FCC Orders Comcast Allow Bittorrent Traffic

Washington DC - Eating bran muffins, oatmeal and Metamucil are great ways of staying regular and now it appears Comcast will be getting a little dose of that medicine after an important Federal Communications Commission ruling.

The FCC today reprimanded Comcast for blocking peer-to-peer traffic in a 3 to 2 vote saying that such traffic shaping wasn’t in the spirit of open and equal access to the Internet. Comcast as you can imagine isn’t taking the legal laxative and will probably fight the FCC ruling on the grounds that the commission has overstepped its mandate.

In the ruling, the FCC doesn’t administer any fines, but those could still come later. Comcast is now forced to do three things within 30 days. The company has to completely disclose its traffic management policies to the commission. Comcast must submit a compliance plan on how it intends to stop these discriminatory traffic shaping policies by the end of the year and finally, it must disclose the new rules that will replace these discriminatory policies.

This disclosure, or more accurately lack of disclosure, is what led the FCC to investigate Comcast in the first place. Like a little boy caught shoplifting in a store, the company has repeatedly changed its story about traffic shaping policies. After some initial complaints by customers about slow Bittorrent connections, Comcast disclaimed any knowledge of traffic shaping. Further tests and evidence by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Associated Press led Comcast to claim that it only shaped traffic during peak hours. After even more evidence, the story was changed once again to reveal that the company blocked Bittorrent traffic on a 24 hour basis. According to the commission, Comcast blocked up to 75% of Bittorrent connections in some areas.

The FCC’s ruling was due in large part to what the commission says was the "overwhelming weight of expert testimony." The commission has been empowered to protect the "vibrant and open nature of the Internet" and said Comcast used deep packet inspection technology to spy on people’s traffic. "In essence, Comcast opens its customers’ mail because it wants to deliver mail not based on the address on the envelope but on the type of letter contained theirin," said the FCC.

Comcast argues that it doesn’t really block any traffic at all and merely delays the data. Company officials add that the FCC’s rules aren’t enforceable and that the commission has overstepped its mandate - something which to us portends a big legal battle in the future. So at this point, the big bottle of prune juice is on Comcast’s table, it’s up to them to drink it.