Network Neutrality's claims are totally baseless and telecommunications companies are not interested in charging more in a tiered service system, why are they so adamantly opposing Network Neutrality?