Teh Internets Comcast Appeals FCC’s Net Neutrality Ruling, Notifies Customers of Gigabyte Cap
posted by on September 15 at 16:16 PM
Comcast recently appealed the FCC ruling against its peer-to-peer traffic practices:
Comcast, the second-largest broadband provider in the U.S., filed a court appeal of a U.S. Federal Communications Commission ruling last month saying the company couldn’t delay some peer-to-peer traffic on its network.The FCC, on Aug. 1, voted 3-2 to prohibit Comcast from slowing BitTorrent P-to-P traffic in an effort to reduce network congestion. Commissioners voting against Comcast said the traffic throttling violated FCC net neutrality principles.
Comcast on Thursday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the FCC decision, saying the commission had no hard rules against the company’s network management practices. The FCC’s net neutrality principles, adopted in 2005, set out general guidelines, but no specific prohibitions, Comcast said.
Comcast filed the appeal to protect its legal rights and to “challenge the basis on which the commission found that Comcast violated federal policy in the absence of pre-existing legally enforceable standards or rules,” David Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president, said in a statement. “We are compelled to appeal because we strongly believe that, in this particular case, the Commission’s action was legally inappropriate and its findings were not justified by the record.”
In addition, the telecom giant began notifying its Internet customers this week about a 250-Gigabyte data transfer limit, which will go into effect in October. Jonah first reported about it on Slog here.
fuck comcast.
how about some reporting on other options out there? how do folks feel about clearwire in general?
and what about tv options?
250 Gb?
Shit, I could do more than that in up/downloads per month without even counting bit torrents!
Must suck to be a Comcast subscriber.
What a scam. The amount of Gigbytes being downloaded for legitimate and legal streams has exceeded that of illegal bittorrenting, and that's why Comcast is fighting it. We don't need a "cable company" for anything but a wire if we can get our video from the Internet from places like http://www.hulu.com
What choices do I have in the city of seattle? Verizon FiOS is apparently not even a twinkling in their eye for the west side of Lake WA. Clearwire is slow and expensive, and so is DSL from what I hear?
i got rid of comcast and went to qwest's 6 megabit service over a year ago and couldn't be happier. unlike comcast i don't have to reset the cable modem 5 times a day, and i haven't noticed the throttling any torrents.
Qwest's DSL is very fast, and I'm very glad to not be writing checks to Broadstripe / MDM anymore.
Protip: say you're using Linux when you call up to order the self-install kit (even if you're not) and they'll give you the phone number for the tier 2 support guys. Then call them once you get going and say it's too slow. They'll switch you over to a gateway with less traffic and you'll be flying baby, flying!
i got a call on my way to work last week. it was my isp (comcast) calling to tell me that last month i went over the new 250GB limit by over 250GB (my usage was in the low 500GBs). they asked if my wireless router was unsecured or if i was running a botnet. they seemed shocked that i could possibly be using that much bandwidth knowingly. agreed it's a ton of bandwidth but i do a ton of streaming and torrenting. oh did i mention i have room mates? yeah, they watch stuff online too.
bottom line: "reduce your bandwidth usage by 50% or we will suspend your service without warning for 1 year. this is your only warning."
so i asked how much more i would have to pay to be uncapped. i was told that i'm already on the business grade cable (i pay extra to get the fastest cable connection they offer) but that business grade is also capped. the only uncapped plan is "enterprise" which is a over $500 per month and a T1 which requires installation. funny thing is i get 8mbps to 12mbps on my business cable line and a T1 is 1.5mbps.
so i called speakeasy. the sales guy laughed with me (not at me) and assured me they will never shut me down for using the bandwidth i pay for even if i saturate my line all month long. unfortunately i'm too far form the CO. so i'm stuck with comcast.
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