Comcast Traffic Monitoring A Slap In The Face To Net Neutrality

[Toby]

Originally Posted by Jace

...I think it is horribly wrong for a ISP to throttle connections due to a certain type of traffic they detect, even if majority of that type of traffic is used for illegal purposes

Yet another case of guilty until proven innocent.

When did that fundamental concept get reversed. Our founding fathers would be appalled.

[TheEnforcer]

Having my bandwidth throttled for doing something that is not illegal would piss me off royally.

[Jace]

Originally Posted by TheEnforcer

Having my bandwidth throttled for doing something that is not illegal would piss me off royally.

yeah, and from what I am reading there isn't much I can do about it

it is comcast policy

and god forbid I switch internet and get dsl around here, which comes at a blazing fast speed of like 1.5 Mbps when I am getting 12Mbps now

[RawAlex]

Jace, no matter the legality of the content you are moving via bittorrent, the protocol in and of itself is abusive of the ISP's network. Your computer is used as a node for the commercial (and non commercial) distribution of software and music. Much of your bandwidth in a day may be used to do so.

P2P programs (plus things like Skype and Joost) are entirely dependant on leeching free bandwidth from ISPs to operate. The ISPs have to keep buying more and more bandwidth to keep up with customer demand, but really that customer demand is as much to keep these programs in operation as they are for uses limited to the end user.

You may not entirely understand, but systems like skype can use a huge amount of your bandwidth even when you aren't actively talking on the skype phone. Other calls get routed through you system, and if bandwidth permits, you can often be turned into a mini-super node that handled parts of hundreds of calls.

If you are sharing legal files, then just set up a server, pay the bandwidth and share your files. You don't want to do that because it would cost too much, right? Well, guess what... your ISP is paying for it when you use P2P. If you can't afford to do it, why should they have to pay to support it?

[Jace]

I totally understand how it works and why they don't want it, but why punish everyone?

my bittorrent client is set to NEVER get above 20kb/sec upload (bandwidth going out), and while I understand the technical nature of why they are doing what they are doing, I don't agree with lumping everyone into one bunch and punishing us all

as bittorrent grows this is going to become a hot topic for sure, i can see more isp's following in comcasts' footsteps

on the other end of the spectrum I think what they are doing is awesome in the fight against piracy, they definitely got me shutting down my client and only using it when I have to