Net Neutrality Advocates Hit Back at Comcast
Cable giant Comcast has become the poster child for Net Neutrality with blatant actions to block user traffic that make the case for Internet protections.
On Thursday, a coalition of Net Neutrality supporters and legal scholars took this case to the Federal Communications Commission. We filed an official action urging the agency to stop the cable giant from meddling with your ability to connect and share information.
The company recently gave us a glimpse of a world without Net Neutrality.
In the "most drastic example yet of data discrimination," the Associated Press exposed that Comcast was actively interfering with its users' ability to access popular and legal video, photo and music sharing applications.
Despite mounting evidence that Comcast is crippling peer-to-peer communication, the company's spokespeople have thumbed their noses at the public and the press -- refusing to admit that the blocking of connections is underhanded or in any way threatens the free flow of information that's become the hallmark of an open Internet.
The High Price of Violating a Neutral Net
Comcast's defense is flimsy. The company's blatant and deceptive blocking is exactly the type of problem Net Neutrality supporters warned would occur without proper open Internet protections. It's now time for the FCC to do something about it.
In the complaint, Free Press and Public Knowledge are asking the FCC to fine Comcast $195,000 for every affected subscriber. Comcast is the nation's largest cable company and second-largest Internet service provider, with 12.9 million subscribers. If the FCC honors the complaint, the size of the fine for violating Net Neutrality could be astronomical.
The action puts the FCC on notice. The agency has policies that partially defend against discrimination but these have yet to be tested against a real violation such as what Comcast is doing.
It's About Video
The not-so-hidden secret behind all of this is video. Network owners are waging a quiet campaign to control how video gets distributed via the Web. In their view, the Internet should only be used for e-mail and surfing. Internet video should be distributed via ISPs. It's a model that treats the Internet like cable TV -- where companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon get to pick the channels you get to see.
The popular trend in video, however, is streaming in the opposite direction. More and more people are becoming their own creators and distributors of homespun video content. For proof that people like to watch videos created by others, go no further than YouTube, which boasts more than 100 million "views" each day.
YouTube is just the beginning of this revolution. It's heart and soul, though, beats elsewhere -- with the use of peer-to-peer applications. Peer-to-peer traffic is spreading via popular technologies like Bit Torrent and Gnutella, which allow users to upload and share videos, music and other rich media without a middleman. It's follows a non-discriminatory Web model that encourages innovation without permission.
The phone and cable companies are desperate to shut this down. In the case of Comcast, they're doing it by spying on traffic and stifling the free exchange of ideas that will continue to make the Internet so remarkable.
Comcast: A Problem Found
Phone and cable lobbyists have called Net Neutrality "a solution in search of a problem." Well, here's the problem. In the past three months, incidents of censorship and blocking by Verizon, AT&T and now Comcast have made headlines around the world. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The Commission now faces a clear choice. It can either side with the interests of consumers and for an Internet unfettered by corporate gatekeepers, or it can let companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T erect "walled gardens" and destroy the most democratic communications tool in history.
You can help convince the agency to do the right thing.
Follow Timothy Karr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKarr
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no difference when the gangster networks refused to air President Carters attempt to speak to the nation.It happened at least 3 times,as I recall.
You cannot justify blocking one type of information distribution without it seeming unfair to all others. How long before healthcare providers want Comcast and company to block sites which provide information that will enable people to take better care of themselves? After all, that type of information cuts into the profits of insurance companies, hospitals and doctors. For that matter, any type of do-it-yourself type site would have to be protected b/c of the endless industries they affect negatively.
I don't support distributing copyrighted material illegally, but it is idiotic to block/meter types of data transfers. There are plenty of people who want to distribute media to the world free of charge, and that should not be hindered. The Internet is too great a tool to fall under the shackles of capitalism. Why is it so hard for people in our country to see and act for the greater good?
The revolution will be streamed.
Thank you, Timothy, for discussing the larger implications of net neutrality and the future of video communications.
Peer-to-Peer TV applications like Sopcast, TVants, and TVU Player literally allow an individual--with few resources--to communicate via live video to a worldwide audience. These apps use BitTorrent technology, where each recipient of the video stream also contributes bandwidth to the network, allowing a virtually unlimited number of viewers.
The implications are staggering. P2PTV can revolutionize video distribution in the way email and text messaging have changed written communication, or as blogs have done an end run on the MSM.
The only way that media conglomerates can retain their control on the flow of information is by restricting bandwidth. Just as tyrants and despots were threatened by the first printing press, the profits and power of corporations (and their political lackeys) are in danger from media-empowered masses.
It's all about the bandwidth.
To allow Comcast to control video traffic will be to let the camel's nose into the tent. Emboldened, it will be only a matter of time before they expand this "business model" to further clamp down on internet traffic. For Comcast, it's all about money (isn't it always?) - for the rest of us, it's about the free exchange of ideas on one of a few remaining two-way streets for communication. Comcast's TV empire is one-way; they give us what they want us to see and hear. That's enough for one giant corporation.
You Tube is not a Peer to Peer video sharing site rather it is a Video hosting service. The Video hosting service stores the videos on servers which PC users can access. Peer to Peer means all of the users would become hosts and share pieces of files automatically.
If you are going to base your argument for network neutrality on the likes of the Bittorrent client software then I would have to say your argument is weak. No one needs P2P software. None of us here at the Huffo Po community are required to have it in order to log in and speak our minds.
P2P clients such as Bittorrent have been guilty of allowing copyrighted material to be freely distributed across the internet illegally and with no compensation for the original authors. You may be subject to a lawsuit for illegal file sharing.
Bittorrent and other P2P clients can come packaged with a spyware, addware, virus, and are difficult to get rid of even if the P2P client is removed even corrupting web browsers to the point of rendering them useless. This actually happened to me on my PC a few years ago. Since I removed Bittorrent I find I can get along just fine without it and see no reason to have it.
Your name and IP address is usually distributed to everyone and anyone who seeks it once you download the Bittorrent client to your PC. There are fourth generation software clients in the test stage that allow anonymity but currently they hog too much bandwidth to make them practical.
Operating Bittorrent can open you up to storms of attacks from the network slowing your computer down to a crawl and display unwanted pornography to your children. It can cause improper operation of your firewall, your antispyware, and your browser.
Is this really the neutral network you are talking about?
Once you start downloading files from the Bittorrent network then your PC becomes a provider to all of the other points on the network. WHY do I want to use MY resources to feed the REST of the network?
"YouTube, which boasts more than 100 million downloads each day"
Uh, no it doesn't. YouTube videos aren't downloaded, they're streamed.
Network administrators could make a case that BitTorrent has a negative impact on their "Quality Of Service" structure. QoS is established through software parameters within the network devices to ensure proper bandwidth allocation for all protocols on the network. Designing a good QoS structure can be difficult due to the number of variables and the dynamic nature of network traffic. A poor QoS layout can cause slow or no throughput to some users when one type of traffic begins to dominate or monopolize some part of the network. A good QoS design can be overwhelmed by an unexpected protocol "suddenly" hogging all the bandwidth. AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) caused some problems like that in private networks when it first appeared, forcing many network administrators to rework their QoS plans.
The direction of data flowing across a network makes a difference. Network designs typically assign "access" and "distribution" functions to different devices, which may have different capacities based upon assumptions about the anticipated traffic. If a network is designed & built assuming that download (distribution) to end-users needs large capacity and upload (access) can get by on less, that network could "choke" if endpoints unexpectedly start uploading lots of data.
So Comcast may be able to produce evidence to show degraded throughput caused by BitTorrent on their part of the network. Shutting down the protocol may be characterized as their "only" option.
However, this is comparable to making an "emergency" procedure a permanent fixture. Comcast may have been compelled to shut down BitTorrent when it first showed up in order to protect the rest of the traffic, but that is only acceptable on a temporary basis (1-2 months max - time's up on that). Since BitTorrent appears to be a legitimate, permanent fixture on the internet, they will have to make the painful and potentially costly changes to their infrastructure to support the protocol or lose business to other providers who will.
Good luck with the FCC; they will probably side with Comcast in keeping with their view of themselves as facilitators for the industry, rather than for the public.
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