Suspicions had been voiced for sometime that Comcast was interfering with the file sharing activity of some of its high speed internet subscribers.The Associated Press confirmed Friday that this had been proved by nationwide tests conducted by it.
Comcast is the nation's largest cable TV operator and the second largest Internet Service Provider.
Their representatives avoid a direct response to this claim. However at the Web 2.0 summit in SanFrancisco Friday, Comcast Interactive Media President Amy Base responded to questions about P2P throttling by pointing to the company's need to 'manage' heavy Internet use. She seemed to suggest that heavy users could upgrade to higher cost commercial services for uninterrupted usage.
It appears that Comcast is only interfering with file sharing activity amongst users. It is using Sandvine traffic shaping hardware for this purpose. File sharing networks such as BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella are likely to be severely affected if other ISP's were to also adopt this practice.
There is no formal law to ensure equal treatment of traffic or 'Net Neutrality' as it is called. In fact ISP's have been trying to somehow charge a fees for premium services. Their plans are currently on hold due to stiff opposition from consumers backed by influential voices such as Google Inc. and Amazon Inc.
ISP's have long complained that heavy traffic generated by a small number of subscribers using file sharing programs affects the quality of services to other subscribers. They claim that network management is both necessary as well as legitimate. However Comcast's approach is difficult to justify because instead of slowing down a particular type of traffic it is blocking it. Moreover the method used by Comcast is a kind of trick it plays on its users. For instance if one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user each PC gets a message ostensibly from the other computer asking it to stop communicating. These messages are in fact sent by Comcast rather than either of the file sharers.Since both users are unaware of the deception they usually stop communicating.
Customers on their part argue that they have opted for broadband in the first place only because it allows them to share files. They also claim that at the time of signing on they are assured of unlimited and uninterrupted service. They consider the offer of upgrading at a higher cost to be a breach of that agreement.
Clearly it is high time that Congress passes laws that protect the free flow of ideas and commerce on the Internet.