The IT Nerd

Comcast yesterday posted this document on their website that details how they’re going to manage traffic on their network. According to Comcast, here’s how it will work:

“If a certain area of the network nears a state of congestion, the technique will ensure that all customers have a fair share of access to the network. It will identify which customer accounts are using the greatest amounts of bandwidth and their Internet traffic will be temporarily managed until the period of congestion passes. Customers will still be able to do anything they want to online, and many activities will be unaffected, but managed customers could experience things like: longer times to download or upload files, surfing the Web may seem somewhat slower, or playing games online may seem somewhat sluggish.

The new technique does not manage congestion based on the online activities, protocols or applications a customer uses, rather it only focuses on the heaviest users in real time, so the periods of congestion could be very fleeting and sporadic.

It is important to note that the effect of this technique is temporary and it has nothing to do with aggregate monthly data usage. Rather, it is dynamic and based on prevailing network conditions as well as very recent data usage.”

On one hand, this almost sounds reasonable if it is implemented in a transparent manner. I would almost like Comcast if that were the case. On the other hand, policies like these are meant to allow a telco to spend less time upgrading their network and more time counting their cash.

Another thing to consider, Comcast doesn’t exactly have a stellar history in terms of telling the truth. They denied that they were blocking P2P apps even when the Associated Press provided proof. Then when they finally confessed to using gear from Canadian network gear provider Sandvine, they lied again by saying that they only used it at times of congestion. In reality they were using this gear 24 hours a day.

Finally, they’re doing this while taking legal action against the FCC. So we’ll see what sort of twist that provides.

I suspect that we’ll see what happens next very quickly.

This entry was posted on September 20, 2008 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Comcast, Net Neutrality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.