Apologies for the headline, but it was too appropriate to resist. It seems that there is a feature of uTorrent 2.0 now in beta that automatically detects network congestion and self-limits bandwidth to lessen it. This might provide some much-needed relief to ISPs that feel a disproportionate amount of traffic is P2P. I’m not sure whether to call this self-policing action capitulation or accommodation, but either way it probably needed to happen.
Net neutrality
by Devin Coldewey on November 2, 2009
by Nicholas Deleon on October 23, 2009
The beauty of the Drudge Report right now is that Mr. Drudge is working against his very interests. He’s got some ridiculous headline right now, JULIUS AT FCC WANTS TO ‘REGULATE’ INTERNET, that’s meant to wile up his easily excitable readership. What’s going on is that the FCC has moved one step closer to bringin Net Neutrality to fruition, and has invited the public to weigh in until January 14.
by Nicholas Deleon on September 26, 2009
This past week saw the resurrection of Net Neutrality as a divisive issue. Some folks (people like Google, and, well, us) are in favor of Net Neutrality, while other folks (primarily the ISPs) are against it. Not long after the FCC announced its intentions, six Republican senators, three of which who received quite a lot of money from AT&T, proposed an amendment to a bill to stop the FCC in its tracks. The senators later rescinded their amendment, saying that they were now open to a “dialogue” with the FCC.
by Nicholas Deleon on September 24, 2009
A bit of an update to that whole AT&T-linked senators story from the other day. Well, our complaining must have worked because the senators will no longer try to block Net Neutrality. USA!
by Devin Coldewey on September 23, 2009
In what was ostensibly a meeting of the majors last week to advise the FCC on broadband policy, the COO of Paramount was allowed to wax ignorant for 10 minutes on piracy and file-sharing technology. As a major content provider, they should certainly have some input, but this was sheer soap-boxery. Sure, peer to peer and torrent traffic (legal and otherwise) is going to be a major driver of broadband adoption and major consumer of the resource, but Paramount’s contribution to the discussion didn’t limit itself to germane observation and reasonable speculation.
On the upside, we have a fabulous new quote on the level of Ted Stevens’ “series of tubes” that demonstrates how utterly out of touch people like Paramount’s COO are with actual Internet terminology and capabilities. Behold:
“We are uploading it essentially to a ‘cyber locker,’ which is nothing more than electronic locker on the Internet.”
Mr. Huntsberry, we are in your debt for this immortal chestnut of cyber-wisdom. That’s nothing more than electronic wisdom on the Internet, for those of you who don’t know.
by Nicholas Deleon on September 22, 2009
Nicholas “Net Neutrality” Deleon here with truly shocking news: six Republican senators have tacked on an amendment to an appropriations bill that would block the FCC’s attempt to make Net Neutrality a reality. So remember, kids: when you think of a free and open Internet, don’t think of the GOP. It’s not your friend here.
by Nicholas Deleon on September 21, 2009
My God in Heaven! It’s been about four hours since the FCC announced its intention to add two more pillars to its idea of Net Neutrality: one, ISPs should not be allowed to wily nilly permit/disallow traffic on their networks (non-discrimination); and two, traffic management should be done is as transparent a manner as possible, so you don’t wind up with people discovering that their software is being tampered with, without their knowledge or consent, after the fact. I don’t know about yous guys (not a typo), but that seems pretty reasonable to me. And if you disagree, then you’re probably a high-ranking executive at Comcast.
by Nicholas Deleon on September 21, 2009
As expected, the chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowski, announced today his agency’s support for Net Neutrality. Odds are if you’re reading us then you have a basic idea of what Net Neutrality is, but if not it can be summed up like this: ISPs will be expected to treat all data equally, and not favor 0s and 1s from Company A or Company B, no matter what sweetheart a deal may be in place. The idea is that, since all data is treated equally, consumers will have better, unfettered access to the sites and services they choose to support.
by Nicholas Deleon on March 21, 2009
We’ve spoken about deep packet inspection before, noting that authorities are using it to tackle crimes like the proliferation of online child pornography. It’s convenient for the deep packet folks to hitch their wagon to such an issue, since no one is going to come out against it when it’s being used to combat that type of content. (No one wants to be seen as being “soft” on that type of stuff.) But what happens when your ISP starts using deep packet inspection to goad you into using their preferred services? An advocacy group fears for the Internet’s integrity were that to happen.
by Matt Burns on August 15, 2008
John McCain’s technology plan was released yesterday. Since the plan is from a politician, obviously you might want to approach with skepticism, but click through for our summery. In no way does this reflect the views and/or opinions of Crunchgear, we’re just summarizing the long-ass article for you.
Read More
by Nicholas Deleon on July 11, 2008
Comcast Center aka The Citadel. Flickr’d
The FCC wants to punish Comcast for blocking its customers’ access to the Internet. That, of course, in part refers to the company’s practice of blocking BitTorrent.
Kevin Martin—yes, that Kevin Martin—had this to say:
We found that Comcast’s actions in this instance violated our principles [of open access to the Internet]
As you might expect, Comcast has denied all wrongdoing, arguing that it’s merely trying to manage its network for the benefit of everyone. You, protect you from yourself, that line of logic.
Give this story some time, and it’s bound to hot up.
by Nicholas Deleon on June 16, 2008
Google will develop tools that allow people to determine if their Internet connection is being tampered with by their ISP. Net Neutrality, filthy customers, and so on.
The comments here? The name-calling, the “I’m smarter than you,” the “Net Neutrality is good, Neutrality is evil!” back-and-forth… wow, I can’t stand that. Go plant a tree or something.
by Nicholas Deleon on April 17, 2008
So much controversy surrounding Comcast’s “proposed” Bill of Rights and Responsibilities regarding P2P use. The Slashdot reaction was typical: I pay for a service and they’d better damn well deliver said service. That’s hard to argue. Another idea I liked: Comcast is only proposing this Bill in order to prevent government regulation from taking effect. Maybe if it minded its Ps and Qs before and not screwing with people’s data it wouldn’t be in this mess.
The Times’ Bits blog got a hold of a Comcast senior vice president who clarified the company’s traffic shaping policy. It won’t discriminate between protocols or anything (it won’t arbitrarily target BitTorrent packets, that is), but rather will focus on people sucking up too much bandwidth. How that’s defined, I don’t know. Seems to me the best long-term solution would be to upgrade network capacity. Costly, I’d imagine.
As an aside, outside of us more savvy Internet users, it’s fairly alarming to find that the average guy (I often use my “tech is stupid let’s watch the Yankees game” friends as a barometer for the average guy) has near zero knowledge about Net Neutrality. You try to explain it to them and they’re like, dude shut up, no one cares. When, of course, they absolutely should care if they value things like Amazon and Google and eBay. Seems to me like a hand-holding “what’s Net Neutrality all about” in something like USA Today is in order.
by Matt Hickey on February 26, 2008
Net Neutrality is important, and the FCC is rattling its sabers at ISPs like Comcast who’ve taken part in “traffic shaping” schemes, or favoring certain packets over others.
At a hearing at Harvard, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said, “The commission is ready, willing and able to step in if necessary to correct any practices that are ongoing today. It’s tough talk, but I’ve met the Chairman and he’s a no-nonsense kind of guy.
Hopefully it doesn’t come to litigation, but if it does, the FCC will win. Then our cable bills may go up slightly, but our data will be safe.
FCC ready to curb ISP traffic management [Yahoo! News]
by Nicholas Deleon on January 9, 2008
The FCC didn’t buy Comcast’s explanation, either.
The Federal Communications Commission will investigate Comcast over alleged traffic interference (and at the same time reveal its attitude toward Net Neutrality). You may remember last year’s Associated Press investigation (and the subsequent lawsuit) that found Comcast actively interfering with subscribers’ connection when it detected unwanted file-sharing. That investigation brought greater awareness to something that techies and file-sharers (”pirates,” maybe) had been complaining about for some time.
For its part, Comcast said it “looks forward” to responding to and cooperating with the FCC.
F.C.C. to Look at Complaints Comcast Interferes With Net [AP/New York Times]
by Matt Hickey on November 20, 2007
There has never been a better way to get your political point across than with a group music video. We Are The World can suck it though, this is the greatest thing I’ve seen in awhile. And we totally agree with them.
by Nicholas Deleon on October 25, 2007
She’s actually holding the wrong sign
Deutsche Telekom plans to charge companies for the ability to use its network to deliver video to its customers. Net Neutrality and all that jazz. The German company, which has little to no competition (apparently), says it has to charge because all that bandwidth costs entirely too much.
No, this doesn’t affect us Americans per se, but the established precedent could weigh heavily on the minds of our lawmakers. I can’t wait till lobbyists start saying, “see, if Deutsche Telekom can do it, why can’t we?”
Deutsche Telekom Prepares for Two-Tier Internet [Bits NY Times Blog]
by Nicholas Deleon on October 19, 2007
The AP has confirmed what we already knew: Comcast uses traffic shaping to slow down your Internet connection. Thanks, Comcast!
Yup, the AP ran a bunch of tests nationwide to determine if user complaints (like mine, but directed at Time Warner) were valid, or just a bunch of nerds complaining for the sake of it. Like I and many others have pointed out, the AP discovered that downloading files isn’t a problem, but uploading is, rendering things like BitTorrent all but useless. I really hope Comcast et al. don’t try to hind behind the ol’ “but BT is used for piracy” song and dance. There’s plenty of legitimate uses for BY, like downloading WoW patches.
Does Comcast have a right to manage its network? Sure, absolutely. But who’s to say what other programs and/or protocols Comcast will have a problem with next? Maybe one day it’ll turn around and decide that Skype isn’t “appropriate” for its network, or that AIM propogates too many viruses for it to be considered “safe”?
Thankfully the story is on Drudge right now in bold red text. Maybe now his bombastic headline will get non techies talking.
Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic [Breitbart via Drudge]
by Nicholas Deleon on June 29, 2007
Say goodbye to Net Neutrality, folks. The FTC just released an NIE of sorts, detailing the whole history of Net Neutrality and why, ultimately, the agency does not support the concept. Yes, our glorious leaders in Washington have decided that it’s a good idea to let The Market decide what’s best for all of us. All bow before the Invisible Hand.
The FTC came out against Net Neutrality because:
Policy makers should be wary of enacting regulation solely to prevent prospective harm to consumer welfare, particularly given the indeterminate effects on such welfare of potential conduct by broadband providers and the law enforcement structures that already exist
This report isn’t law or anything, but it’s kinda lame to see our officials genuflect before the Almighty Telecos. I wonder if it has anything to do with how much money the industry gives to Congress. Nah, couldn’t be.
FTC Nixes Net Neutrality [Consumer Affairs via Digg]
by Seth Porges on April 19, 2007
It wasn’t so long ago that the only way you could talk to your friend down the block was over a landline. In a flash, nearly the entire world became blessed with the gift of wireless, and cell phones became standard procedure. Today, if one so desires, they can eschew their rotary phone altogether, and go VoIP (if having just a mobile doesn’t cut it.)
Such diversity and choice is great — the availability of multiple technologies should keep prices down and innovation up.
However, unfortunately for freedom-loving technophiles, and just about anybody who wants to order a pizza or call 911 without any hassle, a series of recent developments involving our friends over at Verizon suggests that they are none-too-happy with consumers having such options. In fact, if they keep up what they are doing, it would seem they are not only out to completely monopolize the nation’s telecommunication services, but may even be set on destroying much of our nation’s telephone infrastructure in the process.
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