Temporary Delays? Comcast vs. Access to Content

Aswin Navin by David Shankbone

In an article about Comcast defending against a complaint brought with the FCC about its throttling of Internet content, there's a larger theme:

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, plans to introduce a bill today calling for an Internet policy that would prohibit network operators from unreasonably interfering with consumers' right to access and use content over broadband networks. The bill also calls for the FCC to hold eight meetings around the nation to assess whether there is enough competition among network providers and whether consumers' rights are being upheld.

"Our goal is to ensure that the next generation of Internet innovators will have the same opportunity, the same unfettered access to Internet content, services and applications that fostered the developers of Yahoo, Netscape and Google," Markey said in a written statement yesterday.

— Comcast Defends Role As Internet Traffic Cop By Cecilia Kang, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, February 13, 2008; Page D01

Markey gets it. Too bad the FCC doesn't.

Meanwhile, part of Comcast's defense is:

Specifically, the company imposes "temporary delays" of video, music and other files shared between computers using such technologies as BitTorrent.

Faking Reset packets to terminate file transfers is "temporary delays"? In the same sense that shooting out somebody's tires is imposing a "temporary delay" on driving....

BitTorrent said Comcast should respond by increasing bandwidth on its networks and upgrading its systems rather than limiting how customers use its service.

Duh.

If there were real competition in Internet service provision in the U.S., Comcast would be losing market share rapidly over this.

-jsq