FCC tells Comcast to unblock P2P

Ignores delay tactics

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Telecoms, 23rd April 2008 08:22 GMT

US Federal Communications Committee chairman Kevin Martin realises that Comcast has its very own definition for the word "delay."

America's second largest ISP continues to say that it's delaying peer-to-peer traffic on its network, not blocking it. But Martin isn't that gullible.

Speaking before the Senate Commerce Committee this morning, Reuters reports, Martin told lawmakers that Comcast is using a "blunt" technique to crack down on peer-to-peer filesharing.

"Contrary to some claims, it does not appear that this technique was used only to occasionally delay traffic at particular nodes suffering from network congestion at that time," he said in a prepared statement.

And he reiterated that the FCC has all the power it needs to take action against Comcast. "I do not believe any additional regulations are needed at this time. But I also believe that the commission has a responsibility to enforce the (open internet) principles that it has already adopted," he said.

Independent tests have shown that Comcast is preventing users from "seeding" peer-to-peer uploads. In certain cases, when one machine attempts to upload that file to another machine, the ISP uses a forged "reset flag" to breaks this P2P connection. And these tests have shown this sort of "network management" is used round the clock. ®

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