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Senators urge committee chairman to hold Net Neutrality hearing

26 October 2007 23:47 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 6 comments

As expected, recent reports about Comcast's practice of discriminating against BitTorrent uploads have breathed new life into the Net Neutrality debate. On Friday U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Olympia Snowe of Maine called for hearings to discuss the companies' "power to discriminate against content."

The pair sent Senator Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee, a letter saying "The phone and cable companies have previously stated that they would never use their market power to operate as content gatekeepers and have called efforts to put rules in place to protect consumers 'a solution in search of a problem.'"

Comcast has recently admitted to "delaying" file uploads, supposedly in order to ensure high speeds for other customers' surfing, however tests performed by the Associated Press and Electronic Frontier Foundation found that uploads routinely failed as a result of Comcast's network management.

Just a few months ago the issue of Net Neutrality was essentially dead in terms of possible legislation. The publicity sparked by Comcast's filtering, and especially from their non-denials, in which they only said they weren't blocking applications, which is true since they're only delaying content.

In recent months the amount of content users may want to download or stream has increased greatly, while ISP concerns about bandwidth availability for all customers have led to the sort of behavior Comcast is engaging in. While it's understandable that cable companies want to provide service to as many households as possible, broadband internet is commonly marketed for its usefulness in downloading or streaming video and audio. At some point what customers can or can't do with that service needs to be clear and fair for the price.

Source: Associated Press

Permalink to this article

Comcast limits public access to FCC hearing by paying to fill seats (27 February 2008)

FCC chairman ready to take on ISPs over net neutrality (25 February 2008)

FCC hearing Monday on ISPs' network management practices open to public (25 February 2008)

FCC to consider net neutrality and ISP network management (12 February 2008)

With FCC investigation looming, Comcast repeats same old argument (14 January 2008)

EFF details evidence of Comcast traffic management (29 November 2007)

Comcast in more hot water over blocked content (16 November 2007)

Comcast gets sued for blocking BitTorrent traffic (15 November 2007)

Canadian ISP admits limiting P2P traffic (5 November 2007)

FCC complaint filed against Comcast regarding "network management" (3 November 2007)

Comcast employees put in the middle of traffic shaping debate (29 October 2007)

Comcast P2P filtering energizes Net Neutrality debate (26 October 2007)

Verizon's FiOS is making cable companies nervous (24 October 2007)

Comcast P2P traffic filtering confirmed (19 October 2007)

Ex-Comcast customers just want to know what the limits are (9 September 2007)

Comcast denies filtering Bittorrent traffic (22 August 2007)

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Discuss this article!
nobrainer (Inactive) 27 October 2007 12:25
GW Bush has already stated that net neutrality would be bad as regulating the firms would lose them money they could otherwise con out of the american public. [ + quote]
cousinkix (Newbie) 28 October 2007 3:14
And we all know that he's just so full of $hit. What big business wants; they get, wether it's the internet or cheap foreign labor moving into every service industry in the USA. Illegal aliens aren't just picking the crops, mowing lawns and cleaning toilets any more... [ + quote]
nobrainer (Inactive) 28 October 2007 7:22
Q how far reaching is the American price fixing law then? http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/27/boardgame-pricefixin.html *Originally posted by link:* A board-game publisher has begun engaging in price fixing, a practice newly liberalized in the US in the wake of a June Supreme Court decision. Yehuda sez, In June, 2007, the U.S. Supreme court struck down a major 97 year old law on price fixing, which prohibits manufacturers from coercing retailers on how to set their prices. The new ruling essentially wrote that the old law was too rigid, and each instance of price fixing would now be evaluated on a case by case basis to determine if it harmed or helped the consumer. Tor: anonymity online HIDE your IP from the spies, post and browse anonymously! http://www.torproject.org/ [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 28 October 2007 7:28
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 1 November 2007 3:11
What a waste of time and money. [ + quote]
xhardc0re (Senior Member) 5 November 2007 17:54
I urge everyone who is a member of AfterDawn or not to contact Senator Inouye and request he hold a hearing on Net Neutrality as soon as possible. Here's how to contact him: Website Comment Form FAX: (202) 224-6747 if we could get maybe 10,000 unique visitors to contact him, it may persuade him to atleast consider it. Don't let the sneaky, greedy capitalists in American determine the fate of the Internet!! Do something about it. Get off your @$$ and contact your Senator(s) and representatives immediately. [ + quote]
Mez (Senior Member) 6 November 2007 8:56
Some creativity might be used when contacting Senator Inouye. He will more likely pay more attention to his own voters. If we only complain on this forum the greedy businessmen will stomp us into the ground! [ + quote]