WSJ: FCC to Punish Comcast for File-Sharing Interference

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 28, 2008 - 7:22am.

Washington - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected this week to announce that Comcast (NASD: CMCSA) violated federal policy when it actively interfered with the file-sharing traffic of some of its broadband customers, agency officials told the Wall Street Journal. Comcast will not be financially penalized, but will be ordered to stop blocking or slowing its subscribers' traffic, and make better disclosures of its network management practices.

Comcast was found to have been blocking some subscribers' file transfers using the BitTorrent protocol; the FCC later began an investigation and held public hearings on the issue.

For its part, Comcast maintains it has done nothing wrong.

"We continue to assert that our network-management practices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices and that we did not block access to Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services," Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice told the Journal.

"This [FCC] vote reflects the bipartisan support for protecting consumers' access to the free and open Internet," said Marvin Ammori, general counsel at Free Press, an advocacy group that lodged formal complaints against Comcast with the FCC.

"Comcast's blocking is a flagrant violation of the online rights established by the FCC. If adopted, this order would send a strong signal to the marketplace that arbitrarily interfering with users' online choices is not acceptable."

Comcast is still facing a number of consumer class action lawsuits related to its BitTorrent throttling practices.

http://www.freepress.net/node/42722

http://snipurl.com/36mjb (DMW previous coverage)

http://snipurl.com/36mjj (DMW previous coverage)

http://www.comcast.com

Published in DMW Daily, July 28, 2008

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Comments

The lobbyists and lawyers are lying

Submitted by Brett Glass (not verified) on August 1, 2008 - 6:41am.

Amazing lies from the Washington lobbyists and lawyers at Free Press. Comcast wasn't "blocking" anything; it was throttling back bandwidth hogs who were trying to abuse its network and violate its terms of service. Nor was "free speech" or access to content ever blocked. Comcast even allowed completely unfettered access to those lobbyists' Web site, which contained many false and slanderous statements about Comcast. And the FCC's action did nothing to protect a "free market." In fact, it did the opposite by putting constraints on the services that ISPs could offer and threatening to wipe out small a nd independent ISPs via stifling regulation. The lobbyists then go on to say that a "duopoly market" must be avoided. This is even more disingenuous, because the regulations they advocate would CREATE duopoly by preventing the entry of competitors -- particularly wireless ones, which MUST throttle back bandwidth hogs. Apparently, the lobbyists are embracing the "big lie" strategy and hoping that no one reports the facts. I've placed some of those facts on my Web site at http://www.brettglass.com/FCC/remarks.html, and also in my filings with the FCC at http://tinyurl.com/2wf6nd, http://tinyurl.com/5elsy5, and http://tinyurl.com/5gfn6p. See these URLs for the truth about these issues -- not from the point of view of inside-the-Beltway Washington lobbyists but from a hard working local ISP who is fighting to give consumers a real choice.