Comcast says they'll stop blocking filesharing.
Since user reports of interference with file-sharing traffic were confirmed by an Associated Press investigation in October, Comcast has been vigorously defending its practices, most recently at a hearing of the Federal Communications Commission in February.Link.Consumer and ''Net Neutrality'' advocates have been equally vigorous in their attacks on the company, saying that by secretly blocking some connections between file-sharing computers, Comcast made itself a judge and gatekeeper for the Internet. They also accused Comcast of stifling delivery of Internet video, an emerging competitor to the cable company's core business.
Comcast has said that its practices were necessary to keep file-sharing traffic from overwhelming local cable lines, where neighbors share capacity with one another. On Thursday, Comcast said that by the end of the year, it will move to a system that manages capacity without favoring one type of traffic over another.
Update: here's a press release issued by Comcast about a hollow, face-saving, baloney-scented deal with BitTorrent announced today. The bit about "a capacity management technique that is protocol agnostic" effectively means that heavy P2P users will still be throttled, they just won't be identified by protocol.
Previously on Boing Boing:
*Is Comcast really blocking P2P? EFF + SF Weekly conclude: yeah.
*FCC may do-over Comcast Net Neutrality hearing due to presence of paid Comcastards
*UPDATE: Comcast paid for people to fill seats at FCC Net Neutrality hearing
*Comcast also screwing with Gnutella and Lotus Notes (!?!)
*Comcast actively blocks P2P traffic
*(BB-Gadgets) AT&T to Filter Internet Traffic; Comcast Investigated by FCC for Filtering Internet Traffic
*How the AP busted Comcast for blocking BitTorrent
*EFF proves Comcast is screwing with BitTorrent, releases instructions for testing your own ISP
*Why Comcast's BitTorrent-fux0r is bad for quality of service
* Modest proposal for Comcast's net-filtering
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Notice the fine print: They aren't saying they are ending interference with P2P, they are saying they will stop treating BitTorrent differently then other heavy transfers.
Which is a Good Thing, IMO, and I'm happy to have been proven wrong (I thought the P2P vs ISP war was going to heat up further.)
However, a guess: it may be a consequence of improved traffic shaping: they are already starting to prioritize short connections ("Speed boost", which is being very heavily advertised in this area).
You don't NEED to do RST injections if you can take the 1% heavy-users and traffic shape them down to a reasonable level when there's congestion. RST injection is very crude traffic management compared to the alternatives.
It also allows the ISP to deal with the cost externalities indirectly, because now the 90% don't complain as much about bad performance when they want to surf the net.
Finally, there is NOTHING in this that says they have to treat BitTorrent UPLOADS as special, just "not different from youtube".
Comcast has repeatedly claimed that they are only killing "leeches/seeds", flows which upload vastly more than they download. If Comcast instead just shapes all large uploads, this will have effectively the same effect, without the visible political repercussions.
Likewise, if ALL ISPs agressively shape uploads, this kills the P2P business model nearly as sure as anything else.
Also, the lack of topological awareness does hurt BitTorrent, as well as the lack of cacheability. If the ISP is able to say that
a) BitTorrent-type protocols can stay in my local loop and
b) These flows are ones I CAN cache without being sued
BitTorrent type flows become far less objectionable.
I wonder if the typical 1 year contracts they make people sign kept the customer loss rate below critical mass for 6 months and that's why they're finally doing something now. Either way I think they've ruined their brand. Most people I know thing of "comcasted" as being something akin to being punched in the face.
whew, they only JUST started fucking with my torrent speeds. its good to know the annoyance will be short lived.
CPT Tim: Do you usually have just a single Torrent being transferred or many torrents?
If its the latter, the "fuck with the speed" will probably persist, as what you are doing is very unfair to other TCP flows, and "fuck with the speed" sounds like they've finally started traffic shaping.
Please contact me (nweaver@gmail.com), as I have some more questions for you.
Additionally, comcast claimed that it was only RST-injecting the upload streams, which, if true, should have very little effect on your performance.
@#2: I don't know if Comcast has different policies up in your area, but it's been different for me. I have to move every 3 months for school and work, and get cable installed twice a year. Every time, I can use their service at the discounted rate for 6 months, and have no problem cancelling at 3 months. No contract termination fees, but I do get screwed over on the installation fees.
That being said, since they started the RST injection thing running one torrent would kill the internet for me. Hopefully that is gone now.
So we should assume comcast customers are the most ardent filesharers!
This is bullshit. So now if I play to many online video games I'll get my speed throttled? I can't set up a game server to run 24-7 on my connection or else it goes to shit?
Just give me what I pay for Comcast and keep your nose out of it.
(sorry about the cursing, this burns my grits)
Ha! Never mind the fact that a discussion about Comcast can no longer occur in any web forum without this topic being brought up and Comcast's name cursed and spitten upon. I'm sure that they did it for completely altruistic reasons.
I just moved to an apartment with Comcast where Bittorrent blazes for five seconds, then stops still. I'm looking forward to the day when I can leave my torrents running overnight like I used to. . .
The caveman says he'll be out of the cave...
But he'll never get to the top of the human race, because there's too many things to catch up.