Posted on 05/15/2008 7:04:07 AM PDT by ShadowAce
NEW YORK (AP) - Cox Communications appears to be interfering with file-sharing by its Internet subscribers in the same manner that has landed Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) in hot water with regulators, according to research obtained by The Associated Press.
A study based on the participation of 8,175 Internet users around the world found conclusive signs of blocked file-sharing connections only at three Internet service providers: Comcast and Cox in the U.S. and StarHub in Singapore.
Of the 788 Comcast subscribers who participated in the study, 491, or 62 percent, had their connections blocked. At Cox, 82 out of 151 subscribers, or 54 percent, were blocked, according to Krishna Gummadi at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Saarbruecken, Germany.
Philadelphia-based Comcast is the country's second-largest ISP, with 14.1 million subscribers. Atlanta-based Cox Communications is the fourth-largest, with 3.8 million. It is part of privately held Cox Enterprises Inc.
Consumer advocate groups and legal scholars criticized the interference, saying that letting an ISP selectively block some connections makes it a gatekeeper to the Internet. Their complaints prompted the Federal Communications Commission to launch an investigation, which is ongoing.
Legislation also has been introduced in Congress to guarantee "Net Neutrality," or equal treatment of traffic by Internet service providers.
Comcast maintained that the intervention was necessary to ensure that non-file-sharing traffic would not be impeded by a few heavy users of file-sharing programs like BitTorrent. But in February, it said it would stop selectively targeting file-sharing later this year.
Much of the FCC's attention to the matter has been focused on Comcast's secrecy - before the AP's investigation, it acknowledged only in the most general terms that it was managing traffic.
At least since 2006, Cox's subscriber agreement has noted that the company engages in "protocol filtering," which means that it treats different types of Internet traffic, like Web surfing, e-mail and file-sharing, differently.
"To ensure the best possible online experience for our customers, Cox actively manages network traffic through a variety of methods including traffic prioritization and protocol filtering," the company said it a written statement.
Cox denied that protocol filtering amounts to discrimination of any specific services.
The blocking observed by Gummadi's group occurs when a subscriber has downloaded a file using the BitTorrent application and tries to upload it, or share it with others, over the Internet connection. The main victims are the other Internet subscribers, who will not be able to download a file if a complete version is not available from someone else's computer.
Persistent attempts by file-sharing software to get through may yet succeed after several minutes, as experienced in the AP's test last year. Gummadi's test did not look at the duration of the traffic blocks. Comcast has said that it is "delaying" file transfers rather than blocking them.
Robb Topolski, a former Intel Corp. (INTC) engineer who noticed blocking on his home Comcast connection last year and brought it to notice, said Gummadi's work was the most authoritative study so far of this type of traffic interference. The methodology "covered all the bases," he said.
BitTorrent is one of the most popular ways to trade files online. It's commonly used to illegally share copyright material, but companies have sprung up to use it and related technologies as a cheap way to spread legal files.
Gummadi said the test did not conclusively show that Cox or Comcast were blocking traffic, since neither company carried data all the way from their subscribers to his servers in Germany. In theory, intervening carriers could be disrupting the traffic, but there is no reason to believe that they're doing so.
Apart from Comcast and Cox, Gummadi found signs of interference at seven other U.S. ISPs, all of them cable companies. But the number of blocked connections was too low to conclusively say their subscribers are being targeted, and Gummadi withheld the names of the ISPs.
StarHub is Singapore's dominant cable company. It did not reply to an e-mail to its press office.
Gummadi, who is the head of the network systems research group at the German institute, found no signs of interference by phone companies. Their DSL connections aren't shared between neighbors the same way cable is, so they have less need to manage congestion.
The percentage of blocked connections for Comcast and Cox subscribers did not appear to correspond to periods of high congestion. Subscribers were roughly equally likely to be blocked at all times of day.
Gummadi's research is aimed at figuring out the workings of Internet service providers, who are generally reluctant to share details.
"When you go to the access systems, it's almost like they're black boxes," he said. That means that programmers developing software for these systems often don't know how well it will work, he added.
All I know is that when I want to send a file of any sort, I don’t waste time with going through my scamcast mail. I send files through my Yahoo mail account.
There is such a thing as a legal torrent.
HF
And I hope they win. It is their equipment and they have a right to manage the bandwidth as they see fit. If you don't like it, find another provider. There is DSL, satellite, dial-up, and other broadband providers. You may have to pay more or settle for less bandwidth, but if the new provider allows you to use BitTorrent, it would be worth it to you, right?
What is conservative about suing a company to force them to do business the way you want them to?
If they are clearly indicating that their service is crippled, and/or charging subscribers a lower fee for doing so, then fine. If they are charging the same fee without indicating the handicaps of the connection, then sue away.
How would you like to pay non-refundable installation charges for a connection, and then discover that the company actively blocks www.freerepublic.com?
If I try to get the government to force my current provider to do business the way I want, when I agreed to the current situation by signing the service agreement, that is a liberal position.
If you don't like the way a business operates, try to use the power of the free market to get them to change, not the power of the courts.
According to the story:
"At least since 2006, Cox's subscriber agreement has noted that the company engages in "protocol filtering," which means that it treats different types of Internet traffic, like Web surfing, e-mail and file-sharing, differently."
They clearly state in the subscriber agreement that they do protocol filtering. If you sign the agreement without reading it or understanding what it means, that is your fault, not theirs.
Okay, since the company is taking the trouble to inform customers of the connection’s handicaps, I see no problem with that.
Fixed it for you.
So, all Comcast franchises granting them special rights in the jurisdiction are to be null and void, effective immediately? OK.
An offer of service that states both "X Mbps access to the Internet" and refers to filtering that prevents such access is inherently ambiguous.
QED.
“What is conservative about suing a company to force them to do business the way you want them to?”
When the Government allows a monopoly, and they do, there is no other choice. That’s when it’s Conservative to sue their asses off.
The law in our State, Ga, calls for two competing cable companies to serve each County. We have one, and only one. This is not atypical, rather, it is very typical throughout America.
With DSL, it’s even worse, since all dsl must go over a competing telco’s land lines.
Nice repair job. LOL
Reality creeps into the situation a bit though. One, they are common carriers and want the immunities that come with it. You can't be a common carrier if you are selecting which traffic goes through. They do that, they admit they control traffic, then we can ask why don't you control X and Y illegal traffic and hold them responsible.
Second, they are often government-granted or just de-facto monopolies in an area, so there isn't always choice.
Third, if I sign a contract for all-you-can-eat service and then I find out that it is limited, I have every right to sue for fraud and breech of contract, and the FTC can get into it for false advertising.
Sorry, the contract specifically said that they did protocol filtering,so they are providing the services promised.
I don't have Comcast, but every offer I have received from them states the bandwidth speeds as "up to" X Mbps - they don't guarantee a specific speed for any particular protocol. Sorry, your argument is weak. It also fails to address my contention that to try to force them to change their way of doing business via the courts is inherently un-conservative. If it was a monopoly, that would be different, but you have other options if you are not happy with the service you receive.
Yes, and we have that option because we have the rule of law. Witness what happens when the rule of law established by government doesn't exist, e.g. areas of modern day Africa, as well as other regions of the world.
"If you don't like it, then take a hike" is supporting thieves and bandits.
This is part of a larger contract problem these days. Most companies of any type that sell or provide a service to the consumer use a lot of adhesion contracts, and most people are not capable of fully understanding them. For a person to be fairly represented throughout daily life would require hiring an attorney for each time he buys a piece of software, each time he signs up for any service, shops at any online store and many brick and mortar stores, and often if he just parks his car at a garage. That is simply unrealistic.
Meanwhile the other side has had teams of lawyers go over that contract to make sure it is most advantageous to them. Hey grandma, what does "Protocol Filtering" mean when you let the sales rep on the phone add Internet to your Comcast package? Did the sales rep clearly explain in what ways "unlimited access" really isn't unlimited? Did he even tell you there's a contract? When the guy put in the box I bet you thought you were just signing for receipt of the equipment, and in small print it referred to a URL where you can find the contract (after you sign and get online, of course).
Aside from that when a cable company is a monopoly in an area you have undue influence. One side wants or needs a product, the other is the only one to provide it, so the person is pretty much forced to accept the terms, no matter how lopsided they are. Such unequal power in contracts tends to give courts sympathy to the person of lesser power, which leads to contract terms being declared unenforceable or void.
Ordinarily I would agree with you, but thanks to government interference in the markets, in some areas, Comcast is the only broadband provider and other available providers are cost-prohibitively expensive.
It depends on the nature of the company. For dial-up and wireless providers, I agree with you. But if it is a wireline utility monopoly common-carrier franchise with powers of eminent domain and cables passing rent-free through everyone's private property and public right-of-way, I think it is reasonable to expect some minimal standards of quality and service at the regulatory level. This is the trade-off we make with utilities in order to grant them their quasi-governmental powers. Let's not confuse the utility sector with the private sector.
I understand that ISPs must condition their network traffic in order to allocate their finite bandwidth fairly. But I also understand that the cable companies and telcos are strongly tempted to block network traffic in order to give their own content delivery products an unfair advantage over competing services.
Ditto what you said in 22. In spades! Thanks!
And I hope they win. It is their equipment and they have a right to manage the bandwidth as they see fit. If you don't like it, find another provider. There is DSL, satellite, dial-up, and other broadband providers. You may have to pay more or settle for less bandwidth, but if the new provider allows you to use BitTorrent, it would be worth it to you, right?
What is conservative about suing a company to force them to do business the way you want them to?
They DID choose the way they manage their services, hardware, and bandwidth when they developed, vetted and wrote their standard contracts they use with residential customers.
They then unilaterally breached the terms of the contract. With no notice given to the customer base.
If Comcast Charter et al want to return to bandwidth restrictions, such as is normal in most of continental Europe for broadband connections, hat is fine. but the US ISPs can't break contracts with millions of customers without providing legal notices and remedies as proscribed by Federal and state contract laws.
They then unilaterally breached the terms of the contract. With no notice given to the customer base.
Ummm... wrong! According to the article, the subscriber agreement clearly stated that they used protocol filtering, so there was no breach of the terms of the contract. So it is the subscribers who want to change the terms of the contract after the fact by denying the company the right to do such filtering, despite the fact that is is clearly stated in the contract.
Many (more than a 100,000) of the early adopter customers of broadband that are Comcast subscribers have been customers of Comcast since before the 2006 policy change. A subset of those customers are captive due to defacto monopoly status Comcast has in some of the counties they serve. Comcast is doing either or both of the following, mispresenting it’s services contract in the mass media advertisements, or violating their CLEC status. All comcast has to do is stop using words such as “Unlimited” and “24/7 broadband” in their advertisements, but their legal/marketing departments have refused even that simple solution. Comcast is bringing this scrutiny upon themselves by trying to strong arm and buy out politicians through lobbying instead of faithfully fulfilling the most basic obligations of CLEC statutes.
You can surf over to the broadbandreports.com forum and read up on the ongoing saga of Comcast customers trying to get some resolution from this.
Ordinarily I would agree with you, but thanks to government interference in the markets, in some areas, Comcast is the only broadband provider and other available providers are cost-prohibitively expensive.
Exactly. I bought my house before high speed Internet service was really available to home users. In fact, the telephone company had just started offering ISDN BRI service in my neighborhood for about $500 (128kbs) a month at the time. It turns out that my house is too far from the CO to be able to subscribe to DSL. And the city where I live has an exclusive contract with Time Warner Cable. While I CAN choose from 3 ISPs (Road Runner, Earthlink, and AOL), they're all the same price, and all have to run over the TWC circuits. So I really have no choices that I can make... Satelite has been suggested, however the technology, more importantly the latency, makes it unsatisfactory for my needs - working over a VPN. So I am stuck with TWC, and I subscribe to Road Runner, since the "pissing and moaning contests" are rarer when you've got the transport and ISP companies being the same.
Mark
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