- Wednesday, 11 November 2009
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The INQUIRER: The idea is to make you laugh as well as cry
Comcast tries to stonewall the FCC
THE GIANT US cable TV and Internet Service Provider (ISP), Comcast told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Tuesday that blocking customers' file transfers is a fully legitimate exercise of its network management rights.
Late last year, the Associated Press and others caught Comcast surreptitiously injecting reject packets into customers' file transfer sessions over the Internet.
As we reported at the time, consumer rights groups then filed formal complaints against Comcast with the FCC. Comcast's statement to the FCC yesterday was made in the context of the FCC's regulatory investigation of those complaints.
Comcast customers have alleged that its interruption of Peer-To-Peer (P2P) file transfers violates the principle of Network Neutrality, which requires all types of Internet traffic to be treated equally by service providers.
Customers have also charged that Comcast interferes with users' downloads of movie files because those might compete with the company's premium cable TV channels and on-demand movie purchases.
In its formal comments, Comcast claimed that it hampers some file transfers in order to manage its network. It said that it only curbs some file-sharing sessions to prevent a few subscribers from clogging up network traffic in neighbourhoods.
Comcast's claims are disingenuous, in that they serve to obscure that fact that Comcast oversells its cable bandwidth. Because the cable loop in any particular neighborhood is shared by all of its subscribers and has limited total bandwidth, Comcast sells more customers high advertised bandwidths than it can deliver.
This is a widely recognised limitation of cable Internet access, but Comcast and other cable ISPs won't readily admit it and, understandably, don't advertise it.
Furthermore, cable bandwidth is asymmetrically provisioned, such that more bandwidth is allocated to downlinks than to uplinks. If subscribers upload fil es on a particular neighborhood cable loop, they can exhaust the available uplink bandwidth. Comcast alluded to this problem in its formal comments to the FCC.
Having oversold its bandwidth infrastructure and thus promised its subscribers more than it can deliver, Comcast took the only tack it could take, that is, claim that its interference with its customers' Internet traffic is necessary and justified in order to manage its network.
It said that it's justified in using reset packets to break its customers file transfer operations. In effect, it executes a man-in-the-middle attack against the traffic, sending a reset packet to each computer engaged in the file transfer. The reset packets trick both computers into abandoning the file transfer, each triggered by the signal that its counterpart closed the connection when neither in fact did.
In an article published last October, the Associated Press made the analogy that Comcast's injection of reset packets to halt user file transfers is like a telephone operator "breaking into a telephone conversation and telling each participant in the voice of the other: 'Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye.'"
In its statement to the FCC, Comcast called that characterisation in the AP story "inflammatory hyperbole" and cited the support of some friendly ZDnet bogger.
In a more than strained analogy, Comcast likened its use of reset packets to a busy signal to a fax machine. A bad analogy, as fax machines don't get spoofed.
Comcast claims that file transfer programs can try to reconnect after it breaks a session with reset packets, and it says that it might allow subsequent attempts to proceed. That glosses over that fact that it halted its user's access to service.
Comcast made no mention of its interference with its subscribers' Internet use before it got caught blocking file transfers.
After its draconian network interference practices were proven, publicised and had become the subject of FCC complaints by the consumer groups Free Press and Public Knowledge and others, Comcast updated its Acceptable Use Policy on January 25th, proclaiming that it reserves the right to interrupt file transfer sessions on congested portions of its network, calling it network management.
With more sophisticated approaches -- and perhaps the enlightened cooperation of networking software developers -- Comcast and other ISPs could most likely devise non-blocking ISP network traffic management techniques and protocols.
Instead, Comcast is adopting the extreme position that it can do anything to its subscribers, up to and including preventing them from accessing any Internet services, at its sole discretion, under the bogus guise of network management.
Simply put, Comcast's attempting to stiff its customers and stonewall the FCC.
Comcast won't acknowlege that preventing Internet access is the opposite of providing it. The FCC needs to understand that Comcast is trying to dictate to its users, and to the FCC itself, the terms under which it will operate Internet access services. The FCC simply must not let Comcast get away with any of it.
The FCC will have failed in its regulatory obligations to protect the subscribers to Internet services if it rolls over on this crucial test of Network Neutrality and permits Comcast, which is the second largest ISP in the US, to become the real incarnation of Dilbert's dread "Mordak, the Preventer of Information Services." µ
See Also
FCC
investigates Comcast
Comcast
reported to FCC
Cable
vendors could face lawsuits over P2P blocking
Comcast
P2P blocking spurs calls for Net Neutrality
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One aspect no one seems to have mentioned here is that Comcast is interfering with people who are not a Comcast customer.

If person X who is not a Comcast customer is involuntarily disconnected from person Y who is, Comcast is negatively impacting a 3rd party's computer. This is not something they are covered by in any agreement with the 3rd party. They might make the claim that the 3rd party was somehow to be considered attacking Comcast and that Comcast's interferance was defensive but thats ludicris given that its a common file transfer.
My god! Someone has written the article that explains the problem, and what is happening so clearly. I'm fed up with Comcast, but I don't have any other options. Free market only works when there isn't a monopoly. If you are stuck with one provider, you really hope someone out there can prevent them from walking all over you. It's even worse when they have an incentive to treat you poorly.
If i was a Comcast customer i would be jumping ship about now! I pay for bandwidth for a reason.. that is to use it! If i cant use it because my ISP isn't allowing me to use it that what am i really paying for? Pay $50 bucks or what ever the rate is so i surf and brows facebook and myspace reallyyyyy fast.. i think NOT!!!
If you don't like Comcast's stonewalls, then get a DSL connection. I agree with you, everything they said is disingenuous and frankly pretty smarmy. It is also covered under their terms of use agreement that you have to agree to before they will turn on your service. If you don't like the service CCast is providing, then switch to another vendor.
AOL seldom sends disconnects in the middle of File Transfers, at least not intentionally. I just hope 56K is fast enough for you.
... some of us only have one choice in internet providers. In my neighborhood, Comcast is the only choice. A DSL CO is too far away for me to use DSL so its Comcast or nothing. Let me tell you its not just P2P and movie downloads being "shaped" by the Sandvine software. My wife and I both work for a large PC vendor. I remote in a lot, but my wife is a webmaster and works from home. She is pretty much on the corporate VPN 24x7 and Comcast is shutting it down or slowing it as well. Being that I am a network engineer, I have proven their "shaping" repeatedly with Wireshark. It's easy to pick out.

To top it off, I am a "premium" Comcast customer, so I am paying through the nose to still eventually get my packets "shaped".

Stupid Comcast... losers.
I received one of "those" calls from Comcast months ago and have since switched to business class to avoid other hassles from using the internet connection. It was amazing I received a call after using their service for nearly two years in the same location and paying for not just internet, but over priced television service. You'd think $150 a month would be worth going over the imaginary b/w limit at least once. They continue to claim this is in the name of the customer when they shape and commit fraud on the users connection, but I'm now downloading and uploading more then ever using a business connection (btw, i don't use p2p, haven't for years.) Same location... same cable, only thing different is the router/modem I have to use. Amazing how I haven't caused any network issues now that I'm a business customer... Comcast is just full of .... and cares more about the buck then the user. Apparently the instant buck says more then a loyal customer who'd make you 10 fold in the long run. Unfortunately they are my own choice at this time.


Whats the deal here? 
I started reading this article, and the next thing I know I'm fully grepping the context with depth and clarity.

Is this what happens when there are no annoying puns and double entendres<sp> to spike the story with?

Don't get me wrong, I like the Inq humour, however its nice to be able to read important stories without the c0medy.

Thanks to the writer/
Regulation only serves to protect a company that would seek to mistreat its customers (i.e. protecting it from itself). Let the company do what it wishes, develop consumer resentment, and then watch its competitor grow and take the profits. In the spirit of true business, this is how it works. 

In order to keep business, Comcast will regulate itself.
And that my friends is why I didn't give Comcast the option of my business. Sure I pay a few more bucks a month, but I get what I pay for with Verizon.
And that my friends is why I didn't give Comcast the option of my business. Sure I pay a few more bucks a month, but I get what I pay for with Verizon.
This dogging, biting journalism is why the Inqwell is my tech site of record. Thanks Egan for ushering us into the post-Mageezer era with a little panache.

I'm an Earthlink powered by Comcast customer. This gives me the illusion of having a choice of ISPs. Since cc's UDP voice packets go over redundant infrastructure (a 'shadow' internet) the network management argument falls flat.

It's not just torrents-try to stream on the big You and chances are you'll get resets.

We don't have to wait until January 20 but don't expect much regulation until then. I really think

CONNECTION RESET BY HOST
At this point, I'm seriously considering going to verizon. If Comcast is going to fail to offer the services and speed, Then I will take my business elsewhere.

I had a cable tech come in yesterday to investigate intermittent dropouts of my upload capacity, and he told me that the cable company was oversubscribing customers on its local loops, causing slowdowns for everyone. The loop is designed to carry 400 customers but most have nearly 500, with one loop serving nearly 700! He also told me that if the local phone company ever started installing fiber to the home that there would be no way cable could compete, especially with quadruple play deals like Verizon's phone/internet/TV/mobile package for $100/month. Despite my hatred of incumbent phone company practices at those prices I would have to bite the bullet...
On Jan 24 2008 my Comcast High Speed internet access was terminated for “overly excessive bandwidth usage”. According to the “rocket scientists” at the security and policy department, they claim that I had used 589GB of bandwidth in Dec and 533GB in Jan. When asked what the limit was, they told me that Comcast does not publish a limit… just that we were using too much. For someone who has had Comcast cable modem service for 9 years in the same town, to be terminated without trying to offer a solution or an option to change my service plan (I had residential paying $55.95 per month) is worth the FCC investigating their operating practices. In fact, in NJ it should be regulated by the Board of Public Utilities, because the delivery mechanism is the same cable or equipment to deliver cable TV. 

This article is just the tip of the “icy” burg that Comcast is driving. They are a company that does not care about customers or how they are treated. I would like to hear from anyone else that’s been terminated, I have made an appointment with a class action law firm to state my case and to see if they can stop this company from treating the captive customer they have so poorly… 
I wonder if spouting nonsense to the FCC is a worthwhile tactic, after all, the people at the FCC must have technical knowledge, they aren't like congressmen and such who are clueless.
Seems a bit insulting to the FCC to try to sell them this nonsense.