Net Neutrality Ruling

[Owen Densmore]

Has anyone made sense of the ruling in Comcast's favor?

As I understand, they cut down bit-torrent due to bandwidth usage.  
But that makes no sense, it is not a real-time protocol.  If they  
wanted to manage bandwidth, they would presumably go after Hulu,  
Amazon, Netflix etc.

I'm not even sure how successful a bit-torrent block would be -- each  
person chooses their own port address.  There is a default port but  
all are warned to change it for security reasons.  And there are no  
bit-torrent servers, but lots of peers sharing.  Any file you download  
are fragments from several peers.

     -- Owen



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[Eric Charles]

Owen,
As I understand the ruling, the court decided that the FCC had screwed up by making their own rules limiting their purview over broadband. Thus it was internally inconsistent for the FCC to declare broadband a 'lightly regulated' medium, and then try to regulate it in a heavy-handed way. Likely, the FCC will fix the problem simply by declaring broadband to be a 'heavily regulated' medium, or otherwise fixing their internal rules to give them more explicit power in these sorts of matters.

I'm not sure that Comcast's rules made any sense to begin with. Why target Bit-torrent? Probably just in part to control bandwidth, but mostly to be able to say "I tried" if anyone ever tries to sue them as accessories to digital theft.

I'd appreciate knowing if anyone else had a different read on what happened,

Eric

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 01:30 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Has anyone made sense of the ruling in Comcast's favor?

As I understand, they cut down bit-torrent due to bandwidth usage.   
But that makes no sense, it is not a real-time protocol.  If they  
wanted to manage bandwidth, they would presumably go after Hulu,  
Amazon, Netflix etc.

I'm not even sure how successful a bit-torrent block would be -- each  
person chooses their own port address.  There is a default port but  
all are warned to change it for security reasons.  And there are no  
bit-torrent servers, but lots of peers sharing.  Any file you download  
are fragments from several peers.

     -- Owen



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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Paul Paryski]

I understand that the ruling simply stated that the FCC has little or no right to regulate the internet, specifically not to require "net neutrality" allowing Comcast to limit certain activities.  I believe that the ruling can result in selective practices perhaps censorship by the ISPs.  Not a good thing, but perhaps someone has more detailed info.

best Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thu, Apr 8, 2010 11:30 am
Subject: [FRIAM] Net Neutrality Ruling

Has anyone made sense of the ruling in Comcast's favor? 
 
As I understand, they cut down bit-torrent due to bandwidth usage. But that makes no sense, it is not a real-time protocol. If they wanted to manage bandwidth, they would presumably go after Hulu, Amazon, Netflix etc. 
 
I'm not even sure how successful a bit-torrent block would be -- each person chooses their own port address. There is a default port but all are warned to change it for security reasons. And there are no bit-torrent servers, but lots of peers sharing. Any file you download are fragments from several peers. 
 
  -- Owen 
 
 
============================================================ 
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv 
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College 
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org 

============================================================
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[Chris Feola]

A good explainer here:

 

http://volokh.com/2010/04/07/the-fcc-and-the-internet/

 

There are two possible sources of express statutory authority in the 1934 Communications Act: Title II (which gives the FCC authority to regulate “telecommunications services”) and Title VI (authority over “cable services”). The FCC, however, relied on neither of those to support its actions here — in (large) part probably because it had earlier taken the position that cable Internet services are neither “telecommunications services” OR “cable services,” but rather “information services” subject to much less stringent regulatory review. [The FCC’s earlier decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 2005 Brand X decision]. Instead, the agency relied on its “ancilllary jurisdiction,” set forth in sec. 4(i) of the Communications Act: “The Commission may perform any and all acts, . . . and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.” 

The bottom line in the court’s decision is that this “ancillary jurisdiction” has to be truly “ancillary” to be lawful — that is, that the agency has to point to some express authority in the statute to which its actions are indeed “ancillary” in order to have jurisdiction to proceed, and that it was unable to do so here (in light of its earlier and still-binding decision to cast Internet service as niether a “telecommunications” nor a “cable” service). 

 

 

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 1:13 PM
To: Owen Densmore
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Net Neutrality Ruling

 

Owen,
As I understand the ruling, the court decided that the FCC had screwed up by making their own rules limiting their purview over broadband. Thus it was internally inconsistent for the FCC to declare broadband a 'lightly regulated' medium, and then try to regulate it in a heavy-handed way. Likely, the FCC will fix the problem simply by declaring broadband to be a 'heavily regulated' medium, or otherwise fixing their internal rules to give them more explicit power in these sorts of matters.

I'm not sure that Comcast's rules made any sense to begin with. Why target Bit-torrent? Probably just in part to control bandwidth, but mostly to be able to say "I tried" if anyone ever tries to sue them as accessories to digital theft.

I'd appreciate knowing if anyone else had a different read on what happened,

Eric

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 01:30 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Has anyone made sense of the ruling in Comcast's favor?

As I understand, they cut down bit-torrent due to bandwidth usage.   

But that makes no sense, it is not a real-time protocol.  If they  

wanted to manage bandwidth, they would presumably go after Hulu,  

Amazon, Netflix etc.

I'm not even sure how successful a bit-torrent block would be -- each  

person chooses their own port address.  There is a default port but  

all are warned to change it for security reasons.  And there are no  

bit-torrent servers, but lots of peers sharing.  Any file you download  

are fragments from several peers.

     -- Owen

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Scott R. Powell]

This seems a pretty clear explanation of the issue and everyone trusts Cal, right?

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~raylin/whatisnetneutrality.htm

Scott 

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 12:16 PM, <[hidden email]> wrote:

I understand that the ruling simply stated that the FCC has little or no right to regulate the internet, specifically not to require "net neutrality" allowing Comcast to limit certain activities.  I believe that the ruling can result in selective practices perhaps censorship by the ISPs.  Not a good thing, but perhaps someone has more detailed info.

best Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thu, Apr 8, 2010 11:30 am
Subject: [FRIAM] Net Neutrality Ruling

Has anyone made sense of the ruling in Comcast's favor? 
 
As I understand, they cut down bit-torrent due to bandwidth usage. But that makes no sense, it is not a real-time protocol. If they wanted to manage bandwidth, they would presumably go after Hulu, Amazon, Netflix etc. 
 
I'm not even sure how successful a bit-torrent block would be -- each person chooses their own port address. There is a default port but all are warned to change it for security reasons. And there are no bit-torrent servers, but lots of peers sharing. Any file you download are fragments from several peers. 
 
  -- Owen 
 
 
============================================================ 
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv 
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College 
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Parks, Raymond]

That is a good explanation of pure net neutrality.  Unfortunately, that
is not what the FCC wanted.  The FCC wanted to regulate ISPs like a
phone company - but the court said that ISPs aren't phone companies
(despite their sale of phone services).  The FCC plan was to require
"transparency" in the sense of ability for the FCC to access every
router on the 'net to make sure that all traffic is treated equally - no
QOS, no time sensitivity, and no market for priority (like the
Google/T-Mobile deals and the YouTube Indian soccer deal).  Personally,
I'm in favor of letting the marketplace determine what gets shipped
where on the Internet.  That said, the last-mile monopoly needs to be
broken or at least leveled.  If Comcast does me wrong, I want to be able
to use Qwest (or someone) for equal service, but that's not possible at
this point.  Instead, Comcast has to get really crappy for me to switch
to a lesser service.

As for Owen's BitTorrent question - ISPs can detect BitTorrent solely
from volume of traffic and behaviour.  It's pretty obvious.  Comcast, in
particular, established a policy that limited the total amount of
bandwidth per month at a level far above the average user but which does
infringe on heavy BitTorrent users.

Ray Parks                   [hidden email]
Consilient Heuristician     Voice: 505-844-4024
ATA Department              Mobile: [phone]
http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax: [phone]
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:505-951-6084


Scott R. Powell wrote:

> This seems a pretty clear explanation of the issue and everyone trusts
> Cal, right?
>
> http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~raylin/whatisnetneutrality.htm
>
> Scott
>
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 12:16 PM, <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>     I understand that the ruling simply stated that the FCC has little
>     or no right to regulate the internet, specifically not to require
>     "net neutrality" allowing Comcast to limit certain activities.  I
>     believe that the ruling can result in selective practices perhaps
>     censorship by the ISPs.  Not a good thing, but perhaps someone has
>     more detailed info.
>
>     best Paul
>
>
>
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>>
>     To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>     <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>>
>     Sent: Thu, Apr 8, 2010 11:30 am
>     Subject: [FRIAM] Net Neutrality Ruling
>
>     Has anyone made sense of the ruling in Comcast's favor?
>      
>     As I understand, they cut down bit-torrent due to bandwidth usage.
>     But that makes no sense, it is not a real-time protocol. If they
>     wanted to manage bandwidth, they would presumably go after Hulu,
>     Amazon, Netflix etc.
>      
>     I'm not even sure how successful a bit-torrent block would be --
>     each person chooses their own port address. There is a default port
>     but all are warned to change it for security reasons. And there are
>     no bit-torrent servers, but lots of peers sharing. Any file you
>     download are fragments from several peers.
>      
>       -- Owen
>      
>      
>     ============================================================
>     FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>     Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>     lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org 
>
>     ============================================================
>     FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>     Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>     lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Owen Densmore]

On Apr 8, 2010, at 4:20 PM, Parks, Raymond wrote:
> <snip>
> As for Owen's BitTorrent question - ISPs can detect BitTorrent solely
> from volume of traffic and behaviour.  It's pretty obvious.  
> Comcast, in
> particular, established a policy that limited the total amount of
> bandwidth per month at a level far above the average user but which  
> does
> infringe on heavy BitTorrent users.

So if I use Amazon or Netflix or Hulu for say 4 hours/day, would that  
still be within the average case scenario?  Or if I used video  
conferencing and/or skype for hours a day.

I gotta believe Comcast would dislike my using their bandwidth for a  
competing use like telephone and TV, both of which they sell.  This  
smells like Comcast is testing the waters to see if they can get away  
with it.

The internet is seeing a huge burst of usage for audio/video.  The  
iPad is so great for it that its certainly upped my use.  Slingbox  
will forward my TiVo recordings to me in Italy so that I can watch the  
NFL playoffs (real story).  Thing like AppleTV and the Amazon Roku  
players, along with any number of stunts to use "computer streaming"  
to your TV are making many just broadband from Comcast.  Heck, my new  
TV has Netflix and Amazon streaming built in!  Its lower quality than  
a download to TiVo/Roku, but not bad.

So I smell a fish here big time.  The FCC may have made an error in  
the past which weakened their jurisdiction, but I think they can  
reverse that.  I think instead Comcast is protecting their TV, and  
Quest their phone markets.  Verizon's FiOS could also be in the mix  
here, posing a threat to Comcast and Quest as their services are  
easily provided over the net.

    -- Owen


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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