NOW READ THIS
("Security Advisory")
Submitted by: Bill Hickey
NCVA List Master
NRT-0351 Pressure Mounts for COMCAST:
Comcast is overstepping its bounds when it comes to controlling the flow of certain
kinds of traffic over its high-speed internet system. That's the assertion made by a
growing number of consumers and advocacy groups fighting practices they consider illegal
via the courts, regulators, and some controversial, behind-the-scenes methods for masking
internet content. The brouhaha followed an Associated Press report that Comcast has been
interfering with particular sorts of bandwidth-hogging traffic. Within days of the
19 October story, consumer advocacy groups lodges a complaint with the Federal Communications
Commission to force Comcast to stop. And on November 13, a San Francisco Comcast subscriber
filed a class action claiming a litany of charges, from breach of contract to computer
fraud. The suit demands that Comcast end the practice and pay damages to subscribers who
got less than the "mind-blowing speeds" Comcast advertised. Comcast denies it has blocked
any traffice outright, but admits to using "network management" techniques to handle the
rising tide of peer-to-peer traffic, and thereby maintain service for all of its other
customers.
(BusinessWeek 18NOV07)