Gizmodo
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net neutrality
FCC Pressed to Investigate Apple, AT&T Regarding Skype Over 3G
Consumer activist group Free Press has asked the FCC to investigate AT&T's refusal to allow Skype to access its wireless network on the iPhone, instead restricting it to WiFi. More »
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By Dan NosowitzComment by Carey Smith: I think that att has that rite. maybe am wrong 14 Responses | Other threads
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net neuterality
Your ISP Hates You: They're Probably Working With RIAA
Remember how the RIAA was getting ISPs to help battle copyright infringers after they gave up lawsuits, and AT&T was all "no comment"? Now AT&T confirms they're working with the RIAA. UPDATED. More »
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Comment by BuyingPowerTools_GitEmSteveDave: ::Taps his external drive twice encrypted which may or may not have downloaded content on it:: 15 Responses | Other threads
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politics
Obama's New CIO Is All About Net Neutrality and Open Source
Vivek Kundra, Obama's newly-appointed CIO, is the man in charge of developing and deploying IT to improve government operations. He's also a fan of building government intranets based around Google web apps. More »
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Comment by MostlyHarmless: In before the first troll to make a "indians are stealing our jobs" or a call centre joke. 10 Responses | Other threads
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internet
AT&T and Comcast Agree to Do the RIAA's Dirty Work
Sure, the RIAA has given up on lawsuits, but it's got an even better trick: ISPs will do their dirty work for them. Not surprisingly, AT&T and Comcast stepped right up, says CNET. UPDATED. More »
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Comment by inspiredEpic: This is a bit off topic so I apologize in advance. But why aren't the commas working? 27 Responses | Other threads
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comcast
Inside the Mind of the Dark Lord of Broadband, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts
If you didn't catch this month's delightfully ad-light issue of Wired, check out their profile of "the Dark Lord of broadbrand," Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. His calm demeanor reminds me of Palpatine, the Chancellor. [Wired]
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Comment by jackbling: anyone care to give a brief synopsis? very curious about this but may have to just check it out later. 5 Responses | Other threads
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comcast
Comcast's Internet Slowdown System Fully Armed and Operational (and Avoidable)
Comcast's bandwidth throttling system that slows you down for using too much bandwidth is now fully armed and operational in all markets. Here's how it works, and how to not get stuck on the short bus. More » -
not being evil
Google Wants to Install Servers at ISPs, Not So Sure About That 'Net Neutrality' Thing After All
The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has has approached ISPs with a plan to install servers within their networks, providing a "fast lane" for the famous supporters of net neutrality Updated 1:30p EST
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By John HerrmanComment by t3knomanser: Um... because installing nodes at the edge of a network has nothing to do with Net Neutrality? This is one of... 7 Responses | Other threads
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at&t
AT&T Monthly Bandwidth Caps Are Here
AT&T's bandwidth caps for its high speed internet customers are here. They're conducting a "market trial" in Reno that started on Nov. 1, where users get between 20GB and 150GB a month, depending on their speed tier. Unlike Time Warner's trial in Beamont, where caps were only applied to new customers, existing customers will also be capped, though they'll get the roomier 150GB cap. If you bust the cap, AT&T will charge an extra dollar per gigabyte. More »
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Comment by jdbaile3: How much data is pulled down from an average online gaming session? I wouldn't think all that much but... 8 Responses | Other threads
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anti-piracy laws
France To Slap Convicted Pirates with Year-Long Internet Ban
France's Senate just passed a law proposed in mid-summer that would cut the families of illegal fileswappers off from broadband internet access for a year. This makes France the first country to pop anti-piracy legislation against users, and it's probably not going to be the last. More »
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Comment by Toastie: Oh yeah, you're not unnecessarily trampling on people's right to the Internet at all. This is like cutting off a... 8 Responses | Other threads
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p2p
Almost Half of Net Traffic Is Not-So-Legal P2P (And It'll Really Take Off Soon)
A market research firm called MultiMedia Intelligence—who I admittedly had never heard of—offers up some astounding numbers onporn swappingP2P traffic: 33.6% of North American net activity is P2P, almost all of it illegal. Huge, right? But worldwide, the number is even higher, at 44%. So almost half of the world's net activity is the illegal swapping of movies and music? Mercifully for studios and record labels, the report holds some good-ish news about the future, but it's still a bag o' trouble for the ISPs. More »
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Comment by SewerShark: Sometimes you don't know if the movie worth the money you pay for it. Even more these days that any... 11 Responses | Other threads
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election 2008
John McCain Blamed for Sucky Broadband in US
Our friend (and Wired editor) Nick Thompson wrote a piece in the Washington Monthly accusing John McCain for the sorry state of America's broadband. It seems the email-avoiding presidential candidate, as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, supported too much consolidation and too little oversight. The end result? "Since 2000, the United States has gone from fifth in the world to twenty-second in broadband penetration." More »
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Comment by inspiredEpic: I'm not a registered democrat or republican, but... ...I would like to know why most of the liberal people I have... 34 Responses | Other threads
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wimax
Sprint's Xohm WiMax Will Neuter Heavy Downloaders
For all the talk that Sprint's freshly launched Xohm WiMax would be the openest internets ever and can totally replace your ISP, when it comes to bandwidth-sucking apps, that's not the case. It'll neuter file-sharing applications, or anything else—like VoIP—that uses a lot of bandwidth. More » -
copyright protection
Hollywood Teams with AT&T and Others In Possible Packet-Filtering Coalition
Some of you P2P fans may want to know about a new coalition called Arts + Labs. It may sound like some kind of open-source hippie think tank, but it's actually a powerful alignment of film and music copyright owners (NBC Universal, Viacom and the Songwriters Guild of America) and tech firms and ISPs (Microsoft, Cisco Systems and AT&T). It's a group that could put together a pretty serious anti-piracy system without much trouble. Saul Hansell at the NY Times says the group claims that "network operators must have the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution and illegal file trafficking which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers.” Hansell interprets this as a call to filter packets, and put the kibosh on any dubious transfers. More »
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Comment by Quatre707: Anyone who understands the very basic fundamentals of computer networking knows it is impossible to stop P2P file sharing. If perhaps... 2 Responses | Other threads
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at&t
AT&T Changes Terms of Service, Fastest U-Verse Subscribers Will See Slowdowns
AT&T's just updated its terms of service for broadband customers, and starting next month,if you're a heavy downloader,get ready to have your connection squeezed to a trickle. While they haven't implemented usage caps a la Comcast (yet)they are using a similar traffic management techniquestarting on Oct. 18 you will see throughput get slower if you're "using other U-verse services in a manner that requires high bandwidth." Update: AT&T just hit us with some clarifications on the confusingly worded ToS—Rebel downloaders won't be punished specifically for using gobs of bandwidth, but what they've told us actually sounds worse for the average Joe U-Verse subscriber. More »
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Comment by ALT: Why the fuck can the government not regulate this shit? These companies should be eaten. 4 Responses | Other threads
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comcast
Comcast Sues FCC to Get P2P Slowdown Ban Reversed
Comcast has sued the FCC to overturn its order to stop slowing down P2P traffic, as was widely predicted. Even though they're fighting to have the FCC's ruling reversed, it's actually not so they can go back to mucking your P2P funtime—no, they're already way down the road of slowing down heavy users' entire connection to DSL speed for up to 20 minutes, with data caps beginning in October. More »
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Comment by dukemang: I agree with Comcast on this one. It sucks that they cap internet speeds but instead of regulating how they... 7 Responses | Other threads
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net neutrality
VP Candidate Biden Is No Friend to File Sharing, Net Neutrality Protection or Online Privacy
CNet's Declan McCullagh wrote up an informative history of Joe Biden's tech-related voting record—if Biden's name rings a bell, it's because he's the guy Barack Obama picked to be his vice president last Friday night. Maybe you don't care about the doings in Washington, but you may want to know that Biden considers a lot of what you do care about criminal activity. Here's what I'm talking about: More »
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Comment by coffinsurfer: Have ANY of you even bothered to check Bidens voting record? 1. He wants to tax the net on EVERYTHING, including... 1 Responses | Other threads
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comcast
Comcast's New Network Management Will Slow Down Heavy Users for Up to 20 Minutes
While Comcast's new network management scheme—to slow down heavy bandwidth users' entire connection—started back in June, we're just getting some of the grislier details. People hitting their pipe hard—whether it's watching a boatload of streaming video or FTP or whatever—will see their top speeds cut for 10 to 20 minutes at a time. More »
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Comment by videoCWK: Yet another reason Comcast fails. They seriously need to stop trying to budget cut and focus more on actual performance.... more » | Other threads
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comcast
Has Comcast Lowered Their Monthly Usage Limits?
We known for a while that Comcast's "unlimited" broadband is actually not so. The monthly usage limit seemed to be near 300GB before, but reader Ace says that he got a nasty phone call warning him that his usage is in the top one percent of residential plans, and it's pissing on everyone else's internet funtime (unless he gets the more expensive business plan, natch)—yet he says his usage is only about 150-200GB a month. More »
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Comment by GertrudeFeardaddy: I say, why stop there? If I’ve flushed my toilet too many times this month (or during peak flushing times), cut... more » | Other threads
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net neutrality
Giz Explains: How Broadband Usage Caps Will Kill Internet Video
NBC's scheduled coverage of the 2008 Olympics is absolutely breathtaking in its scope: It's broadcasting over 3,600 hours of the world's greatest athletes performing feats that reveal how shapeless and amoebic the rest of humanity is—that's 1,000 more hours than the last 12 Summer Olympics combined. The internet is a huge component of their nearly omniscient coverage. You can even download and watch full-length events. But NBC has a fat red warning on the page: If you've got metered or capped broadband, you might want to think twice before downloading. It's the first shot by major media in the next great battle for the internet's future. Here's why you—and most media companies—should be worried about the new wave of internet pricing.
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the verdict is in
FCC Orders Comcast to Stop P2P Blocking
It comes as no surprise, but the FCC has officially ruled on the issue of Comcast P2P blocking and determined in a 3-2 vote that the company must stop blocking web access and fully disclose its traffic management practices to subscribers—but it will not be fined for its actions. It is only a small victory though—as we have already stated, this ruling does not prevent data caps from being implemented by ISPs and there is no guarantee that the ruling will hold up in court. Chances are the FCC does not legally have the authority to regulate ISPs in the first place. [Bloomberg] -
fcc
FCC Head Wants to Bust Open Cable and the Internet (But Without Neutrality Rules)
A day before the FCC is expected to slap Comcast's Hellboy-like wrist, FCC Emperor Kevin Martin gave the the NYT his big hairy vision for openness for cable, wireless and the internet: He wants to set a "very high bar on what network operators can do in terms of putting limits on consumers.” But that doesn't mean he wants true net neutrality, or even actual rules, saying that “hard and fast rules can...have adverse impact.” More »
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Comment by Bull By The Horns: do we not already pay for this as ISP's are making record profits?? more » | Other threads
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comcast
WSJ: FCC to Rule Against Comcast on P2P Blockage (But We're Still Screwed)
Confirming what's been hinted at by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin since like the dawn of time, the WSJ is reporting that the FCC is going to rule on Friday that Comcast violated federal policy by by stalling BitTorrent connections. From there, it gets ugly. More »
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Comment by mightybob: @entropyman: rogers gives you a pop up in your web browser (works in fire fox and ever opera< probibly has something... more » | Other threads
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comcast
FCC Ready To Slam Comcast For P2P Filtering
It looks as though Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is ready to lay the hammer down on Comcast regarding their wanton BitTorrent blocking. As was evident in the recent net neutrality hearing, Martin is hellbent on protecting consumers by establishing rules for transparency within ISPs. In an interview with AP, Martin noted that "The commission has adopted a set of principles that protect consumers' access to the internet, and we found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles." He went on to say that they "arbitrarily" blocked internet access and failed to disclose this to customers. More »
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By Sean FallonComment by MikeTy: I was reading about the download cap Comcast is supposedly going to impose of around 250GB/Month. In the article, [www.internetevolution.com]... more » | Other threads
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google
Google Tools Will Tell You If Your ISP Is Slowing Down Your Connection
And I was starting to feel unfulfilled by the stuff coming out of Google's labs. Its senior policy director, Richard Whitt, says that they're cooking up software that'll tell you if your ISP is screwing with or slowing down your connection because you're hogging too much bandwidth, and what exactly they're doing to it. (There's already some available, BTW, since Whitt didn't mention a release date.) But it's not necessarily because they believe willy nilly in net neutrality. More »
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Comment by maven2k: I would totally download this. I have Roadrunner "turbo" and it seems to be losing it's "turb-ness" lately. I trust... more » | Other threads
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comcast
Comcast Starts "Net Neutral" Slowdowns of Heavy Broadband Users
Comcast is finally rolling out its "net neutral" network management scheme, starting with customers in Chambersburg, PA and Warrenton, VA. As we've explained before, Comcast says of the new plan that "heavy users, who are doing things like conducting numerous or continuous large file transfers, may experience slightly longer response times for some online activities, until the period of network congestion ends." And it doesn't matter whether it's BitTorrent or gobs of GooTube. More »
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Comment by Sixxtwo: @Eugenia: From NW Washington. Confirming that it does the same exact thing up here. Tried watching a few videos over... more » | Other threads
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net neutrality
Dems Launch Net Neutrality Bill, GOP Says "Hands Off the Poor ISPs!"
Yesterday on Capitol Hill, two Democratic representatives introduced a House bill that would require broadband ISPs to "interconnect with the facilities of other network providers on a reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis." It also requires them to treat all content, applications and services as the same, with "equal opportunity to reach consumers," says an IDG story in the New York Times. Any ISPs who start messing around with packets could be subject to antitrust enforcement. Republicans weren't so happy with the bill. More »
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Comment by B: You write: "Yes, I cry for you, poor downtrodden multibillion-dollar multinationals with borderline monopoly arrangements for persistent and constantly increasing... more » | Other threads
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rumor
Comcast Considering 250GB Monthly Data Caps, Disconnecting Repeat Pirates
Other than Time Warner's single-city foray into monthly data caps, consumption-based billing has mostly been little ISPs with little monopolies, and given the market, we thought it'd stay that way. Broadband Reports is, uh, reporting that now Comcast is mulling monthly caps (which Comcast's PR guy confirms, though not the details)—something like 250GB, and then $1.50 for every GB over that. According to their source, the idea has "a lot of momentum" and it'll start rolling out in the next two months. The other part is that they're going to start ramping up DMCA notices to pirate assholes, with a total disconnect if you've gotten four letters in a 12-month period. More »
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Comment by Arsenal6: 250 gb is good enough...im capped at 60 wtf >< cheap ass rogers more » | Other threads
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at&t
Azureus/Vuze Says AT&T Is Pulling a Comcast, Resetting Torrents
A month after releasing its plugin that detects if your ISP is performing reset voodoo on your torrents, Azureus/Vuze is claiming AT&T hexes them with the same reset TCP packet curse as Comcast, despite AT&T's explicit statements otherwise. AT&T denies the accusation and points out a flaw in the plugin's method, that it can't tell the difference between naturally occurring TCP resets and artificial ones generated by an ISP. Azureus, while admitting the issue, still says AT&T is full it. More »
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Comment by tkatz-from-the-514: @madlogik: I'm also with Videotron, but sometimes I feel like they might be throttling my torrents, as my torrents are going... more » | Other threads
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net neutrality
Sexy Lady Offers to Harvest Virginity of Net Neutrality-Supporting Nerds (NSFW)
Still in Belgium—hurrah!—let us segue from sticky ponchos to stickiness of another kind. Notorious sexylady
Tanya Devereaux says that she is turning virgin surgeon in order to divest any nerd of his cherry—provided that they support a free web. One of the terms and conditions states that the act must not last for more than 30 minutes. Er, could any guy last more than 30 seconds on their first time?
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By AddyDugdaleComment by TOWken: I have to say that Ms. Devereaux has single handedly struck up the most brilliant campaigning I have seen as... 1 Responses | Other threads
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comcast
Did Comcast Lie to Me About Slowing Down P2P Traffic?
When I was talking to Comcast for my round up of ISP network management practices (pre-BT deal), we talked a lot about how they manage p2p traffic, and they were very clear that the temporary slowdowns were "surgical," (their word) and only employed during heavy congestion. So I'd been using that caveat anytime I brought it up, out of fairness. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told a Senate committee this week that what Comcast told me wasn't true: "It does not appear that this technique was used only to occasionally delay traffic at particular nodes suffering from network congestion at that time." More »
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Comment by Hello_Newman: Before you shout class action, what's going to happen is the lawyers are made into double digit millionaires and every... more » | Other threads
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internet
10 Percent of Broadband Subscribers Suck Up 80 Percent of Bandwidth But P2P No Longer to Blame
The most consistent rationale for ISPs to throttle p2p applications or charge by the byte is that a small minority of users drain a vastly disproportionate amount of bandwidth, like the planet-raping aliens in Independence Day. Om Malik pulls a few of these numbers out of Arbor Networks' CTO, who develops all the traffic management tools your ISP probably uses, so while there's a conflict of interest (portents of internet doom sell more stuff) they have the data. Ten percent of subscribers consume 80 percent of bandwidth, a super-leeching 0.5 percent swallow 40 percent of bandwidth, and the rest like your mom, 80 percent, sip less than 10 percent. But p2p isn't the culprit. More » -
internet
AT&T: The Internet Will Explode in 2010
South Park already showed us how to fix the internet, but what really struck me was Randy's speech at the end—he totally sounded like an AT&T or Comcast executive when he said, "It's easy for us to think we can just use up all the internet we want but...it could one day be gone forever." Actually, that's exactly what AT&T's VP for Legislative Affairs Jim Cicconi said at the Westerminister eForum: "We are going to be butting up against the physical capacity of the internet by 2010." Update: AT&T's saying now that Cicconi was mis-quoted, and the doomy prediction was from a study. What he actually said was, "In three years' time 20 typical households here in London will generate more traffic than the entire Internet did back in 1995." More » -
speculation
FCC to Force ISPs to Reveal P2P Blockage and Real World Bandwidth Speeds
Last night, the FCC held its Comcast-less do-over hearing on net neutrality. While the FCC doesn't appear to be super gung-ho on government-enforced net neutrality, the smoke signals indicate that they're leaning toward forcing ISPs to be completely transparent about their network practices, telling you whether they block BitTorrent and how fast your connection is in real-world conditions, not fantasy-land speeds that only spike when the planets align. More »
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Comment by shalegac: I F'n hate comcast. Even downloading legal P2P files with a million seeder I only pull max 40 bytes per/second... more » | Other threads
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net neutrality
Comcast Ducks Out of Tomorrow's FCC Hearing at Stanford
Comcast has opted out of the FCC hearings to be held tomorrow at Stanford University. Did they not find enough net neutrality hecklers in the Silicon Valley? [Portfolio via Valleywag]
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Comment by Guy-Fawkes: the "technical issue" is that Comcast (and all other ISPs, as far as I know) have sold far more of... 1 Responses | Other threads
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comcast
Comcast Wants a P2P Bill of Rights: Should You Be Excited or Afraid?
Comcast officially loves P2P as much as George Washington loves freedom. It's calling for an industry-wide P2P bill of rights and responsibilities that would cover ISPs and users and "clarify what choices and controls consumers should have...as well as what processes and practices ISPs should use to manage P2P applications." Furthermore, as they stated earlier, Comcast is pushing for protocol agnostic management, more bandwidth and more transparency. Sounds groovy, but here's why we don't think they're doing this just to make your 30 Rock torrent experience a silky smooth ride.
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net neutrality
Will Your ISP F You In the A? Bandwidth Hogs Beware
As the amount of bandwidth we devour has skyrocketed, so has ISPs' need to police our appetites, even as they offer more bandwidth to whet it. We talked to the biggest ISPs around to get their official positions on traffic management and content filtering to see what's in store for your pipes. Here's where you find out which ISPs may screw you, and which ones swear to Giz they won't. Update: We've got new responses from AT&T and Speakeasy. More » -
net neutrality
Europe Says Net Banning Is a Violation of "Civil Liberties and Human Rights"
The European Parliament voted on anti-piracy bill that would boot persistent "file-sharers" off of the net, at the last minute shooting down that particular measure. More importantly, it added an amendment that said the European Union and its member countries should "avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of internet access." The vote royally pissed off the EU's RIAA-equivalent, the IFPI. Even still, the vote itself may not result in any kind of safe haven for, uh, P2P "enthusiasts": More »
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Comment by krisve: The point is that this makes it harder for IFPI to press the internet providers to actively implement systems to... more » | Other threads
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comcast
Comcast n' BitTorrent BFF: What's Good, What Sucks
Okay, so Comcast and BitTorrent are finally making nice after being all Crips and Bloods, even rousing the FCC out of its slumber at one point, which Comcast fought with every trick in the book. It sounds awesome on paper: Your torrents are safe! More bandwidth! Torrents will work even better! Comcast is all for net neutrality! Not quite. You might actually even be worse off. More » -
whaaaa
Comcast Pulls an About Face, Teams Up with BitTorrent for Net Neutrality
Comcast has taken a lot of crap from everyone from the FCC to consumers, and they've been listening. In fact, they've decided to stop all the fussin' and the fuedin' and actually team up with BitTorrent for the sake of net neutrality. But of course, dear readers, there's a catch. There's always a catch. More » -
net neutrality
Net Neutrality Shouldn't Extend to Illegal Acts, Says FCC Comissioner
One of the FCC's five commissioners, Jonathan Adelstein, said during a recent symposium on FCC Internet Video Policy that the FCC's rules shouldn't permit "illegal acts." Sure, illegal downloading is a serious problem, especially if you're a copyright-holding movie studio. But does that mean the FCC is actually against net neutrality, in general? More »
net neutrality
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