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Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic
"It's their network and they can do what they want," said Watson. "My concern is the precedent. In the past, when people got an ISP connection, they were getting a connection to the Internet. The only determination was price and bandwidth. Now they're going to have to make much more complicated decisions such as price, bandwidth, and what services I can get over the Internet."
Several companies have sprung up that rely on peer-to-peer technology, including BitTorrent Inc., founded by the creator of the BitTorrent software (which exists in several versions freely distributed by different groups and companies).
  Former Vice President Al Gore smiles after speaking at a news conference in Palo Alto, Calif., Friday, Oct. 12, 2007. Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were co-awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) (Jeff Chiu - AP) TOOLBOXCOMMENT |
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CLOSEAshwin Navin, the company's president and co-founder, confirmed that it has noticed interference from Comcast, in addition to some Canadian Internet service providers.
"They're using sophisticated technology to degrade service, which probably costs them a lot of money. It would be better to see them use that money to improve service," Navin said, noting that BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer applications are a major reason consumers sign up for broadband.
BitTorrent Inc. announced Oct. 9 that it was teaming up with online video companies to use its technology to distribute legal content.
Other companies that rely on peer-to-peer technology, and could be affected if Comcast decides to expand the range of applications it filters, include Internet TV service Joost, eBay Inc.'s Skype video-conferencing program and movie download appliance Vudu. There is no sign that Comcast is hampering those services.
Comcast subscriber Robb Topolski, a former software quality engineer at Intel Corp., started noticing the interference when trying to upload with file-sharing programs Gnutella and eDonkey early this year.
In August, Topolski began to see reports on Internet forum DSLreports.com from other Comcast users with the same problem. He now believes that his home town of Hillsboro, Ore., was a test market for the technology that was later widely applied in other Comcast service areas.
Topolski agrees that Comcast has a right to manage its network and slow down traffic that affects other subscribers, but disapproves of their method.
"By Comcast not acknowledging that they do this at all, there's no way to report any problems with it," Topolski said.
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Associated Press Writers Ron Harris, Brian Bergstein, Deborah Yao and Kathy Matheson contributed to this story.
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