Comcast sabotage user uploads
Comcast Corporation are happy to sell you a high-volume broadband connection, as long as you promise to just sit back in front of YouTube all day. Try uploading files, however, and they’ll be even happier to cripple your applications, not tell you they’re doing it, and smile as they keep taking your money.
An independent report by the Associated Press has confirmed that Comcast uses sophisticated software to sabotage user uploads through popular programs like BitTorrent, reports the New York Times. While they do have the right to moderate their own network, it’s the method that many have trouble with. As many people generally have trouble with secrecy, sabotage and lies.
Their method is to send false messages to the users computers, causing the applications to believe that data transfer is unsuccessful. At no point do they ‘officially’ get involved, contact the users, or tell them “We’re interfering with the service you paid for.”
Imagine buying a car, and every time you plan to make a long journey Toyota rings you up impersonating the people you were going to visit to tell you not to come. Comcast defends this “traffic shaping” (there’s a lovely euphemism) by saying high-volume users slow the service down for others. Here’s an idea: If your service can’t handle the demands users place on it, maybe you shouldn’t claim that it can when you sell it to them.
Comcast want to have it both ways. Everyone knows that many buy broadband access because, well, they need broad bands for all that filesharing they’re going to be doing. The service provider wants to shut these people out while still taking their lovely, lovely money.
The legality issues of filesharing don’t enter into it (otherwise Comcast would have mentioned it when actually telling people they were doing this). BitTorrent does have legal uses, and while they may be in the minority any claim that they don’t exist would be a massive faux pas. More importantly, with the increase in high volume web applications what’s to prevent Comcast deciding that streaming TV is “unfair” as well?
Net Neutrality (the idea that internet service providers should not prioritize different kinds of traffic) has very little legal backing, but it has great user support. Providers may be free to say “We’re going to charge more for/not allow certain applications”, but users are even freer to reply “And we’re going to use a service that doesn’t do that.”
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October 21st, 2007
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October 24th, 2007
This is something from the Comcast forum:
There have been many news reports speculating about how Comcast manages it network. It is important for us to provide you with the facts.
First, and most importantly, our customers have unfettered access to all the content, services, and applications on the Web. They use the Internet for downloading and uploading files, watching movies and videos, streaming music, sharing digital photos, accessing numerous peer-to-peer sites, VOIP applications like Vonage, and thousands of other applications online.
It’s also important that we make something very clear: Comcast does not block access to any Web site or applications, including peer-to-peer (P2P) services like BitTorrent. We also do not discriminate based on the type of content.
So, what do we do? We use the latest technologies to manage our network so that our customers continue to enjoy these applications.
We do this because we feel it’s our responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience.
As numerous studies show, peer-to-peer activity consumes a disproportionately large amount of network resources, and therefore poses the biggest challenge to maintaining a good broadband experience for all users – including the overwhelming majority of our customers who don’t use P2P applications.
We never prevent P2P activity, or block access to any P2P applications, but rather manage the network in such a way that this activity does not degrade the broadband experience for other users. Network management is absolutely essential to ensure the health of our network for all of our customers. All major ISPs manage their traffic in some way and many use similar tools.
Network management helps us protect our customers from things like spam, viruses, the negative effects of network congestion, or attacks to their PCs. As threats on the Internet continue to grow, we will do everything we can to ensure that our network management tools evolve and keep pace so that we continue to maintain a good, reliable online experience for our customers.
Mitch Bowling
Senior Vice President
Comcast Online