Comcast’s BitTorrent Throttling Acceptable? Not Quite!
Written by Ernesto on January 24, 2008Today, Richard Bennett from the Register wrote an article in which he argues that Comcast’s BitTorrent interference is reasonable. Not only does this alleged expert make absurd claims, he also thinks it’s necessary to take on the EFF. Time for a rebuttal.
Last year, we were the first to report that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds. Comcast of course denied our allegations, and ever since there has been a lot of debate about the rights and wrongs of Comcast’s actions. Today the Register published an article that begs for a reply.
Here’s one of Bennett’s conclusions taken from the article: “It’s acceptable for Comcast, as a matter of reasonable network management, to employ TCP Resets to prevent BitTorrent doing harm to the web browsing, standard file downloading, and VoIP sessions that are the typical behavior of the Comcast customer.”
This is of course a non-argument. The fundamental problem is that Internet providers offered flat-rate all-you-can-eat broadband access without considering that some users would actually use the offered product at full capacity. The providers’ tradition of selling a product at a ten-fold, known as overbooking, is starting to cause them trouble now companies, artists and their consumers start to utilize the benefits BitTorrent offers. But, is that the consumers’ fault?
Comcast, and other ISPs advertise with certain upload and download rates, conforming to simple DOCSIS capacity numbers. However, they miscalculated and found that there is more to the Internet than browsing, gopher, and email. Heavy-users broke their excel return-on-investment predictions and marketing campaign promises. Their flat-rate offers simply became too popular for the capacity that was bought and installed.
Maybe Comcast should start 2-new services “newb Internet”, designed only for emails, and “regular Internet” aimed at every single other person in the world who used the net for more than sending a text-only emails. That should make things more transparent.
Now they are whining and manipulating heavy users to undo the flat-rate contracts, instead of investing in more Internet gateway capacity, 10Gbps interconnect ports, and peering agreements. BitTorrent users do not slow down the Internet experience of others. They simply use the capacity they bought and show that the network capacity planning department screwed up.
There is one quote from the Register article that I agree with though: “Everyone who’s argued with religious fanatics has seen them dig in their heels and flail when confronted with challenges to their belief systems.” But the ISPs are the fanatics here, not the EFF who stands up for network neutrality.
Why?
I see a parallel with the entertainment industry here, clinging to business models that are outdated. Comcast should move on and invest in the future instead of throttling and interfering with the traffic their customers paid for. BitTorrent is here to stay, the files and the number of heavy users will only grow. Don’t fight your customers, think ahead and adapt!
Previously: Anti-Piracy Company Breaches Privacy, Ordered to Shut Down
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Very well said! Dugg.
as a comcast consumer, i hate them.
i run an fserve 24/7, and i’m constantly seedn torrents on at least 7 major private trackers, as well as the occasional http download.
i pay for an unlimited 16mb line, and i use it to its fullest.
recently i was ’shut off’ do to what comcast called ’suspisious activity’ which pretty much boiled down to them looking at my account and seeing that i had done over 500gb of traffic the previous month. now, i could have sworn i had done more than that, but i wasnt going to argue. they claimed i had broken thier acceptable use policy.
im, thats a load of bull. got my services restored in a jiffy, but the fact that the simply disabled my internet services with now writen warning in the mail, no email notification, and no phone call prier to the taking action, i find it a bit asshole-ish.
needless to say, as soon as my contract is up with them, i’m switching my isp.
thanks comcast, go fuck yourselves.
Comcast… great for downloading…. sometimes…. can’t say the same for seeding, Qwest FTW
Not quite on par with Comcast, but slowly getting that way, VirginMedia’s cable broadband service in the UK is slowly going the same way. Back in the day when it was Blueyonder people were happy, now though its a different story. 20mbit download and 768kbit upload is crippled to 5mbit/192kbit if you dare to download 3gb or upload 1.5gb between 4pm and 9pm. They too have oversubscribed their services to the point of breaking. So much so that the average joe doesnt see anywhere nearwhat they pay for during peak time wether they’ve hit traffic management or not. And to top it off, they are introducing 50mbit later this year, oh what joy that will be. Providers need to stop marketing their shit like its a never ending unlimited supply of broadband, because it clearly is not. And incorporating measures like these to somehow compensate for their own analytical screwups is getting beyond a joke. Fuck Comcast, fuck VirginMedia, and fuck anyone else who thinks they can screw the consumer with carefully worded FUP’s and AUP’s.
I buy a connection, I plan to use it to its full ability. If you don’t like that comcast, sell me a slower connection and I’ll use THAT to its full ability.
Sell me what your network can handle - don’t oversell it for marketing purposes.
Comcast bought Insight, my provider of choice *sobs*
Ernesto… the real Demosthenes. Well written, sir.
Right on. We pay for a service that we want to use 100% not 10%! Not our fault if the ISP can’t handle the load. They shouldn’t advertise unlimited if they can’t handle it. If you ask me its false advertising. Plus assuming users will only use a small amount of data per month is ridiculous. Assuming makes an ass out of you and me.
I too have the same problem, my fantastic ISP was bought over and now it really sucks, i am looking for anew provider but all of them have the same bullshit fair usage policy blah blah blah!
hehe, just last week here in Sweden there was a new article of ppl not getting the full bandwith.
Out of 100/100Mbit we often just get 75% of the speed but they dont cut us of even if we use it 24/7.
The USA should upgrade their networks ;)
[quote]Out of 100/100Mbit we often just get 75% of the speed but they dont cut us of even if we use it 24/7.
The USA should upgrade their networks ;)[/quote]
Only 75Mbit/s, how do you survive? :O
Here in canada there are still plenty of people with dial up.
In one hand Internet is such a great tool for them to make money,in the other hand this money making machine doesnt satisfy these greedy companies.
I’m afraid they are pushing for it and getting there. :( this companies dont care about anything but MONEY. if a day comes which all the ISPs doing such a thing with stupid restrictions on bandwidth limits then what should we do? future of the digital world is based on internet. there restrictions are stupid !
Here I’m on Time Warner and they do not throttle bit torrent. If they Did I would be pissed. They are the only company in my state that offers cable internet. There prices are rediculous but I have no choice but to sign on with them. I use my bit torrent 24/7 if they every slowed me down I dont’ know what I would do… Probably nothing. All of these giant cable companys have control in such large area’s they can charge and do whatever they want and there is nothing we can do becuase without them we have nothing. slow internet is better than no internet.
Need to find the article but At&t is testing a pay per use service in some markets. Man is that going to get ugly. They say the average user won’t notice a increase in the bill. They neglected to mention there defination of average
Bennett is a tool. He says that Eckersley from the EFF praises the Australian ISP “Whirlpool”, which according to the linked article, he doesn’t. However, Whirlpool.net is a forum for Australian net users to compare all the ISPs, rather than being an ISP itself. If he can’t get that right, I wouldn’t trust anything else he has to say.
Thankfully this crapcast company isn’t over here yet. Though we do have our fair share of dipshit isps.
I’m switching to Verizon FIOS, it has better uploading speed, and the same download speed as Comcast Highspeed with no limit :)
well said
Its great when the only cable provider in your area cannot live up to their own promises.
Come to my area FIOS, I beg of you.
i got ten mbps and my MAXIMUM download speed for last two years is 110 KBPS!!!
in ireland so i have these eircom bastards…..when i ringem up they tell me i have a faulty filter!
Y’ALL GUILTY!!BASTARDS!!!
bittorrent traffic is a drain on network resources. It’s easy to sit back and demand that ISPs increase their bandwidth, but as soon as they did, bittorrent would fill it up again because you guys are bottomless pits.
pirates are simply replacing record labels as the new exploiters of the labor and resources of others, contributing nothing yet feeling entitled to everything for free.
Also, that guy from the Register is not a dummy. He is consistently opposed to the RIAA. The fact that you regard the Register as “the enemy” only demonstrates how delusional some of you have become.
Funny how they always blame their mistakes on the consumers. Whatever happened to the slogan; the customer is always right?
Instead of overbooking, you might be looking for overselling. The Wikipedia article on overbooking is dangerously unreliable.
[quote comment="270744"]bittorrent traffic is a drain on network resources. It’s easy to sit back and demand that ISPs increase their bandwidth, but as soon as they did, bittorrent would fill it up again because you guys are bottomless pits.
pirates are simply replacing record labels as the new exploiters of the labor and resources of others, contributing nothing yet feeling entitled to everything for free.
Also, that guy from the Register is not a dummy. He is consistently opposed to the RIAA. The fact that you regard the Register as “the enemy” only demonstrates how delusional some of you have become.[/quote]
So its OK to mess up someones buiseness with TCP resets??? f*ck you!
Bittorrent aint just a stupid pirate tool its the best distribution method ever created for the internet, and yea ISPs sutch as Comcast need to provide more bandwith, thats what ISPs does and if it costs they can raise the subscriptions but they sure as hell cant mess with peoples usage! If Comcast cant compete (witch they sure as hell cant with European ISPs that have tons of bandwith from thin air havent they?) then they go out of buiseness!
They cant throttle users and mess with protocols just to be able to compete then they are obviously doing something very wrong! again frack you, if your work was being messed with im sure you would go out and r*pe anyone supporting them aswell!
I love comcast, they love WEEN
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