Net neutrality update

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Comcast throttled Bittorrent. They never throttled Skype. You think they did because that was the topic of a ten-year-old thread where you suggested that they were planning to throttle Skype.

You were wrong. IEEE Spectrum said they bought software to skew Skype packets - before they had throttled Bittorrent. I was right. You were wrong. Comcast denied they had bought the software. Skype demonstrated that Comcast was manipulating packets so that Skype connections were intermittent / interrupted.

Comcast was not the only one doing this. Most Persian Gulf nations also purchased the software to do same.

That is now acceptable under the new rules that say a data transporter can do anything they want. They can throttle packets from one company while not from others. They can skew packets to intentionally subvert or make unreliable communications from selected companies. And they can now deny they are doing it. All that and more is now legal.

Wacko Trump supporters say this is good. To them, this is called innovation.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by tw

Skype demonstrated that Comcast was manipulating packets so that Skype connections were intermittent / interrupted.

Please do bring us a link that says this happened.

[tw]

Comcast created it own VoIP service about the same time it was intentionally subvert P2P data transportation. Services such as Vonnage also noted intermittent data transport problems with their VoIP service.

From www.fudzilla.com on 20 Jan 2009:

The US Federal Communications Commission has penned a stiff letter to Comcast over its system which gives its own Voice over IP service customers "special treatment" compared to competitors who use the ISP's network.

The Watchdog has asked Comcast to provide "a detailed justification for Comcast's disparate treatment of its own VoIP service as compared to that offered by other VoIP providers on its network." Comcast has been in the FCC's bad books since it started to throttle the traffic of P2P users. But when it came to look at the cable outfit's description of its throttling system it became alarmed at something else it spotted.

Apparently during times of actual network congestion Comcast will switch on its throttling software. Its rivals who are using its networks might experience slower webpage downloads, peer-to-peer upload takes somewhat longer to complete, or a VoIP call sounds choppy. However Comcast's own VoIP product, Comcast Digital Voice (CDV) apparently has a "separate facilities-based IP phone service" and "is not affected" by throttling software. The FCC wants to know how this is possible.

Comcast considers their own VoIP service as an information provider. So it was legally considered different from rules for data transporters. Comcast could maintain full service to their own VoIP while obstructing other VoIP services. A perfect example of why information providers must be separate from data transporters.

An internet provider once was required to transport all data without regard to content. Then innovation could happen. Information service providers were once considered a completely different service subject to different rules.

Without net neutrality, Comcast is free to subvert data packets from any competitor. And Trump supporters say this is good - inventing a lie that it will increase innovation.

We all have seen reduced competition due to attacks on net neutrality by Michael Powell during the George Jr administration. Now and again, a next wave of internet obstructions to innovation has begun.