Comcast Is Starting The Tiered Internet.. Whether We Like It or Not
Update: Visit Save The Internet and let your voice be heard!
Sunday afternoon I finished setting up a dedicated rtorrent server for seeding Ubuntu .iso images. I do my best to hand out all the CDs I can, but I also figured I could make use of the bandwidth I have to do the same. Once I got on that idea I realized I had access to two Comcast connections (family) where I could drop in two more of these “rtorrent appliances”. So, I got to work setting a second one up and dropped it on the network at my Dad’s house.
Wasn’t I surprised to find that my seeds weren’t taking off. After some quick Google searching I found that Comcast is cutting torrent connections nearly across the board. All across the internet people are complaining about Comcast not letting them seed anymore–and many of these for completely legal material!
I know bittorrent is associated with a lot of pirating. Hell, so was ftp and whatever other protocol you want to drop in here. This doesn’t mean that it is *only* used for pirating. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t legit reasons to use the efficient protocol. Apparently Comcast doesn’t see it this way.
The way I see it this is the first step toward a Tiered Internet, whether or not any such thing is approved in Legislation or by the consumers. Comcast doesn’t care. They are simply cutting off access to part of the Internet, plain and simple.
I would not be surprised at all to soon hear that Comcast will allow bittorrent traffic, for an additional fee. If you *really* want to use that protocol you can pay us more, but otherwise we don’t deem it as part of “normal internet usage”. Once that starts what is to stop the avalanche that will happen next?
“You want access to YouTube? It really uses a lot of bandwidth and we weren’t expecting most people to use more than casual browsing and email. That’ll be $5/mo additional.”
If Comcast is able to start cutting off access to internet protocols they are already to the Tiered Internet that will only become grounds for corruption and extortion. Who will be next?
The telecoms like the idea of a Tiered Internet because they can then extort both sides of the product. Since they are the middle-man they can charge more to the consumers for access to “the whole internet” and charge more to large domain names and take pay-outs from big online powerhouses to provide “better or preferred” access to them.
What do I mean by that? We all know Google pwns the internet. We start getting into the Tiered Internet setup and Microsoft gives a big payout to Comcast, requiring them to limit access to Google, while preferring access to Windows Live Search (or whatever the hell its called). They’ll make up some reason why its more efficient for bandwidth or some BS and you’ll have to pay more to get to Google. They would be in the perfect position to rake in huge piles of money from both ends, with nothing to stop them.
The internet needs to stay open. The *whole* internet. Not the convenient internet. Not the bandwidth friendly internet. Not the bribed-into-becoming-the-new internet. The whole internet. All protocols. All sites. All networks.
If Comcast is allowed to continue cutting off even one protocol we’ve already lost. Voice your opinion. Contact your local office. Complain. Make some noise. Switch providers.
Until then I’ll be getting these two Comcast connections switched to a competitor. It may be a slower internet (in my area) on DSL, but at least its the whole internet.
Update: Visit Save The Internet and let your voice be heard!
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To all the these people talking about a server and how it violates the Terms of service: You do not know how TCP/IP works. ANY traffic that is uploaded from your machine technically makes it a “server.”
When you request a web page, the HTTP GET request is uploaded from your machine, and you are a server. When you send an email, your text is uploaded, and your machine functions as a server. When you submit a file to an anti-virus vendor for testing, your machine turns into an FTP server. When you play Xbox Live and you are running around a map in Halo 2 your Xbox is uploading GOBS of data and is technically a server. Technically speaking anytime your machine responds to a request that causes packets to go out its network port could be interpreted as a “server.”
Comcast’s terminology in the TOS is old and tired, and needs to be changed to become relevant. It is so broad that just looking at a web page puts your machine in direct violation of the policy.
Reminds me a lot of the broad range of the DMCA and how Dell could technically be sued since they manufacture hardware that MIGHT be used to circumvent copy protection on CDs or DVDs.
I moved away from Comcast the second they bought my little local ISP because the agreement they wanted me to sign looked like it was leading in this direction. I love Zoomtown. 768 up 5mb down bittorrent is as fast as i need.
Why doesn;t ConCast increase their servers to handle the current trend in internet technology!
changing ports to non-default ones and turning on encryption in your bittorrent client is usually enough to work around such ISP limitations. as simple as checking a checkbox in utorrent…
All of you stating that “every computer is a server” are picking at loopholes. Be it a server or a node in a peer-to-peer network, what the author was doing was what Comcast wanted him not to do, and if he’d read the TOS and put up the “servers” anyway he’d have known that. Besides, there’s got to be another clause in the TOS that allows Comcast to block his traffic for whatever reason Comcast feels like.
Secondly, I’m an opponent of a tiered internet, but I’ll have to get on the “you’re-jumping-to-conclusions” bandwagon. In the “I would not be surprised at all to soon hear that Comcast will allow bittorrent traffic, for an additional fee” bit, the author gets himself all riled up about something that hasn’t even happened.
Now Comcast may well go ahead and instate a tiered internet system, but it would be completely unrelated to cutting off Bittorrent. Bittorrent is a huge bandwidth eater. Bittorrent users, who are in the minority of Comcast customers (and I mean all customers, not just the people you know), slow down internet service for everyone else and possibly use the bandwidth to download illegal material. Comcast figures that for the speed it gains by blocking Bittorrent, it can attract enough customers to more than make up for the bandwidth-eating Bittorrent users. Simple business proposition, then.
Those of you convinced that it’s all a massive government conspiracy to assault your free speech need to take a reality check. This isn’t about your rights. It’s about a privately-owned business choosing not to accept you as a customer because you make a heavy hit on their profits. Oh yeah, that’s definitely oppressive. Dude, be careful–THE CAPITALIST CANNON IS AIMED DIRECTLY AT YOUR FREEDOMS.
Oops, I forgot. Common-sense market theory doesn’t always apply in the free-software world. Never mind, guys, I’m just a slave to the corporate machine!
Having worked for Cocmast (mispelled intentionally)
I can say I am completely unsurprised by this. They want to cap your bandwidth, they want to monitor your usage, they want to catalog your bloodtype, and they will ALWAYS want to charge you more for their services while offering you LESS in return.
The solution is simple: encrypt the p2p connections. utorrent and azureus support this – as easy as a small checkbox – and comcast will never know what you’re doing. In fact, this would defeat even the tiered internet, unless they considered peer to peer non-priority.
Jak Spalding wrote:
“insane wrote:
IMO, Comcast has every reason to ban/block you. Has anyone ever read the TOS?
http://www.comcast.net/terms/subscriber.jsp
“Prohibited Uses of HSI. You agree not to use HSI for operation as an Internet service provider, a server site for ftp, telnet, rlogin, e-mail hosting, “Web hosting” or other similar applications, for any business enterprise, or as an end-point on a non-Comcast local area network or wide area network.”
Bitorrent, illegal or not you have turned you box into a server. Maybe they didnt enforce it before, so what, you agreed to the TOS and not they are cracking down. Stop whining.”
insane, and anyone else who believes this to be the case has failed to read that bit-torrent is a PEER-TO-PEER (Now I’m sure you’ve heard of P2P?) protocol and thus there are no servers anywhere.
—————————————-
On top of this, you’ll notice it says ” for any business enterprise…” Guess what…. torrents aren’t usually used for a business enterprise. As well as he himself saying he was uploading ubunto (as I recall?) which is obviously not a business enterprise…If you’re going to quote something, actually read it first, hmm?
The Fix
http://element14.wordpress.com/2006/10/15/how-to-encrypt-bit-torrent-traffic/
How come they haven’t banend HTTP first? It may lead to terrorist sites, child porn, drug promotion, you name it.
Fucking hypocrites.
I personally contacted my ISP in regards to throttles I could see being set on my file sharing activities. Their response was to review their policy page.
I really don’t like where this is headed and I had a friend who had the same problems, but when he connected to his works VPN account there was no problems.
So I got a VPN account at the same place
http://www.strongvpn.com
They say its Gigabit speed but I don’t know how I can tell, I’m not that fast on my home connection. But when I’m on it.. it’s no problem for my P2P activities.
—Jaja wrote:
“Comcast has always been unfriendly towards power users and geeks. What’s new? If you want your MTV, switch. Not convenient? Sorry. Life’s not fair.”—
Absolutely correct, and absolutely short-sighted at the same time.
Life isn’t fair. I don’t ‘deserve’, as an automatic right, better than what I get.
On the other hand, ‘Life’s not fair’ applies to businesses as well. Get enough consumers pissed off and working in the same direction, and we can say, ‘Ph*ck You Comcast’ and force them to give us what we want – so sorry Comcast, “Life’s Not Fair!”
—Some people see a conspiracy in every shadow.”—
Life *is* a conspiracy in every shadow. Every individual and every group has goals they wish to see accomplished. Comcast wants more money and more control. Consumers was more for their money and more control. So what’s your point?
Soon shall be the day that ISP’s are no longer needed. When we the people in order to form a more perfect internet, decide to become free from those ISP’s, to engage in a new form of internet, where anyone with a computer can access the internet without paying a dime “except for energy to power the computer, which may soon become free as well”, shall we truely stop this maddness, and decide to make the internet free like it should be.
Anyone up for the challenge?
How do you make computers talk to each other without ISP’s?
Stop bitching! Start a new kind of internet that does need ISP’s and I’ll show you how to get free energy to run it.
“To all the these people talking about a server and how it violates the Terms of service: You do not know how TCP/IP works. ANY traffic that is uploaded from your machine technically makes it a “server.””
No, you do not know how TCP/IP works. If your computer requests a connection to another computer, which is providing a service, then it is acting as a client. If the opposite is true, and another computer connects to your computer, which is providing a service to computers which request connections to it, then it is acting as a server. Which direction internet traffic travels down those connections once they have been made is irrelevant.
One word – TOR! Download the JanusVM appliance and use it!
Like it or not, the courts have already decided that file sharing clients are legal therefore Comcast doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on if they are actively blocking ptp clients on their network. Someone needs to sue them and set them straight on the fact that ptp is LEGAL regardless of the actions of some bad apples who use it for illegal purposes.
Radical Action MUST Take Place! I pay through the nose for my Comcast connection! And they call it comcastic? I’m starting to think that having your own direct connection to the net would be better.
The companies shaping or dropping torrent traffic are almost all cable Internet services. They do this because the cable line is being shared amongst users and in order compete with actual high speed Internet services like DSL and fiber connections that are dedicated they would have to shape traffic or be truthful in advertising. Cable Internet services can’t actually compete with DSL or fiber. People think it is faster because of the maximum speed that is possible given no other users are using the shared connection can be faster than DSL and fiber. With fiber and DSL the companies are truthfully advertising the speeds they provide. Most DSL and fiber Internet services could actually provide connections as fast as cable if they decided to shape bandwidth like cable Internet services. The way cable Internet services sell access is fraudulent. Even though they have a TOS users can not be expected to read this for every little sale. The law does often recognize consumers have certain rights regardless of what they may have agreed to in the TOS. If something is blatantly different than what one would expect regardless of the TOS users can potentially win a court settlement. Earthlink was sued years ago for providing newsgroup traffic speeds at less than what Earthlink advertised Internet service speeds. Who won? The consumers.
the majority of you all are uninformed and uneducated. if comcast’s technology can stop you from using your upload bandwith how you see fit, than use your technology to get around it. :] TUNNEL!!
or u can simply use rapidshare and megaupload like 100 million other people
To the reply about ISP overselling bandwidth. We know this, same with server co’s. BUT is it OUT obligation to allow them to oversell. IE sell a service THEY FULL WELL KNOW they can not provide. This is OUR fault> id like to see how. Fact is they got caught with britches down. Fact is hardware and bandwidth cost is dropping imensly not just for us but them aswell. Diff is they are pocketing the diff in costs, still overselling and now are stuffed cause we want to do SOMETHING with the net that takes mroe kb/sec then email. Cry me a river.
Its not fair for us to uplaod, however its fair for them to sell bandwidth we dont have? Even a child knows two wrongs dont make a right! They been overselling all along and raking the $ in. So now its time for THEM to pony up and pay the fees to actually provide that unlimited net they promised me!
If this keeps up at this rate…..well need a few rich folks to start a “real isp” and show these loosers how to make $ and server the entire internet unlimited as it should be. Its that or just let it die altogether. See how the gov likes it if we all ban the net for a while hahahaha. Major cash flow stopped. Boycott the net if this catches on, thats what I think we should do. within two months they would see things differently.
There’s a lot of argument over consumer rights vs corporate rights with no agreement and no way to definitively win.
There’s also a lot of argument over simple definitions (the most common argument over what a “server” is). Again..nobody can really win that. You give me a dictionary that defines it one way and I’ll pull out a handbook that defines it another.
“A” way to look at this…certainly not the only way and perhaps not the most correct way, but it’s ‘an’ optional view…
Someone or other made the argument about cable companies overselling their bandwidth because they don’t expect users to actually USE all of it.
The same thing happens on airlines with seats…not everyone who books a flight actually shows up for it..business people are commonly known to book themselves on 3 or 4 different flights “just in case.” Because of this, airlines overbook flights in anticipation of people not showing up. Who here has ever bought a ticket only to have no seat waiting for them on the plane from where it was overbooked though? For those arguing in defense of the cable companies trying to turn a profit by overselling their bandwidth, how do YOU like being left behind when the plane has no room? You have equal right to be angry at the people who triple-book themselves and make the airlines HAVE to overbook a flight in order to turn a profit as you have to be mad at the airline for leaving you stranded. Who’s in the wrong? Either or perhaps both, but there’s no way ANYONE can really pin it down.
With advancements in software models to predict traffic flow based on a number of different things, the airlines have accounted for such problems and done a wonderful job in correcting it…they’ve adjusted their prices and schedules accordingly, made advancements in various respects, and mostly solved the problem. It still happens, but it’s rare compared to back in the day.
Why can’t an ISP do the same? Adjust its business model and prices and services and plans and infrastructure in such a way that more bandwidth is put where it is needed when it is needed and such on and so forth?
This argument supports both sides..it supports the consumer’s right to expect certain services and it supports an ISP’s right to adapt to a changing world.
It’s a vastly dynamic market with lots of possibilities..change is the only way anything can move forward (I know…’duh’ right?).
Perhaps some decisions are being made in the name of greed and profit. Perhaps some decisions are being made for self preservation. Perhaps some decisions are selflessly being made for the benefit of everyone (though the one in debate here today probably doesn’t fall into that last category). EVERYONE has the ability to decide. If Comcast decides to block bittorrent, you can decide to change providers or find a loop-around as has been suggested.
The curse and blessing of living in a capitalistic society is that you’re often at the mercy of powerful corporations..but no matter how big the corporation, there’s always an alternative.
*shrug*
I realize I made no real point…I just wanted to summarize everything in a food-for-thought kind of format.
I see this as a big problem with a VERY simple solution.
DON’T USE COMCAST. Do not reward this behavior with your hard earned money. Go with another provider.
And if they try to pull that “you signed a contract for X-many months”, tell them they’ve violated the contract themselves by changing the terms of service.
The market will soon learn that so-called “tiered internet” doesn’t sell, and it starts hitting their bottom line, they WILL change their policies.
Unfortunately, for the lesson to work, people need to leave Comcast and leave them quickly and leave them in droves while there’s still competition to go to. If the industry as a whole decides to screw the consumer with “tiered internet” everywhere, so that there are no more choices, then we’re all screwed. It’s best to punish one offender now than to let the rest get ideas…
STOP PAYING FOR COMCAST! SWITCH TO ANOTHER PROVIDER! DO IT NOW!
Comcrap blows I am getting Fios as soon as its available
nice post.keep up the good work.
Get a server, get a T1, and then bam you all set.