Telecommies

Comcast, the target of scorn in the net neutrality struggle, isn’t alone in disrupting P2P traffic. A study released by Vuze (a Comcast critic and business competititor) concedes all major broadband providers disrupt P2P software.

Even Canadian internet providers, where “net neutrality” is already law, disrupted P2P traffic in a similar fashion.

[For background on P2P software and net neutrality, click here]

-UPDATE 11:45

You can read the full Vuze Study here

Vuze is a startup internet distributor that supports FCC regulations preventing P2P internet traffic interruptions (i.e. net neutrality). “According to Vuze’s data, a number of Comcast connections recorded the most frequent interruptions, but the top 20 highest reset rates also included users with Cablevision, BellSouth (an AT&T property), and AOL subscriptions.”

AT&T denied charges from Vuze on blocking P2P, and keenly responded “[g]iven that Vuze itself has recognized these problems with the measurements generated by its Plug-In, we believe that Vuze should not have published these misleading measurements, nor filed them with the FCC.”

Clash of the cable titans: Verizon slowly growing on Comcast’s turf from The Eagle-Times

Verizon’s FiOS launch (offering super high speed internet and TV service) in South Florida seems to be stumbling over basic customer service issues. A recent customer complaint is the Herald Tribune:

“I have continually been stalled, lied to, deceived and to date nobody at Verizon seems to have a clue what is going on,” Weisenbacher’s complaint reads. “It seems to me that Verizon is deliberately playing games with the general public assuming people will get so frustrated that they will simply drop the issue.” (read full)

Weisenbacher is one of 543 customers filing complaints with the Florida attorney general.

Verizon’s negligence is Comcast’s opportunity

Meanwhile, Comcast offers disgruntled customers a good alternative:

Competitor Comcast has begun offering to pay the termination fees for Verizon customers wanting to return to the Comcast.

“If you have become a Verizon customer and are unhappy, we have some win-back offers that will allow you to recoup your termination fee and come back to us,” said Mark Lipford, vice president and general manager for Comcast West Florida. “It’s interesting for every video customer we lose, we get 37 percent back within 30 days, either because they’re having technical problems, customer service problems or they can’t get SNN 6.”

This is the free market at work.

Richard Bennet wrote a great article yesterday in the San Jose Mercury News entitled, In neutrality debate, carriers get blamed for Net’s weakness. Highlights blow:

Little light came from the Harvard hearing, where FCC Chairman Kevin Martin badgered Comcast’s solitary witness with loaded questions and failed to display any insight into broadband carriers’ management challenges.

Bennet addresses the P2P software issue.

Peer-to-peer applications are designed to consume a disproportionate share of network bandwidth, so carriers have to limit their traffic to provide good service to most of their other users. Japan, with the fastest residential broadband in the world, applies similar practices, having learned that adding capacity isn’t enough. Peer-to-peer consumes the largest share of the pipe, no matter how big the pipe is…

Broadband carriers struggle to balance cost, performance and fairness, all the while hectored by well-meaning activists oblivious to the Internet’s real technical underpinnings…

The public is unlikely to benefit from the FCC’s protracted hearing process unless there’s a change of emphasis. Comcast has already announced upgrades to its network that will make it more application-agnostic, so the basis of the complaints is already moot.

On Tuesday a bill to ban new cell phone taxes was introduced into the House. Rep. Lofgren (CA-16) led the bill as the sponsor, with seven cosponsors: Cannon (UT-3); Chabot (OH-1); Cohen (TN-9); Eshoo (CA-14); Keller (FL-8); Meeks (NY-6); and Sensenbrenner (WI-5).

A press release from Rep. Logren’s office explains:

Today, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced the bi-partisan, pro-consumer “Cell Tax Fairness Act,” which provides for a 5-year moratorium on any new discriminatory wireless tax or fee. A typical consumer already pays 15.19% in federal, state, and local taxes on their cell phone bill as compared to 7.07% for most other taxable goods and services. Between January 2003 and July 2007, the effective rate of taxation on wireless service increased four times faster than the rate for other taxable goods and services. The bill does not disturb current state and local taxes on wireless service. (more)

Continually mounting cellphone taxes are a major grip of mine. My cell phone taxes have gone from $2 to well over $10 a month. I’m glad someone’s addressing it.

Cell phones are not a “luxury” utility.

Here’s another video from Hands Off My Internet.

Home Hotspot, for your Cell

I’ve heard about the idea of regular cell phones making calls via Wireless-Internet(WiFi) signals for many years, but this is the first mainstream product I’ve seen that actually does it. This thing is neat, check out the video!

Verizon just lowered the price for unlimited mobile internet on a few cell phones to $29.99 a month. Now the plan is limited to the Verizon SMT5800, Verizon Wireless XV6800, and Motorola’s Q9m (shown in image). This plan will expand to more smart phone models in the future.

Comcast’s new alliance with BitTorrent(a popular peer-to-peer file sharing software) shows private mediation is still the best solution for online conflicts. While impractical activists clamor for regulation, strictly enforcing neutral internet service, they fail to recognize some basic internet management is both desirable and necessary.
ISPs Need Freedom to Overcome Challenges

Back in 2004 internet service providers(ISPs) had a glut of extra bandwidth (a measurement of internets capacity for traffic). However four years later (an eternity in the world of technology), this is no longer the case. During peak hours internet use now reaches full capacity (you may notice the internet seems a little slower in the early afternoon).

What’s disappointing is, most internet bandwidth is consumed by a small minority. Comcast estimates, on congested links, two percent of the users occupy fifty percent of the bandwidth. This problem sparked the net neutrality controversy. Comcast found, during peak hours in particular, only five percent of the users consumed seventy percent of internet traffic. BitTorrent, useful for trafficking huge files, was a likely culprit. In hopes of restoring a greater degree of equal access among customers as a whole, Comcast reduced the speed of BitTorrent users. Objection to such management gave birth to the present “Net Neutrality” movement, a reactionary group opposed to any ISP management what-so-ever.

Should ISPs lose the right to manage service and protect their deeply invested internet infrastructure? In an online environment plagued by malicious spam, viruses, and spyware, do absolute net neutrality policies make sense? What good is a free internet if it doesn’t work? And should a free internet respect property rights, or conflicting utopian ideals?

Consider enacted net neutrality in Canada:

[A] Canadian court judge sentenced a London, Ontario man to nine months in prison for hate crimes. The defendant was brought to justice through the dogged efforts of Canadian civil rights lawyer Richard Warman. In response, operators of several hate websites targeted Warman, making explicit death threats against him.

Warman was justifiably was concerned that these threats could result in violence to him or his family. So he turned to Google in the U.S. and to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) (Canada’s FCC) and asked that the death threat web sites be blocked. Google, which was hosting one of the sites through its Blogger service, immediately complied, saying, “We want Blogger to enable free expression, including the hosting of views that are unpopular. However, advocating violence against a person is not acceptable.”

But in Canada – where there is the equivalent of net neutrality regulation – the bureaucratic red tape has resulted in inaction and the death threats remain online there(source).

Internet activities don’t deserve blanket protection, regardless of merit.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago Comcast and BitTorrent announced a cooperative effort for enhanced service. The ISP and software designers are adjusting their operations to better complement each other. Tony Werner, chief technology officer of Comcast Cable, explained,

This means that we will have to rapidly reconfigure out network management technique that is more appropriate for today’s emerging Internet trends… We have been discussing this migration and its effects with leaders in the Internet community for the last several months, and we will refine, adjust and publish the technique based upon feedback and initial trial results(source).

You don’t have to understand the technical side to appreciate successful mediation between private parties. No regulations could produce such a constructive solution. An Internet run by the people, not the government, will always produce a better outcome for the consumer.

FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell commented,

The private sector is the best forum to resolve such disputes… It is precisely this kind of private sector solution that has been the bedrock of Internet governance since its inception. Government mandates cannot possibly contemplate the myriad of complexities and nuances of the Internet marketplace(source).

Considering the complex issues as a whole, the best way to preserve our treasured online resource, a free internet, is a continued U.S. commitment to non-regulatory polices.

While surfing the internet, I came across this great Net Neutrality site. It has a great blog, with plenty more video (click here for more).