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CES 2008: FCC chairman promises investigation of complaints against Comcast

9 January 2008 1:15 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 9 comments

Apparently hoping to benefit from the visibility of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who gave Tuesday's keynote address at CES, FCC chairman Kevin Martin spoke with reporters about complaints filed with his agency in regard to the cable giant's "network management" practices.

Last year Comcast came under fire for "delaying" some network traffic, causing a small number of applications, including software using the BitTorrent P2P file sharing protocol, to have connection problems. When asked repeatedly about the issue at the time, Comcast representatives would say only that they don't block any applications on their network.

Comcast's defense for their actions has been that they are allowed to perform "reasonable traffic management." under current FCC regulations. For many this is at the heart of the case against Comcast, because they feel there's malicious intent toward file sharers that's clearly indicated by the methods being employed. Although they don't technically block BitTorrent connections, or those of any other application, their practice of delaying the delivery of certain traffic results in disrupting some customers' connections.

"The question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" Martin said Tuesday. "When they have reasonable network practices, they should disclose those and make those public."

"We look forward to responding to any FCC inquiries regarding our broadband network management," said David L. Cohen, executive vice president at Philadelphia-based Comcast.

Ironically, in this morning's address Roberts spent some time detailing the company's plan to start offering internet service at up to 100Mbps over the next two years.

Source: Associated Press

Permalink to this article

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BitTorrent developers working on encryption to defeat ISP interference (18 February 2008)

Comcast defends BitTorrent blocking in response to FCC (13 February 2008)

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

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Investment company calls Comcast CEO's tenure a Comcastrophe (19 January 2008)

Time Warner to start bandwidth caps (17 January 2008)

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

Sweden file sharing case gets retrial (11 January 2008)

Update: Universal is staying with HD DVD (10 January 2008)

CES 2008: Sony Japan to drop 20GB and 60GB PS3 models (10 January 2008)

CES 2008: Verbatim updates line of Blu-ray media (10 January 2008)

CES 2008: Blu-ray titles to include PSP version of video (10 January 2008)

CES 2008: Pioneer shows off several DVD writers (10 January 2008)

CES 2008: AT&T looking for ways to scan customers' communications for copyright violations (9 January 2008)

CES 2008: BDA says there will be 10 million Blu-ray users in 08 (9 January 2008)

CES 2008: Manufacturers criticized over design and marketing decisions (9 January 2008)

CES 2008: Comcast CEO to discuss Fancast TV and movie listing service in CES address (8 January 2008)

FCC Chairman has Comcast in his sights (2 December 2007)

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)

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

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

GAO blasts FCC for anti-consumer bias (4 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!
B33rdrnkr (Newbie) 9 January 2008 1:59
yeah, and I bet soon enough he gets a large sum of money deposited in an off shore account under someone else's name that is untraceable.. [ + quote]
b18bek9 (Member) 9 January 2008 3:27
yea if u've ever seen the movie boomerang how crooked most of the ppl running our country were think about how much its so true. But yea all those big corps throw money towards all the campaigns of ppl they need in their pockets..... [ + quote]
7thsinger (Senior Member) 9 January 2008 8:47
*Quote:* "The question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" Martin said Tuesday. "When they have reasonable network practices, they should disclose those and make those public." No, i don't think throttling is "reasonable network practices" *Quote:* "reasonable traffic management." Is that what the customers are paying for? I doubt it. [ + quote]
varnull (Senior Member) 9 January 2008 9:20
This is the endemic ISP ripoff tactics.. You should get exactly what you pay for.. It says 4mb/s it should be.. apart from in exceptional circumstances 4mb/s.. not 2 or 1 or 512k (if we are lucky sometimes).. You don't go and buy a gallon of fuel, pay for a gallon and only get 6 pints !!because the pump is old !! A business that tried that excuse would be sued into history.. Same goes for these ripoff isp's.. they will not invest in the network infrastructure (cables/nodes/servers) because all they care about is maximising profits.. Same situation here.. The cable to my house was laid by a long defunct cable tv company in 1991.. never been upgraded, goes off in wet weather.. best speed ever was 3.12mb/s in the middle of the night.. My package with my original ISP was unlimited.. they were bought out by yet another business.. and suddenly there is some "fair use" download limit and traffic shaping.. and they put the price up.. I don't consider the new business have any signed legally binding agreement with me.. I never agreed to their terms and conditions re: fair use. As they are the only non-telephone based isp here they have an unlimited monopoly.. put up or shut up... RIPOFF RIPOFF RIPOFF!!!! DO NOT BUY YOUR INTERNET FROM VIRGIN MEDIA .. THEY ARE LIARS AND THIEVES [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 9 January 2008 9:22
tester22 (Inactive) 9 January 2008 10:52
100-Mbps down with 384-Kbps up for Comcast's shady and shit*y network. Do they not realise that download speeds are strictly regulated by the website(s) visited. It's the uploads that I want increased.............to that of a T1. Geez, to utilize the 100-Mbps you'd have to be downloading from 50 Microsoft equivalent websites at the same time while pullin' down dozens of files via the Bittorrent network at like 300-Kbps. 6-12-Mbps per user is really fine for the most part. Anything else is indicative of terrorist activity. HA HA HA. [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 9 January 2008 14:23
HEIL!! commiecast HEIL! [ + quote]
ivymike (Junior Member) 10 January 2008 0:33
100 MB/s from Comcast?!? Who the HELL are they kidding? I'll have to look where I step. I don't want to trip on the string that's attatched. [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 10 January 2008 1:45
for this is a no brainier split the service in half offer cheaper plans with more caps and limits, say for 20 a month you get 300-600kbps speeds but are limited to 4-8GB a month then the speeds drop to around 20kbps. For heavy usage plans they start at 40 and focus on speed, 40 gets you 400kbps and are 12-20GB a month, for 10 more the speed doubles but the limit stays the same for 10 more the limit doubles. Simple plans to promote the cheap limited rates over rest. [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 10 January 2008 18:46
This is opening a major can of worms and i am sure we have not heard the last of this. [ + quote]