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An Internet Speed Limit?

AIR DATE: Thursday, March 27th 2008
Download the mp3 for this show.
Should internet providers be allowed to limit your usage, or is fast and unimpeded connectivity an inalienable right? Is the internet a public utility?

Last October, the Associated Press revealed that Comcast -- Oregon's number one broadband internet provider -- was interfering with certain types of web traffic. It was the first time an internet provider was caught delaying or blocking access to a specific website. At first, Comcast denied the report, but later admitted to "managing" their network during times of heavy congestion.

According to the AP report, if subscribers were sharing too many large files with other subscribers, Comcast would delay or block some of the file transactions. Comcast has since denied blocking the transfers but openly admits to using delays for the sake of users who aren't routinely transferring large files. Comcast believes they are taking reasonable steps to ensure a smooth web experience for the vast majority of their subscribers.

It appears, however, that the FCC doesn't quite agree. Last month, in a speech given to Harvard Law School, Chairman Kevin Martin gave the strongest indication yet (MP3, courtesy of Arstechnica) that the cable giant may be punished for their role in the controversy. Martin has called Comcast's behavior "troubling," and said that the incident will "trigger heightened scrutiny by the Commission in really calling into question some of the assertions of 'reasonableness' in terms of network management practices."

In Portland, those fed up with Comcast's network practices have proposed a $500 million municipal internet network. City officials claim Comcast -- Portland's primary broadband provider -- is charging too much and offering speeds too slow to compete on a national and global level. According to city studies, Portland residents pay the same monthly fees for half the internet speed as the national average. (Comcast, not surprisingly, disagrees, and points to a different study (pdf).) David Olson, the cable director of Portland, believes that the only way to bring fast, affordable internet access to all residents is to essentially make broadband internet a public utility.

But what would internet as "public utility" mean -- philosophically, and in practice? When you sign on for internet service do you take it as a given that your provider has the right to limit your usage? (And have you actually noticed -- when downloading movies or other large files -- a drop in speed?) Or do you look at fast and free and unimpeded connectivity as an inalienable right?

Photo credit: Roland / Flickr / Creative Commons

GUESTS:

Tagged as: broadband · comcast · internet · net neutrality

I have had, at home, over 6 different ISP's for DSL and Cable, and my service with Comcast in Portland has by far been the worst. I routinely lose connectivity. I have been running Ping tests for the last several months, and on average, twice an hour there are several seconds up to 2 minutes of complete packet loss. I've 'troubleshot' my modem and network settings ad nauseum, and have come to the conclusion that it's a Comcast network issue. I'd like to know if anyone has an understanding of Comcast's Level of Service (LoS) agreement. I know that they aren't meeting MY expectations, and I have a feeling that they're not meeting their legal obligations to provide 99.95% uptime, or whatever they've promised.
PDXOutdoors —
I have been happy for the most part with several different cable internet providers with consistant service and good speed. My issue along with cable television is the cost. I would like to see more competition and better rate options for both. The high speed internet access has been a wonderful thing to increase learning and communication options around the world, and has brought people that would not meet otherwise together to learn and exchange ideas. I think it should be continued and no speed limit should be allowed.
dirkpitt2008 —
I am one of many rural residents who have no access to high speed internet - no cable, no DSL, only dial up. I have heard that other, less developed countries have better access to high speed and that "high speed" is faster in these countries. Do you know if that is true? Should we perhaps be trying to expand delivery of high speed internet to everyone? My biggest frustration is going online to sites with very "large" images that take a long time to load with no options for dial up users (other than turning off image loading which then results in missing key links and info that is in image form). When I have been on some European sites, you can click at the outset whether you have slow or high speed access and the website you see is adjusted accordingly. If a significant minority of this country has no high speed access and it can't be provided easily, then I feel websites should be designed for dual use.
vetpathpat —
I am an officer and volunteer with the local educational non-profit, the Personal Telco Project. We have been active in the Portland area helping people share their internet connections using wifi technology since 2000.

I have long advocated public ownership of communications infrastructure, and personally very much support the idea of a publically-owned fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network. I like the idea of having the freedom to purchase private services (i.e. upstream bandwidth to the Internet) over a public network, much like we all use public streets to go to private stores. Verizon has been surrounding Portland with a private fiber-to-the-home network, but with that kind of network Verizon owns the customer. You are not free to purchase network services of your own choice over their infrastructure, but only those they choose for you. If you want internet service, you get it from them on their terms. No shopping around is allowed. That is the wrong model. The same model applies to Comcast, and as a consequence, Personal Telco nodes can't use Comcast residential service. The Personal Telco Project would be impossible if those rules applied to DSL.

Numerous countries (notably South Korea, Japan and elsewhere) provide much higher speeds for substantially less money than Americans are paying for bandwidth now. We shouldn't allow private providers to limit us in this way.

The $500 million tossed around sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but barring some disaster it would ultimately all be paid by rate payers, subscribers to the network, not by taxpayers. Likely, some portion of that amount would have to be guaranteed by the taxpayer to reduce risk for bond purchasers, so it ought not be taken lightly. Still, the idea is an excellent one and we should be working hard to figure out a way to make it work.

We all accept that owning our own home is more economical than perpetual rent payments. The same logic applies to a durable FTTP network.

-- Russell Senior, Secretary, Personal Telco Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit
seniorr —
First of all, thank you Russell for your volunteer work!

I spent years being very angry with Comcast because of issues of connectivity, the cost of service for the speed they offered, and similar other issues with cable television. I spent hours researching ways to attack these issues and talked to many regulators about what could be done about it. Only to find out that there is really nothing much we can do.

Comcast is a regulated monopoly whose first customer is their shareholders. They have to maximize profit (as any good business knows) and so they stretch as far as they can within the confines of what regulations will allow. Unfortunately, very often even sympathetic regulators say their hands are tied by agreements and Federal laws and can't really do much to help.

The municipal network idea is really exciting when you think about how much of your Comcast bill is going to pay shareholder profits, big executive salaries, and a mind numbing amount of advertising.

SL Carter —
Well writ.

I sure do agree with you.
Tom D Ford —
Do check out the following article relating to municipal ownership and operation of internet infrasturure.
"A Broadband Utopia," Steven Cherry. IEEE Spectrum magazine, May 2006.
"A municipally owned network in Utah is poised to offer 100 megabits per second?and that's just to start... As it turns out, this Utopia, known formally as the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, promises to be just that, a broadband utopia. And it is very much a real place, encompassing 14 cities in northeastern Utah. It delivers to each of its 3000 subscribers high-speed Internet access, telephony, and television programming through a fiber-optic cable at data rates that now reach 30 megabits per second. Soon, service providers there will be offering speeds of 50 and even 100 Mb/s. That's enough to download a 2-hour movie in about 6 minutes, 10 to 20 times as fast as the typical U.S. cable or digital subscriber line connection, 6 times as fast as Verizon Communications Inc.'s much-publicized fiber-to-the-home service (called FiOS) and twice as fast as the new DSL now being introduced in Europe by France Telecom and others."

The article describes the legal and business roadblocks as well as the technical aspects of the system. Guess which part was hardest?!

This may be available to IEEE members only, but try either
http://spectrum.ieee.org/may06/3434
or the online version of specturm at:
http://staging.spectrum.odaly.com/may06/3434
or your public library and the engineering libraries at state colleges will carry IEEE publications.
rj oregon —
Public ownership of a limited resource is a serious problem. I don't have Comcast here in Salem because their service was at best inconsistent, but I have to wonder how much of that was them and how much was system abuse by folks on the same node up/down-loading movies illegally or running websites from their home machines.

Considering our recent interactions with the ACLU, ask yourself:
if the internet connections are limited bandwidth, will they be litigating to spend increased tax dollars to allow porn merchants to set up in our area; will some more remote community that happens to have a greater ethinc diversity become their darling just because they haven't got the same bandwidth said pornographer insisted on as his/her first amendment rights...

I could obviously go on. Bandwidth is hard to compare to water or electricity; even if Bil Gates paid for us to lay fiber to every taxpayer's home (can't leave anyone out, see the local ACLU rep), there are still huge infrastucture and human expenses. Do any of us honestly believe that public ownership would improve the situation? At least now, when I think I am wasting my money on poor service, I don't have to keep paying for it.
tpohara —
A municipal broadband infrastructure could never be used to sell porn as that type of content takes a large amount of bandwidth. Most of that stuff is hosted on dedicated servers with giant T3 connections. If you tried to sell movies using a single 7 mbit cable connection, noone would buy from you because speeds would be ridiculously slow once more than 1 person started downloading.
Jesse Priest —
I would respectfully suggest that a Portland Municipal infrastructure, if as powerful as the one in Independence (5MB/s, not 5Mb/s) could serve quite well for the average site with a moderate volume, all the more so if package upgrades are available. T3 backbones used to be limited to about 45Mb/s, about what Independence' Mayor said they maintain on the basic connection.

However, I will grant that fiber can meet most demands for now, though it is slightly more difficult to handle the infrastructure (or at least was the last time I had to deal with it, a little over five years back). Of course, I remember when 300bps was good and when most security experts said your machine could never be compromised over a network. Guess that makes me older and a bit of a cynic...
tpohara —
There is public ownership of roads. There is public ownership of electrical transmission lines. There is public ownership of air and water transport medium (river channels and air routes). What the publically-owned FTTP project proposes is public ownership of the so-called "last-mile" medium. You'd still buy Internet bandwidth from a private provider, but you'd have a 100Mbit or faster connection to *them* and you can pick who you use.

You are right that it would be a large capital investment, but ultimately *someone* is going to make that investment. When they do, they will control the terms of service on that medium. The only real way to guarantee that the end users will have a choice of who they use on that network is to have that medium owned publically.

Another issue is that the current private network providers have a conflict of interest regarding high speed bandwidth. Private network providers hurt their own interests by allowing people to get communications services (like video or telephone services) from competitors. For example Comcast has an interest in people paying them $100/month for cable service. People might want to download specific programs from someone else and *not* buy television service from Comcast. Very high-speed Internet connections compete with them. The same thing applies to telephone companies like Qwest and voice telephone service. As long as this conflict exists, the incumbent carriers will be dragging their feet rolling out faster service.

-- Russell Senior, Secretary, Personal Telco Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit
seniorr —
Mr. Senior:

I understand your points. What I would submit is that if all the public owns is the "last mile", then you are increasing the likelihood of poor service from the pipe owner, not improving it.

First, I would suggest that you may be mixing the proverbial apples and oranges with your comparisons. For example, publicly owned roadways have very natural speed controls, as anyone who has sat in traffic can attest. But lets examine the roads analogy anyway, because there is still a good counterpoint that I feel you might have missed: their condition. How are the roads in Portland? I'm sure that as a publicly owned service they don't have potholes, weakened or aged bridges or overpasses, since those would increase wear on the citizen's vehicles and possibly pose safety hazards. They never have traffic jams, let alone at the same bottle necks day in and day out. Everyone behaves and there is no need for traffic ordinances nor the officers to police them. There is harmonious movement and no need to protect against accidents. Actually, I could beat the analogy to death, suffice to say, I think you might admit that the roadway example can rapidly turn against your original point. Think about it, the freight backbone is actually only about half public, the other half is the railroads, they provide the true heavy bandwidth for serious users... last I knew, they were privately owned.

Back to the topic at hand, have you either personally or in a business capacity ever troubleshot connection problems where two or more companies are providing any telco or network service? They point fingers at each other and the customer often has to figure it out enough to empirically identify the system (not fun, I assure you) or hires an expert who can (been there too). Now I'm sure that Portland's Information Technology department would welcome the chance to hire enough people to support your citizens when there are problems, but can you honestly tell me that you trust the local government to not be at least as bad about addressing problems? Again, I am probably being a bit cynical, but I have seen at least a few cases where citizens needs were less than earth-shattering to the civil servant?s management when the elections are over.
tpohara —
tpohara writes: [quote][i]I understand your points. What I would submit is that if all the public owns is the "last mile", then you are increasing the likelihood of poor service from the pipe owner, not improving it.[/i][/quote]
Can you imagine poorer service than you get from Comcast and Qwest? Honestly?
[quote][i]But lets examine the roads analogy anyway, because there is still a good counterpoint that I feel you might have missed: their condition. How are the roads in Portland?[/i][/quote]

My experience with streets in Portland is quite positive. I drive all over and have excellent luck going to/from anywhere I want to go.
[quote][i]Now I'm sure that Portland's Information Technology department would welcome the chance to hire enough people to support your citizens when there are problems, but can you honestly tell me that you trust the local government to not be at least as bad about addressing problems?[/i][/quote]
"Your citizens?" Omg, you are criticizing Portland and you don't even live here? Short answer is, yes, I trust them more than I trust Comcast and Qwest, for the reasons I described. A slightly longer answer is that no one has suggested that the City itself would necessarily operate the network, though that is possible.

I recently had an experience with the water bureau that was replacing (scheduled maintenance, not due to failure) a water line on my street. The crew demonstrated outstanding competence. They did a beautiful job and used components that should last a hundred years, and left behind a tidy pavement repair. If that is any indication of how public employees would operate a fiber network then absolutely, I would want them doing it.

-- Russell Senior, Secretary, Personal Telco Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit
seniorr —
Anyone savvy enough to download large files through Bittorrent is savvy enough to encrypt their packets and utilize other methods to trick comcasts bandwidth throttling efforts.
Jesse Priest —
"Anyone savvy enough to download large files through Bittorrent is savvy enough to encrypt their packets and utilize other methods to trick comcasts bandwidth throttling efforts."

This is just wrong. Bittorrent is so easy to use now that lots of people are getting into to it without understanding how it works.
kelpiedog —
I believe that ISP blocking of specific users is breaking the tacit agreement they made with their users. If the users pay for a service advertised as 5/2Mbps then that is the expectation. If the user wants a premium service with faster transfer rates then the ISPs will sell it, why should the user not be given what was sold?

It should be incumbent on the provider to provide the advertised capacity. If they can not and they fail over a prolonged period of time then they should be required to augment or improve their equipment to correct the situation. I would suggest that test sites be provided and advertised by governing organizations (and prominently advertised) that would allow users to check on their service provider, should they suspect that they are being "metered" or blocked.

Internet connections should be treated as utilities such as gas or electricity. The consumer has the choice of which to buy and the expectation that, barring unforeseen circumstances, the service will be provided. Promoting more subscribers through advertising, and the subsequent increase in bandwidth requirements, is not an unforeseen circumstance. If you are going to sell, then be prepared to provide the service.

Don't get me started on the price of our services compared to Asia or Europe. The US is grossly behind the curve in that area.
ohreally —
I have heard that there is a larger community fiber network that is under consideration at the City of Portland. I was wondering if there are other cities looking at this and what/if any positive effects it would have on economic development?

Anyone have more info.?

j.wright/portland
omelight —
Omelight,

Sorry that we didn't get the guests up yet! But one of our guests -- who most likely will join us in the last third of the show -- is Independence, OR mayor John McArdle. He'll be talking about their municipal broadband experience.

Dave
David Miller —
Thanks, you might want to ask David Olson this question.
omelight —
I have a background working in the telecom and ISP industry chasing stock option dreams, before reality set in. The biggest risk isn't just slowing access to websites, but using bandwidth monitoring and control to manipulate the user experience in order to reinforce an existing monopoly.

A perfect example of this is if an ISP decided to filter, restrict, or slow the packets used to support a VoIP (voice over internet, such as Vonage) in order to "force" you to use the ISP's own voice service. Likewise, the same could occur for video on demand services that are starting to exist on the internet (iTunes, Vudu, Amazon unboxed, etc), Comcast could use the same imposed limits to make it difficult to use competing services.

There are 2 sides to this, of course. Bandwidth isn't "free", but it is cheap. The issue is still that some users monopolize the available bandwidth, possibly for illegal activities. In other "utilities" such as water, sewer, or power your neighbor doesn't really have the ability to impact you with their activities. Just because your neighbor over waters their lawn doesn't limit your ability to have running water. This isn't the same for internet traffic, however there are better methods to insure "fair" sharing of the connections within a given area.

There are no easy answers for a company that lives in a capitalist market. I think a public owned option is a great idea, however all Internet connections need some level of policing and I don't know of many government agencies that have that ability today.
Xipper —
The reality is that our communications infrastructure pipeline is MORE important today than the roads we drive on. The question is whether we (the public) should be denied or restricted access to this vital service. I for one would not want GM or Ford dictating who gets to ride on what streets and when and how fast. In many ways, Comcast/Qwest and other communications firms are doing this. We need more public/civic regulation to make sure our 21st century lifeline to the world (the communications infrastructure) is available to everyone.

j.w.
omelight —
While I would probably offer serious disagreement about it being "more important" (unless you grow your own food, have your own well, get power from your own homemade generator, don't drive or ride public transportation of any kind, and own your own property outright on non-taxable land), I might also digress too much...

Think about that same public infrastructure: are there massive potholes anywhere in your community? Old bridges or overpasses that are already at capacity? "Accidents" caused by poor driving? Traffic jams? Speed limits that almost no one wants to obey? Tickets for poor behavior?

Government regulation might be called for, government provision of the service is not, if your road example is followed to its logical conclusion.

imho, of course.
tpohara —
Five minutes ago: "It's official: Comcast and BitTorrent are calling a truce."
[url]http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9904494-7.html[/url]
djeckhart —
Yup. We'll have Maggie Reardon of CNET comment.
David Miller —
A public fiber optic system is in all of our interest since it seems to me there is a monopoly on who provides internet service to which community.
Qwest or Comcast? I choose neither.
jakeinpdx —
A truce?

The complaints about "throttling" of peer-to-peer (bit-torrent) networking traffic are full of crocodile tears. Torrent users are downloading copywritten material for free - and complaining about the throttling of this traffic is ridiculous. The client software can throttle itself - re-establish dropped connections and work around ISOP throttling in general.

tao
tao.sound —
On what data do you base the assertion that peer-to-peer is being used to download "copywritten material for free". There are many many legitimate users using bit-torrent and other p2p services/protocols to down load valid data.

Show us the data.
ohreally —
Get a look at any torrent tracker and tell me what the ratio of copywritten to free material is. I use it to download movies tv shows and applications. I know bcause thats what I do. I have been an underground elite since 2600 and learned alot about using computer from just this type of activity. Im not judging it - but lets b honest about the use of peer-to-peer
tao.sound —
Post the URL that shows the ratio
ohreally —
thepiratebay.org - largest tracker in the world

you got one for me?
tao.sound —
An "underground elite since 2600" - yeah, right - are you 45 years old? I've got original copies of the first ten years of 2600 - I doubt anyone who was involved in phreaking and "2600 magazine" back in the day would use the term "elite".

I'm with "ohreally" - show me the data - there is NO way to differentiate copyrighted vs. public domain material via the bit torrent protocol - I did research in grad school on some of the protocols used in the BitTorrent protocols and I can easily prove this.
RobVaughn —
41 actually and MOD uses the term elite to this day. You are right that there is no way to differentiate content - I am getting flamed in another thread here concerning this and would appreciate your support there
tao.sound —
That's not to say there won't be ways to differentiate in the future. The problem is, we need to insure that Net Neutrality isn't shot down because of people downloading movies and then we face a future where protected political speech starts to get limited too.

You know what I mean? Let's say the Green Party's web site just starts loading a lot slower... Enough slower that say, 20% of users give up and go to some other URL.

mrkgreene —
the issue here is not who is getting throttled or why. The issue is that Comcast is not providing the service they promise. They are aware that there infrastructure cannot support the speed they promise and so they are trying to block a small percentage of their users to make the majority think that everything is ok.
kelpiedog —
I agree with this to a degree.

There are a lot of new and upcoming technologies that rely on bittorrent technology to distribute legitimate material (vuze, blizzards client updater, etc...) but at the present bittorrent technology is primarily used for sharing other people's intellectual property. Anyone who disagrees with this is just being glib... http://isohunt.com, http://thepiratebay.org, http://torrentspy.com, http://torrentreactor.com, http://torrentfreak.com... I could go on but I'm going to get in trouble.

Yes, I will openly admit that bittorrent technology is also used for sharing legitimate material: linux distros, creative commons licensed art, etc... This is where I disagree with Comcast's old packet shaping practices because, as has already been mentioned, there is no way of differentiating between legal and illegal content given the protocol.

It's discouraging that this topic can't be discussed without it turning into a flame war...
paulwe —
If large service providers can determine what content is put in the fast lane and what content is relegated to the slow lane, what's to stop them from controlling the rate at which certain types of political content moves across the net?

Remember, it was large telecom companies that readily agreed to help the Bush Administration spy illegally on American citizens.

This issue is not downloading movies. That is a red herring. The real issue is whether or not large telecoms can make daily or hourly decisions about which content comes quickly to your computer.

mrkgreene —
The ability to determine the content of a particular packet is well beyond the capacity of ISP providers - talk about a red-herring - they aren't super-packet-sniffers

tao.sound —
Don't you remember that the defense department has a program called Carnivore? Do you think they are stopping at searching for keywords? Packet IDs are already being identified. How do you think ComCast knows when peer to peer packets are in play?

We need Net Neutrality to insure against future technological capabilities as well as current ones.

It's not a red herring. It's an enforcable, clear standard allowing all content to be moved with equal priority.

mrkgreene —
So DOD gave Carnivore to Comcast? Or did they purchase it - no wait - they developed their own Carnivore? Think about it - ISPs do not have the time - talent - or resources to implement Carnivore packet detection. Speak on what you know

tao.sound —
Carnivore was mostly leaked if you know where you look - for "an underground 2600 elite" you would know that much of the Carnivore code is available and Comcast could certainly have analyzed it, if not borrowed major parts of the system outright. Part of the reason Carnivore was dropped was because the leak showed what a farce it was. Speak of what you know - one should always take one's own advice.
RobVaughn —
THANK YOU.
mrkgreene —
We are rapidly approaching a point at which the line between the Government and Major Corporate Interests is indistinguishable.

Your condescending tone notwithstanding, I REPEAT, ONE LAST TIME, we need a firewall against present and future technologies that might allow telecoms to control which content moves quickly across the net and which does not.

The principle of net neutrality trumps any and all bandwidth management issues.

Now, please stop focusing on what you consider to be your technical expertise and consider the long view political implications of the net. It is the only place where progressive political activity is currently taking place on a large scale. Broadcast TV has been locked down by big media.

Do you want these same big corporations to start choosing what you see and hear on the net? Simple question.

Thanks.

mrkgreene —
I just got flamed in another thread here and I will quote

show me the data - there is NO way to differentiate copyrighted vs. public domain material via the bit torrent protocol - I did research in grad school on some of the protocols used in the BitTorrent protocols and I can easily prove this

I will repeat

NO WAY TO DIFFERENTIATE CONTENT

im done
tao.sound —
Please feel free to be done any time you're ready.

Let me remind you of the thread. It is about Net Neutrality. Not identifying packets. My position is that Net Neutrality must be enforced as the law of the land. Regardless of movie downloads or bandwidth issues. TO INSURE THAT FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES that might DIFFERENTIATE CONTENT are not brought into play to limit political content on the net.

FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES.

Note the word FUTURE.

Thanks.

mrkgreene —
"We are rapidly approaching a point at which the line between the Government and Major Corporate Interests is indistinguishable."

Benito Mussolini said that Fascism really is the Corporative State, and the Conservatives in current Executive power in the US have made giant strides in making the dream of a Corporative State a reality.
Tom D Ford —
I'm in a Portland area that has a Qwest franchise that keeps Verizon from offering FIOS fiber optic service, so I'm stuck with Comcast (or DSL - too slow).
Estanislao —
Actually DSL vs. cable is not a clear answer: DSL guarantees you speeds - I get up to 160Kbs download speeds but never less than 120Kbs with DSL. With cable, if you're the only one on that loop, you get blindingly fast speeds - I've seen it at friend's homes - but I've also seen someone who is on a loop that has a lot of subscribers, and after work - 6-8PM - it's painfully slow - like a 56K modem. So it really depends, and as time goes on, more and more people will get on your cable loop and your speeds will slow down. It's six of one, half-dozen of the other.
RobVaughn —
Does this apply to when you are renting a movie from itunes or Netflix (you must download it first) or streaming music say from pandora.com?

Thanks!
chey20 —
It is important to remember that the internet is in high demand. It was not always so. When Corporate money interests realized that there was something out there so valuable, it became in their interest to participate, and to do so by the means they have always used. stack up enough money and what has been free or cheap becomes expensive and exclusive to those with money privilege. This is not about bit-torrent, or any retail user operation. This argument is the excuse for the big players to raise prices or suffer diminished service. It will create an internet elite of large corporate interests and upper income individuals.
privilege will be the rule. As example I offer "Cyber squating" that prevents person from registering the names of copy-written companies. yet one can easily register a proper name like jones or roberts, though there are many person that may have a better claim to that name. they lack the large legal war chests necessary to make a case.
net neutrality is in deep trouble and without some powerful; movement the net will become another gated community, at least for Americans

Loumanyeti —
I remember the olden days of the internet when these protocols didn't exist. If there were users downloading large files, those with small accounts got a cup of coffee and waited. I am grateful to have some traffic control that makes is possible for me to check my email when I need to.

But the companies need to expand their capacities to cope. It costs far too much for what we are getting. I have much better success with smaller ISP, but unfortunately you can only get high-bandwidth through a major ISP.
Berdans —
In this debate, I often see confusion on, and conflation of, these two things:

- charging a premium on the provider side for amount of data transferred (for which people decry that start-ups will have no way to compete with the Yahoos and Googles, etc.)

- charging end-users not a flat-fee for a certain amount of possible capacity, but charging per the amount of data they actually transfer

But, internet connectivity is a commodity whose price is shaped by laws of supply and demand. If Comcast is selling bandwidth, they have a right to serve all customers. Just because a new technology (in this discussion, bittorrent) comes on the scene and changes demand does not nullify a broadband provider's right to adjust it's pricing model to effectively serve all customers.

For the record, I use bittorrent and am a proponent and user of open-source software. But, frankly, the story of bandwidth needs versus availability has been one of serendipity in that the capacity has luckily been large enough to meet consumer needs. Now that this equation is changing, the economics can and will change.

Don't conflate net neutrality with what people have been used to as end-users, namely that they've been free riders (in the economic sense).

[i]Also, the discussion between legal and illegal BT use is off-topic, take that up with the never-ending discussion of IP rights (and how it applies to Constitutionally ensured Fair Use rights) in the digital age.[/i]
redorange —
I'm glad Comcast is throttling BitTorrent. Everyone knows its used mostly for Piracy. I use the internet for my business and I can't afford a T1 line. However, we're all going to need faster pipes to keep up with the video sharing going on now.
aidanf —
This is what concerns me, the view that certain usage of networks should trump others and piracy will be the tool used to get such a policy allowed. The ethical implications of such an ideology is detrimental to continued creation of social capital. I find it interesting that we (US Citizens) critique China for shutting down certain websites as censorship and lack of freedom; but then embrace prioritizing network traffic. While the legal debate ensues, I am more concerned about the ethics of those involved on either side. We live in a time with drastic societal shift on the access and creation of information and knowledge. Rather than spending time debating how should networks be used, I believe we would be better off discussing the validity of intellectual property in modern times.
ithicks —
Are you seriously comparing packet shaping for the purposes of QoS assurance to aggressive filtering policies to directly limit freedom of speech? seriously?
paulwe —
(Iff you drive.) On the way home tonight, if you drive the speed limit, what percentage of the cars will pass you?

Many people only obey laws to the extent that getting caught is inconvenient. As long as few people get caught torrenting, the traffic will increase.
Pinback —
Unfortunately as they throttle down BT they also render audio and video chats practically useless. For the first 10 seconds it's great and then becomes painfully slow and most of the time too frustrating to try to restart the chats for the 10th time.

Not to mention FTP transfers.
a1vuti —
I think there's a term for what this is about... Load Balancing. Every network is faced with load issues, and every network has to either manage traffic or increase the physical investment. I work on software that analyzes network metrics and identifies root causes of problems. This is all rule based, and does not involve some observer judging whether the content is politically correct. While one can imagine some kind of analysis that could identify specific content, there's nothing inherent in load balancing that makes this more or less possible. They're unrelated issues, but both probably should be subject to some form of oversight.
cudspan —
I do own a cyber caf� on the Beaverton area (Cyberscape)?our choice of a local internet provider (Step house) prove to be right until 4 month ago. Since that time, over all in the afternoon or connection speed drop till collapse. Their answer??you need a $1000 connection to maintain your traffic?.Why it start only four months ago? No real answer from my provider.
Our answer to their pressure? A $700 piece of equipment that allows mixing up to four connections, even from different providers?a balance router is my business response to this problem.

(Sorry for my English imperfections?is a work in progress)
balseroaereo —
There are no checks and balances for the monoplies like comcast that manipulate our government, networks and the fear messages in media. They sky is not falling on public networks or public power. Comcast said today public networks are a "complete mess". The net companies have got caught limiting all customers then lied, now we should trust them on the air today and with our information tomorow? We are a country living in fear thanks to Regan's "Government isn't the solution, it's the problem" We should be living the model of Jimmy Stewart's ( George Bailey's ) cooperative banking in "It's a wonderful life"
wallydallas —
Am I the only one who does NOT understand why cable TV is the most regulated "utility" but Internet connectivity has none, gas and electric has some? Is watching television and rotting your brain (I'm guilty myself) something so important it requires heavy price regulation, but we're not willing to step up and get involved in some regulation with Internet connectivity which is creating, as mentioned on the show, an "e-divide" between the Have and Have-Nots, which as usual tend to correspond with the better education and more wealthy in the case of the former, more poor and less educated in the latter, and the latter NEEDS Internet connectivity.
RobVaughn —
I have two objections to Comcast's throttling of Bittorrent:

1) Identity fraud: The technical means they have been reported to use tells each party in the bittorrent communication that the other one has "reset", assuming the itentity of the computers in question to do this. Even if they had a right to do this on the part of their users, they don't have that right for the other party.

2) Contract fraud: Either a) I pay for X bandwidth, with a cap of Y, and they are limiting those amounts inviolation of the contract; or b) the contract allows them to limit the bandwidth I may use, and they are not making that clear either in the contract or the advertising. (This is, to my understanding, a violation of contract law in that both parties have to understand the contract for it to be valid.)

I use Bittorrent to download updates to online games, and to download revisions of free and open source software (such as Linux), legal uses of the technology.
MelvinK —
City of Independence provides 5 mBytes = 40Mbits per second as a basic service. Not 5 mbits.
HWylie —
One of your guests mentioned the lack of federal support regarding this issue. Have any of the presidential candidates addressed this?
virtualanne —
What worries me more than anything is that if Comcast is allowed to form network traffic, who gets to set the rules? They could easily form traffic to allow faster access to advertisers websites or they could charge websites to be on the "preferred" list. What if they started charging customers different rates depending on the sites or protocols they wanted to use? I'm sure that the poor network engineer wasn't really thinking about this when he opened this can of worms but that's what could come out of this.
mhunger —
Quick questions: One of your hosts mentioned that many other countries offerer high bandwidth solutions much cheaper than our privatized services in the States. Another host mentions that publicly subsidized high speed internet here has been expensive and overly complicated. How come other countries have managed to offer lower bandwidth costs while cities and municipalities in this country have struggled to do so? What's the difference?
DougS. —
Excellent Question. This should be put to the on-air guests!
ohreally —
This is interesting. I have been experiencing what the C-net guest described and I'm on Earthlink via Qwest.
Tom D Ford —
I live in NE Portand, well within the city limits, and do not have the internet choices that I feel should be available to a resident of an urban environment. Comcast is my only choice for internet service, as Qwest has repeatedly informed me they do not have the equipment in my area to provide DSL, nor do they intend to install it. One Qwest customer service rep suggested I move if I was interested in their service! I was excited when MetroFi began installing the free wireless "cloud" in Portland, but this does not extend to NE portland due to Pacific Power not granting access to MetroFi to use their power poles to transmit the signal.
I am a student and cannot afford the $60 a month that Comcast charges for basic service, nor am I interested in supporting a monopoly. I know there are a number of residents even less fortunate than me in my area that also do not have internet choices they can afford. Basic internet access can make the difference between the haves and have nots in the age of email and more. I believe that the internet should be viewed as a public utility, like having a phone line, and should be regulated in the same way to ensure that individuals are not left behind.
kerkowel —
I am remembering back to when the internet was first privatized and all the warnings about what would happen when the privateers took over from the public, so this is no surprise.
Tom D Ford —
With Clearwire moving into the Portland area what may that mean for broadband access speeds in the region? And the news that Comcast, Google, Intel and Clearwire are looking to create a joint venture to create a network to serve Internet-connected systems and moble devices, what may WiMAX do to ramp up speeds and feeds in the US?
jefffishburn —
The guest who said businesses are NOT turned off by lack of bandwidth in Portland is very wrong. I have worked for several startups funded out of California and we've always hosted our server in CA although the company was in Portland due to much greater bandwidth at a much cheaper cost in California - the expense of and lack of bandwidth in Portland is costing us major chances at being a High Tech hub and attracting high-tech business!
RobVaughn —
I'm wondering how Qwest is waiting for increased demand for a product they refuse to provide. Huh? As if they listen when I call them up on the phone!
creneau —
Some carriers cheaped-out on the cabling used for the local loop. This has a huge impact on whether the various types of DSL are practical in a given market.
Pinback —
Cable TV, the price of which is highly regulated, I do not and have never had, nor do I feel the need. My Internet connection, since I work from home, use it to do work and research for same, find jobs, communicate with my clients, etc. is as important to me as electricity and water. Seriously. It is key to my income and livelihood.
RobVaughn —
I'm not surprised to learn Comcast was delaying files. I had Comcast cable internet to my house in Beaverton for many years. At first, there was no other choice (except for dial-up). Later, a low-end DSL became available, but it was slow and not really worth it in my opinion. However, I had occasional problems with Comcast. At first, I thought it was my hardware, but later had to just accept the fact that sometimes my internet connection seemed to just die then come back to life a half hour later for no apparant reason. Reading this article explains a lot. (I don't think it was just the bittorrent protocol!)

Three months ago, I switched to Verizon FiOS and am very happy. They offered higher speed (5 Ghz down, 2 Ghz up) at lower prices, but I opted to go for the higher version (15 Ghz down AND up) because it was the same price the previous Comcast was and because it offered 1 GB off-line storage.

Should a "speed limit" be imposed? I don't think so. The ISP is making an assumption that the home user is simply "playing" on the internet by downloading games or pictures. They have no idea what the user is doing, which may be just as important as the business customer. I have a full time job and run a business on the side from home in the evenings. Comcast residential was the ONLY option in my neighborhood for a long time. I would be downloading critical software updates and uploading large files to customers. It was quite frustrating and time-consuming to have to re-submit a file transfer because it timed out or to have our internet-based phone system (Vonage) cut off because our internet service was disrupted.

I'm glad this subject has come up and I'm glad that people are asking these questions. The Internet has become an important part of our lives and we need to make sure it's usable.

David Cornelius
corneliusd —
By a large margin, the greatest bandwidth congestion is always caused by various types of streaming and downloading of MEDIA content meant for entertainment. The hunger for media will always overtake infrastructure [think freeway commuting]. While Comcast (who actually charges almost twice the $25/mo. that was just claimed on air) and other providers of infrastructure are clearly failing to stay ahead of the curve by refusing to anticipate the emergence of online media services, there is clearly a difference between internet traffic that is meant for distribution of entertainment media versus what the Net was created to provide: free access to information and communications.

Therefore, I propose that Comcast should be required, as they do across their cable TV networks, to provide Basic Access, in this case to the internet, for the $25 or less that they claim, while the rest of us who thirst for rich media should be willing to pay around twice that (which we already DO) for essentially partitioned network traffic bandwidth as a sort of 2-tiered distribution network. This will guarantee that Everyone still has free access, while generating a proportionate amount of revenue from those of us who are responsible for overtaxing the Broadband networks. It will also improve the business model of broadband providers like Comcast or even Verizon (when they reach congestion capacity, and they will) by providing a more appropriate gauge and revenue structure to anticipate the overwhelming glut of media by building their infrastructure in a more responsive manner.

Finally, this conservative fee-for-service model will provide the platform that can eventually lead to closure of the loophole that prevents media creators such as musicians, film-makers, and writers from receiving the royalties they deserve. Information should always be free to the public, while Entertainment remains a commodity.
Christian Mulherin —
I pay for digital dialtone. Period. It is no business or concern of the ISP what I use that dialtone for. If the ISP wishes to set download limits, they have an obligation to state what those limits are. Their current policy would be functionally comparable to my wireless phone provider cutting me off because I talk to more friends than family on my friends & family plan. Further, thier specious representation that they are just managing their service for the benefit of thier customers is an insult - they are managing their service for the benefit of thier stockholders. If they would just look around, they would grasp the greater reality that their stockholders would be better served as a result of giving better service to their subscribers.

The ISP may state that they are making assumptions, or may allow the appearance that they are making assumptions, regarding what users are doing with their bandwidth, but that opens to speculation how they can even tell. They are risking more than just complaints and exposure in the press if they are caught with their hand in our "cookie" jar. To purport that they are operating on the assumption that most users are just surfing the internet, making online purhcases and sending email, is just another insult to the many users who make serious and vital use of their connections. Internet access is a utility and necessary to many of us. Those executives who don't want to face the cameras and the microphones can easily find themselves wakened to irate calls on their "unlisted" home phones at 3am.
MarvinMarvelous —
How close are we to having pricing structures based on usage, similar to what we have for cell phones? If bandwidth monopolization by bittorrent during peak times is causing problems, why not have tiered plans based on average bandwidth usage, along with pricing structures for peak versus non-peak hours? I have not thought this argument all the way through, so I haven't found the fatal flaw or slippery slope. If this is a bad idea, please let me know why. If we're already heading there, how soon before we arrive? Thank you, Collier Ellis, Wood Village, OR
collierellis —
I think the Qwest representative failed to recognize that although they bring fiber to zoned businesses in Portland, there is the growing segment of our economy that works at home. Many people who work outside the home still rely on internet service to work at home, as well as those who work exclusively at home.

-d
the12stepbuddhist —
One of the speakers mentioned that only Verizon at this time has plans to offer fiber to the home. However, I suspect Comcast has other plans. Here is a S&P research headline pulled from business news.
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"Unconfirmed WSJ report says Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House may respectively provide $1B, $500M, and $100-$200M funding for national WiMax network led by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire. With the 3 cable operators also part of winning group in '06 spectrum auction, we think [the] news casts more doubt on wireless convergence strategy, even as Cox, also part of '06 win, also bid successfully in '08 700MHz auction. Still, we view this as potentially offensive and defensive move for cablers, despite financial risks of unproven WiMax."
----------------------
WiMax (802.16 I believe) is a new wireless technology, not mentioned in today's radio broadcast. It seems like it cannot compete with fiber's capacity and speed today, but it is way faster that 802.11 (WiFi) and can be a central point for multiple subscribers, with high upload and download speeds. In a small town or municipality where the local telco has not put in DSL, and where the cable company has gone missing in action, I've wondered if WiMax technology could fill the gap. It seems well suited to small-scale operators and public projects.

So what is this article above saying? Is the cable operator Comcast going to offer wireless broadband service to rural areas? Will they offer TV services over "the last mile" wirelessly? Or is Comcast just using this as an entre' into the phone business? Or offering video (content) and internet to cell phone users? Could a few years of technology development bring WiMax up to compete with Fiber? Whatever you think of Comcast, I think WiMax could offer some of the "digital divide" outsiders in rural or small population centers a new option, and a way to leapfrog around the sluggish rural telcos.
rj oregon —
rj_oregon writes: [quote][i]Could a few years of technology development bring WiMax up to compete with Fiber?[/i][/quote] WiMax on a large scale has not to my knowledge been demonstrated yet. Any wireless technology has scaling problems, as more and more people try to use the same medium. Having spent the last several years working with wifi technology, I can say that wireless teaches you a new appreciation for wires (or fiber). Wireless communications have their place, primarily in providing mobility, but for capacity I don't think you are going to beat fiber for the foreseeable future (where "foreseeable" in this case is a long, long time).

-- Russell Senior, Secretary, Personal Telco Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit
seniorr —
I caught only bits and pieces of the on-air show, but I am surprised to see no mention of Metrofi here in the comments. I am a current user of Metrofi from my home. I read the news anxiously each week as it seems that this system is hanging by a thread. All it took was a $100 repeater to put in my window for me to have free internet service. I encourage everyone who just needs to check email, read news, read blogs, and check craigslist to give Metrofi a chance.

The sevice is comparatively slow... I have certainly had to curtail my internet habits after giving up my DSL line in favor of a $0/month internet service. However, there is so much to experience online which is text based and lo-fi. I am not disputing the power of Youtube and similar video services, but as a long-time internet user, I am concerned to see so much attention paid to the importance of delivering video.

TV, our last foray into video as a society, has devolved into a vast wasteland of drivel. With Digital TV broadcasts and Netflix, we need not be so concerned about whether or not our internet can handle video. Instead, we should be expanding the existing Wifi network and teaching people how to use it and taking away annoying Sideguides and Interstitial ads in order to make it more appealing. I admit that it is not perfect, but it is free.

The current trend of prioritizing video over text as the internet's preferred medium of information transfer is lamentable. I remember my first days on the internet when I went to college: all these words and links and pages! Now when a friend gets internet access it seems like it is all about Youtube. Do I sound old-fashioned? I believe that the benefits of universal information can be extended into the realm of video, but they are most profound and subversive as simple text and html files. The benefits of the internet described by David Olsen: like health, employment, education, community; all of these are served by a much smaller pipe than was discussed on this program.

A very small pipe can carry a poem. I guess I think we need more poems than videos gracing our computer screens.
leander37 —

Comments are now closed.

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