FCC Complaint filed over Comcast P2P blocking

SUCK IT, COMCAST!

Advocacy group to FCC: Comcast's traffic blocking defense is bogus
By Eric Bangeman | Published: November 01, 2007 - 12:30PM CT

A handful of consumer groups, including members of the Savetheinternet.com coalition, have asked the Federal Communications Commission to stop Comcast from interfering with BitTorrent and other P2P traffic. A new complaint (PDF) filed by Public Knowledge and Free Press accuses Comcast of "secretly degrading" P2P traffic, calling it a violation of network neutrality principles, and asks the FCC to enjoin Comcast from blocking P2P traffic in the future.

The complaint comes in the wake of revelations the Comcast is using Sandvine to actively interfere with and block some BitTorrent, Gnutella, and even Lotus Notes traffic. The ISP is using forged TCP reset packets, which tell both ends of a connection that the other party has reset the connection, to accomplish the task. Comcast admits to managing traffic on its network to ensure a "good Internet experience" for all of its customers. The company argues that its management techniques will occasionally "delay" traffic, but denies that it blocks or degrades traffic, despite evidence to the contrary.

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, disagrees, and believes something fishy is going on. "Comcast's defense is bogus," said Scott in a statement. "The FCC needs to take immediate action to put an end to this harmful practice. Comcast's blatant and deceptive BitTorrent blocking is exactly the type of problem advocates warned would occur without Net Neutrality laws."

The complaint accuses Comcast of engaging in "deliberately secretive" traffic "jamming" practices that are designed to obscure its actions from users. It also argues that the ISP's actions violate the FCC's Internet Policy Statement (PDF). That statement outlined four policy principles, which are subject to "reasonable network management":

-Consumers are entitled to access their choice of lawful Internet content
-Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement
-Consumers can connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network
-Consumers are entitled to competition from ISPs and content providers

Free Press and Public Knowledge believe that Comcast's actions violate the first three principles. In the complaint, they remind the Commission of Chairman Kevin Martin's February testimony before a Congressional committee, in which he pledged to enforce those principles: "Although we are not aware of current blocking situations, the Commission remains vigilant and stands ready to step in to protect consumers' access to content on the Internet," Martin said.

With the Commission having argued that it's capable of addressing net neutrality violations after the fact, argues the complaint, the moment of truth is here. The complaint wants the FCC to put its money where its mouth is—in addition to permanently barring Comcast from blocking P2P traffic, the consumer groups want the ISP fined $195,000 ($97,500 for discrimination and $97,500 for deception) for each consumer affected by the problem.

In response to the complaint, Comcast reiterated its carefully-worded stance that it does not block access "to any Web sites or online applications," including BitTorrent. "As the FCC noted in its policy statement in 2005, all of the principles to encourage broadband deployment and preserve the nature of the Internet are 'subject to reasonable network management,'" Comcast executive VP David Cohen told Ars. "The Commission clearly recognized that network management is necessary by ISPs for the good of all customers."

Comcast is hoping that the FCC will agree that its blocking P2P traffic does indeed fall under the category of "reasonable" traffic management and dismiss the complaint. If that doesn't happen, the ISP faces the possibility of massive fines and being forced to substantially alter how it handles P2P traffic. If nothing else, the complaint gives more fodder to recently reanimated discussions over network neutrality.