Comcast blocks Bittorrent, denies it

[RayBonga]

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-976...g=2547-1_3-0-5

Comcast on Tuesday denied rumors that the company is filtering BitTorrent traffic running over its network.

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used to distribute large data files such as video. The protocol has been used widely throughout the Internet to distribute pirated movies. And sites that use the protocol have been targeted by the movie industry to stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted video.

Broadband providers have also not been big fans of BitTorrent because the use of the peer-to-peer protocol can clog networks with huge files. The blog TorrentFreak claims that several Internet Service Providers have been "throttling" or limiting BitTorrent traffic on their networks for the past two years. And last week, the blog accused Comcast of going even further to limit the use of BitTorrent on its network.

The blog claimed that some Comcast users had noticed that their BitTorrent transfers were being cut off and that they experienced a significant decrease in download speeds.

Over the past few days, these claims have been widely circulated throughout the Web. But when I spoke to Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas earlier today, he flat-out denied that the company was filtering or "shaping" any traffic on its network. He said the company doesn't actively look at the applications or content that its customers download over the network. But Comcast does reserve the right to cut off service to customers who abuse the network by using too much bandwidth.

So what constitutes "too much" bandwidth? Douglas didn't specify exact figures, but he gave a few examples that would likely get subscribers into trouble. For example, someone who sends more than 13 million e-mails a month, which breaks down to about 430,000 e-mails a day or 18,000 e-mails an hour, would likely get a letter or phone call from Comcast about excessive use. Sending roughly 250,000 photos or downloading more than 30,000 songs a month might also raise an eyebrow at Comcast, he said.

"More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos and other rich media," he said. "But Comcast has a responsibility to provide these customers with a superior experience, and to address any excessive or abusive activities usage issues that may adversely impact that experience."

In the rare instances the company has to enforce its policy, Douglas said that Comcast contacts subscribers to work out the issue. But he firmly reiterated that the company doesn't filter or throttle back traffic.

The issue of shaping traffic or blocking certain applications is a hot one and goes right to the heart of the Net Neutrality debate, which has been raging for more than a year. Broadband providers claim that their networks have finite resources and they must be allowed to identify traffic in some manner to set quality of service parameters to ensure users get certain levels of service. But consumer advocates say that the network ought to be neutral and traffic should flow freely to ensure that all applications are accessible.

Personally, I can see the merits of both arguments. It makes sense that broadband providers would want to protect their network assets. But it seems like a slippery slope in terms of how far we allow these service providers to go. And I can see why consumer advocates might be concerned that AT&T or Comcast might block applications like Google's YouTube, which could potentially compete with their own services.

There's also the issue of privacy. If operators are identifying applications and protocols to ensure good quality of service, couldn't they also identify the content of my e-mails or see which songs or movies I downloaded?

There are many reports circulating all over the Internet which indicate that this is a flat out lie, including very active discussions on sites like Digg.

I think it makes much more sense to just block all this traffic, it's only used for piracy anyway and ISPs end up using much more bandwith than if it wasn't around. Sounds like a win win to content producers and ISPs

[raymor]

Originally Posted by RayBonga

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-976...g=2547-1_3-0-5
I think it makes much more sense to just block all this traffic, it's only used for piracy anyway and ISPs end up using much more bandwith than if it wasn't around. Sounds like a win win to content producers and ISPs

You're SO off base. Most of what has been distributed via Bittorrent over the last
six and a half years is entirely legal. Also the big content producers, the major Hollywood studios, have PARTNERED with bittorrent.com, so these content
producers sure wouldn't consider it a win if their business was blocked by ISPs.
This thing off using bittorrent for piracy is just a very recent fad.
We've been using bittorrent for years but never for any piracy. We always use
it for downloading operating system ISO images.

As far as ISPs, it's so funny to keep hearing the same things from you newbies
over the last ten years. They said that images, which required a thousand times
as much bandwidth as text, were going to kill the ISPs and a couple of stupid
ISPs like AOL compressed the hell out of images in an attempt to save money.
Then the same thing with mp3s - they take 40 times as much bandwidth as
images, so silly people said that ISPs should try to block them. Then video,
which takes much more bandwidth. HELLO! ISPs SELL bandwidth! The
more bandwidth people want, the better for ISPs. When the web went from
text to images, suddenly there were thousands of times as many people wanting
to but internet access from ISPs and those who already had it were willing
to pay more for faster speeds. Then MP3 and everyone wanted a cable modem
capable of a whopping 512kbps. More and more people got online.
Next video takes off and more people were enjoying the internet and paying for
faster speeds. The more people there are who want to have more bandwidth,
the better is is for the ISPs because bandwidth is the product they sell.
The ideal for them is that some new app comes out that takes serious
bandwidth and we all start paying them $200 / month for last mile fiber.

[RawAlex]

Raymor, you are kidding right?

bittorrent didn't partner with the movie producers to give away stuff, but rather to distribute DRM encoded stuff that requires the end user to BUY access to the movies. It is a money grab. In the meantime, bittorrent (and all other torrent sites) are packed full of the worst crap of the internet.

As for ISPs, the issue is always bandwidth. They want to sell it, but they don't want to pay for it. Their idea is always to buy one t1 worth of bandwidth, and sell it 100 times over, hoping not everyone wants it at the same time.

ISPs know that the current state of internet technology leaves them in the shit if the widespread use of the internet for things like joost comes into play. distributed P2P networks put incredible strains on ALL ISPs, even if you end users aren't downloading at the moment because often their machines are being used as nodes anyway.

ISPs end up having to buy tons more bandwidth themselves to keep things from being slow, all while not being able to pass those costs on to the end users.

It's not exactly difficult to figure out the issues.