07/11/2008, 6:45am, EDT
Friday, July 11thFCC seeks to punish Comcast for throttling
Federal Communications Commission chair Kevin Martin on Thursday said he would advise his organization to punish Comcast for violating existing net neutrality guidelines with its traffic throttling practiced against BitTorrent and certain peer-to-peer services. The government official has explained to the press that Comcast's method, which effectively severed some connections between Comcast users and others running the same software, has been 'arbitrary;' every user has been throttled regardless of their actual impact to the cable provider's network, Martin says.
The FCC head also states that Comcast hasn't notified users of its practices. Comcast itself has immediately responded to Martin's claims by again denying that it blocks whole services or content, although it does acknowledge that it takes what are claimed as "reasonable" steps to balance traffic on its network.
Martin is expected to submit the formal recommendation today and will see it through an FCC vote on August 1st that determines whether the agency as a whole takes action.
Internet providers beyond Comcast have come under pressure from activist groups and government officials for overly broad restrictions on their users, many of which are argued as unfairly limiting new technologies or punishing carriers attached to the same network. Fellow American cable provider Cox has been accused of similar tactics as Comcast, while Bell Canada is currently facing government scrutiny for throttling service for outside Internet providers without their knowledge or permission.
Filed under: industry, networking
Other story tags: FCC, Comcast, Bell, Cox
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Punish Comcast?
The hell with just punishing them. Make them regurgitate some of the money they've bilked us out of, by making us troll/ download online at reduced speeds for years! I want the money due me for bad service, marketing lies, and being duped!!
Comcast the fastest at wh
Comcast the fastest at what? Slowing down your internet connection, that's what. They claim to be the fastest, but in reality they are cheating all of there customers out of what they claim there bandwidth speeds are. They sucker customers in with there false advertising of super speed then throttle them back everyday. More money for them and less bandwidth for there customers.
Don't ever trust the cable companies, they're the WORST!!!
an idea
How about throttling Comcast. I know a good 40 million people who would probably love to get their hands around Comcast's scrawny neck.
And, horvatic, do they claim to be the fastest? I don't pay much attention (I guess my 15MB FIOS connection makes too much noise for me to hear). But I know they claim to be Comcastic! Of course, what does that mean? They're fantastic at being Comcast? I think it's synonymous with craptastic.
Comcast??
That name sounds familiar... I think I had their dial up service before getting FIOS. cant quite be sure tho. :P