Comcast Teams Up With BitTorrent and Promises Net Neutrality
Written by Ernesto on March 27, 2008Comcast has announced that it will lift the ban on BitTorrent traffic, which prevented its users from sharing files using the popular protocol. The ISP and BitTorrent Inc. will work together on finding customer friendly solutions for the congestion allegedly caused by BitTorrent traffic.
Comcast has announced that it will stop targeting BitTorrent transfers and has said it will invest in its network capacity. For the time being the company will throttle users who use the most bandwidth, not all BitTorrent users per se.
Comcast’s chief technology officer Tony Warner said: “Rather than slow traffic by certain types of applications — such as file-sharing software or companies like BitTorrent — Comcast will slow traffic for those users who consume the most bandwidth.”
Comcast hoped it could quietly interfere with its customer’s BitTorrent activities without getting too much attention. Unfortunately for them, their actions didn’t go unnoticed, and during August last year we broke the news that this ISP does indeed mess with its customers internet connections.
Comcasts actions sparked the debate about what “reasonable” network management practices are, and this eventually resulted in a FCC hearing last month.
It now seems that Comcast saw the light, and wants to invest in more Internet gateway capacity after all. BitTorrent Inc. announced today that it will work together with the ISP to optimize their software, so that it puts less stress on the network.
Ashwin Navin, president of BitTorrent Inc. told TorrentFreak: “We are happy that Comcast is increasing the upload capacity on its network and that they will stop sending TCP resets to BitTorrent clients. We plan to jointly test how ISPs can better address the large volume of P2P traffic and share our research with all ISPs and application developers. This is a huge win for the Internet community as a whole.”
Still, Comcast will continue to throttle heavy users, who actually use the bandwidth that was promised to them in their contracts. It is to be expected that Comcast and other ISPs will have to step away from the all-you-can-eat plans they have been offering for years, now that people actually start to use bandwidth they signed up for.
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“The ISP and BitTorrent Inc. will work together”
And also as we know MPAA is financing BitTorrent Inc. so this all seems to go just for the ‘right’ direction…
“Rather than slow traffic by certain types of applications — such as file-sharing software or companies like BitTorrent — Comcast will slow traffic for those users who consume the most bandwidth.”
Yea, cause /thats/ better. Notice no hard figures on what counts as “most bandwidth.”
Nothing’s going to change, now they just have more excuses.
I don’t think ISPs should ever be focusing on manipulating particular protocol types, rather, they should simply take a protocol-neutral stance and introduce general usage guidelines and rules to govern subscriber consumption habits. Afterall, wasn’t the problem here bandwidth availiability, than ‘the BitTorrent protocol’?
Now the question is: do I remove the “access-list 101 deny tcp any any eq 123 rst” rule from the router ?:)
“Now the question is: do I remove the “access-list 101 deny tcp any any eq 123 rst” rule from the router ?:)”
HAAHHA nice
“Rather than slow traffic by certain types of applications — such as file-sharing software or companies like BitTorrent”
They slowed down BitTorrent as a company? I doubt that but let’s not expect that a chief technology officer actually has a clue about technology. His title is probably misleading and he’s really just a bandwidth cop and injecting TCP-RST is the equivalent as using a Taser on his customers. Comcast gave BitTorrent a lot of free publicity which had exactly the opposite effect of slowing anyone down.
Comcast wouldn’t publish such statements if they weren’t shaking with fear and deep down in the shit.
So… Comcast: “We won’t penalize a specific protocol, now we’ll just discriminate against customers using exactly what they paid for”
THEY’RE PROMISING NOT TO BE NETWORK NEUTRAL RIGHT THERE.
Why i still don`t belive this bs? What kind of net are they using? From 15th century? :D
Does anyone have full text of the WSJ article that these quotes are pulled from? It’s subscription required ($).
They were quite happy messing with traffic until they got caught, now that they’ve been found out (and let’s not forget all those lies about not deliberately penalising BT in the first place) they’re pretending to play nice, and in turn going to punish ALL protocols that make the most out of their net connections.
I’m surprised Comcast has ANY non-casual customers anymore. anyone who plays online games, uses p2p, torrents or runs a server should be ditching them ASAP
Haha, they are indeed, still not offering a “decent product”. When someone signs a contract for a 1mbit up line, he should be able to seed (theoretically ofcourse) 1mbit up for 24 hours, 7 days a week. UNLESS they would start to advertise what their badnwith limit is, ex.: 50gb a month. Then at least you would know what you’re signing for. I can’t believe how a company actually wants to screw their users over like that. That’s like ordering 2 sandwiches and getting 1,5 with the companying saying: FUCK YOU! You’re only getting 1,5, but you have to buy this every month cause you signed a 2 year contract mwuahahaha.
/
At last some sh!t head in comcast thought that messing up with torrent users is like messing up with their companies profit….and their d!ck …!
For all isp out there…dont mess with torrent community! You dont need to know the consequence….will you?
http://www.hack5.blogspot.com
Anon
[quote comment="319984"]Haha, they are indeed, still not offering a “decent product”. When someone signs a contract for a 1mbit up line, he should be able to seed (theoretically ofcourse) 1mbit up for 24 hours, 7 days a week. UNLESS they would start to advertise what their badnwith limit is, ex.: 50gb a month. Then at least you would know what you’re signing for. I can’t believe how a company actually wants to screw their users over like that. That’s like ordering 2 sandwiches and getting 1,5 with the companying saying: FUCK YOU! You’re only getting 1,5, but you have to buy this every month cause you signed a 2 year contract mwuahahaha.
/[/quote]
LMAO, you actually WANT what your PAYING for?? you actually EXPECT to get what they ADVERTISE??? CUMCAST has always been the first ones to kick a customer, you dont mean ANYTHING to them. They are like the RIAA, they are probably sitting there right now, trying to figure out a way to SUE their own customers, to boost revenue. They are gonna find a way to squirm around this one too.
WSJ articles are viewable when approaching them from Google News. So in this case:
http://news.google.com/news?q=Long+at+loggerheads,+cable+provider+Comcast+Corp&hl=en&lr=en&cr=us
Yeah, I agree; Comcast did not legit at all.
That 2 –> 1.5 sandwiches was a great analogy; they are still going to be unfair to p2p.
But, it is still progress; because now they are being equally unfair to the worlds of:
1) online video
2) online gaming
3) online radio
4) online telephone
5) online servers.
This increases the number of legitimate complaints significantly, and increases the odds of Comcast improving their infrastructure and reducing their restrictions significantly.
Its not a Total Win, but it is Significant Progress.
GO RON PAUL !!!
GO RON PAUL !!!
GO RON PAUL !!!
Comcast has always picked on the heaviest users. They send out letters to these heavy users that claim they are exceeding an unwritten usage limit. If you ask what the limit is, they won’t tell you. The solution is to have many more Comcast customers increase their usage, then the same people don’t show up in the top percentage of bandwidth consumers every time.
They charge for an unlimited service yet they limit you if you download too much.
FUCK YOU COMCAST. I’M WITH QWEST AND THEY ARE FAST AS HELL!
Comcast should have realized in their marketing strategy that if you offer an unlimited service IT BETTER DAMN WELL BE UNLIMITED!
april fools!
sounds like a good move comcast.
wtf were you smoking when you came up with the original plan?? fucking corporate execs out of tune with the digital world/news sharing concept.
they didn’t see the light, they thought of the fcc hearing.
I just ran a 12GB torrent thru Azureus with the new ‘Network Status Monitor’ plugin and the average RST ratio was 87%.
Who’s your daddy now (comcast)?
“Comcast hoped it could quietly interfere with its customer’s BitTorrent activities without getting too much attention.”
Those guys were seriously on crack, weren’t they? ;-)
“Comcast hoped it could quietly interfere with marathon runners by slowing them to a 3mph walking pace in a single file line without getting too much attention.”
Fixed, and yes, the drugs were rampant.
yeah fuckin right they are still limiting bandwidth usage still fuck comcast
[quote comment="320084"]
GO RON PAUL !!!
GO RON PAUL !!!
GO RON PAUL !!![/quote]
um didnt he drop out like last month?
to me anyone that gets a contract thru COMCAST must be just as new to the internet, as a n00b is to torrents thinking that a movie (ex.10000 BC) is 3MB big (virus anyone?)my ISP promised me UP TO 6MB with no contract and ya know what i get ? THE FULL 6MB and then sometimes even 7MB
ALIANT RULEZ!!
COMCAST, GO FUCK YOUR HELMET!!!!!
but thats just my take on things………
“BitTorrent Inc. will work together on finding customer friendly solutions for the congestion ALLEGEDLY caused by BitTorrent traffic”.
Are you kidding me with that statement? Look bittorrent is great. I love it but it is an absolute bandwidth hog. More than streaming video sites ,more than even Direct download. Even when I’m downloading at 100-200Kb/s it slows down my entire 10Mbit/s line and is noticeable on every computer in the house.
This is a bittersweet win for Comcast users.
On one hand, they’ll be able to share, on the other, it’s for a limited time until they start throttling again, but on a more open scale.
Well, at least the FCC is aware of this type of thing now, so they can be mindful.
Imagine that 300 passengers show up regularly to fly with an airplane with 250 seats. That kind of overselling wouldn’t stand for long.
“Imagine that 300 passengers show up regularly to fly with an airplane with 250 seats.”
That’s called RyanAir. If there are really 300 passengers, 50 of them must be terrorist because the plane would crash if they all boarded it. So there cannot ever be more than 250 passengers.
In related news, Microsoft and Linus Torvalds announce an alliance in which the two will work together on a completely open-source and free version of Windows Vista.
It will have all the same features and will be free to download and modify under the GNU GPL.
Bill Gates said, “We want to work to improve the OS experience for our customers, and if it means discarding our old business model, then so be it. Open source is ‘where it’s at’ nowadays and we (Microsoft) are hip to the advantages that the Linux kernal has to offer.”
Steve Balmer is now embarking upon a nation-wide tour to tout the new, “Penguin-Powered” Vista OS.
Torvalds’ only comment was a succinct, “Fnork?”
WHEN is comcast going to stop the BS as they’ve promised? I just switched from AT&T and I’m used to rock solid upload speeds. I generally have had utorrent running 24/7 for the past two and a half years but now that my aunt has switched to the cumcast ‘triple play’ i often get “no incoming connections” (red triangle) unless i download a torrent and while “just seeding” the upload line on the speed graph looks like a roller coaster track.
this is going to kill my 1.81 ratio, guess no more private trackers for me. I might have to start beating my neighbor for their wifi at night so i can upload. they still have dsl. ;P
[quote comment="320591"]WHEN is comcast going to stop the BS as they’ve promised? I just switched from AT&T and I’m used to rock solid upload speeds. I generally have had utorrent running 24/7 for the past two and a half years but now that my aunt has switched to the cumcast ‘triple play’ i often get “no incoming connections” (red triangle) unless i download a torrent and while “just seeding” the upload line on the speed graph looks like a roller coaster track.
this is going to kill my 1.81 ratio, guess no more private trackers for me. I might have to start beating my neighbor for their wifi at night so i can upload. they still have dsl. ;P[/quote]
there’s a simple solution: http://www.relakks.com – cost only 5 euros/month and works like a charm! :D
[quote comment="320366"][quote comment="320084"]
GO RON PAUL !!!
GO RON PAUL !!!
GO RON PAUL !!![/quote]
um didnt he drop out like last month?[/quote]
Dude! Not cool! No he did not!
Check the guy out (esp. on google and youtube); he has a HELL of a message, and the money shoot him down all the time, censoring him and spreading mis-info like that;
a lot a lot of people consider this upcoming election fixed, with the candidates differences merely smoke screens, but not Ron Paul.
PLEASE, seriously, this is cool; check him out!! Google him!! YouTube him!! He is still on the ballot and won’t leave until the PEOPLE tell him to with their votes, NOT the media tell him to with their blackout of him!!!!
And yeah, this comcast/neutrality thing seems like an oxymoron; their greedy bastards. Now in a more free-capitalist system that would be cool; they’d lose customers, drop their allegiance to the dinosaur mafIAA, and get customers back (money money money!);
but ya’ll live in an oppressive state, son! They would rather have control than money, and they could probably (have – will – are!) get away with whatever they want.
I don’t see this concession as anything more than a smokescreen; they’re still gonna try to stop Torrent, just try another approach.
Crazy white people!
Fugg off with your Ron Paul shizz. Loser.
We at Microsoft will never compromise with this disorganized crime crap spread through the torrent mess! You criminals, con men, iTards, LuTards, pedophiles, and torrent users make me ill!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Yeah I don’t trust it at all but then again I have not been nearly as aggressively throttled but I am not always a top bandwidth throttler.
I have been using comcast forever, no alternatives, great download speeds, SHIT upload. This is good news…
I want to be able to seed!
And yes I am a bandwidthwhore, i’ve exceeded my limit a few times :’( not really sure what limits i broke, but hey they said i broke them, i guess its finally up to them to fix them!
These rock!
http://pluking.blogspot.com
DEATH to NIGGERS!!!
I just want FIBER!!!!
Where I live its either Comcast or DSL. Fiber is being run currently and I am just waiting for it to go live. Once it does GAME OVER for Comcast!!
Good thing I live outside of the US,haha.
Does Comcast guarantee bandwidth… no. There sales pitch is “up to x times faster…” Does DSL guarantee bandwidth… yes. So, Comcast is uncapped and susceptible to traffic problems, DSL is not. But which is generally faster for the buck… Comcast. Traffic shaping is nothing new and many industries do it, it’s the issue of discrimination that the FCC addressed. This is a win!
Next on the agenda, break up the monopoly and the issue is over.
@ #12: My ISP offers me exactly what i pay for, but hey, i’m from Holland.
I used to work for comcast, I know how shit works, in my area there is no contracts, but read the fine print “down load speed up to 8MB” it doesn’t state 8mb min, oh shit son, lol. and they’ve always had caps on the heavy uses. some guy had a shit load of DL and UL, they disconnected him because “the customer used up to much bandwidth” fuck the cap, there are to many people who do massive DL, and can someone define “heavy users” and “who actually use the bandwidth that was promised to them in their contracts” uh it’s called good business ethics, maybe if I payed for it I should get it, new concept for comcast I guess.
lmao @ 29. the only advantage to being small; i never feel cramped on ryanair.
[quote comment="320384"]to me anyone that gets a contract thru COMCAST must be just as new to the internet, as a n00b is to torrents thinking that a movie (ex.10000 BC) is 3MB big (virus anyone?)my ISP promised me UP TO 6MB with no contract and ya know what i get ? THE FULL 6MB and then sometimes even 7MB
ALIANT RULEZ!!
COMCAST, GO FUCK YOUR HELMET!!!!!
but thats just my take on things………[/quote]
you must be new to the internet also u noob.. dont u know that for the most of the time you dont have any other option.. ther is usually 2 providers for an area: cable and dsl, in my case its comcast or verizon and both suk, but i chose comcast because its faster anyway even if they throttle ur tcp..
do u actually think if i had aliant as an option i wouldnt want to have it..? u moron
[quote comment="320384"]to me anyone that gets a contract thru COMCAST must be just as new to the internet, as a n00b is to torrents thinking that a movie (ex.10000 BC) is 3MB big (virus anyone?)my ISP promised me UP TO 6MB with no contract and ya know what i get ? THE FULL 6MB and then sometimes even 7MB
ALIANT RULEZ!!
COMCAST, GO FUCK YOUR HELMET!!!!!
but thats just my take on things………[/quote]
you must be new to the internet also u noob.. dont u know that for the most of the time you dont have any other option.. ther is usually 2 providers for an area: cable and dsl, in my case its comcast or verizon and both suk, but i chose comcast because its faster anyway even if they throttle ur tcp..
do u actually think if i had aliant as an option i wouldnt want to have it..? u moron
krnkTL f81tpvn7894323ndrx
I guess their going to slow down my internet connection. I download A LOT.
They suck big
I started my download 3hr 50min ago and it was going to take 7hrs. Now it is probably going to take 7hrs 10mins. In 7hrs I wonder if it will take 8.
These numbers added concurrent
Pay more for less!!! Notice how if you get the "Triple play package" the price is fine for a year then it makes a HUGE jump – so you bundle and save (??right??) then when your bills have gone from 100 a month to 180 a month and you try to cancel, they tell you , if you drop your phone service, the cable service price goes up and the internet speed drops… you need to bundle to get the savings. So let me get this right – if i want LESS service, i pay MORE??? But if i WANT more service, faster downloads that they advertise I can be penalized for USING iT??? WHAT THE HECK?!?
Why not block FTP traffic too, and while we're at it, lets scale back attacment sizes to only what could fit on a floppy disc. We wouldnt want people sending movie clips over email attachments now…
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