Around the Net
A History of Comcast's Anti-Net Neutrality Moves
- GigaOm, Wednesday, May 9, 2012 1:05 PM
Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm serves up a history of Comcast’s anti-Net neutrality practices since 2007. “No one has more power and is taking as active a stance in this business,” she says. From blocking P2P traffic in 2007 -- which resulted in a slap on the wrist from the FCC -- to implementing data caps of 250 GB per customer (which it has resolutely stuck to), Comcast has made it clear that it wants to protect its business.
In 2010, Comcast tried to request an additional payment from content delivery network Level 3 to deliver its traffic to Comcast subscribers. Funny enough, this was right around the time that Level 3 added Netflix as one of its customers. More recently, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings complained that Comcast was protecting traffic from its Xfinity triple-play service over the Xbox and TiVo from its data cap -- a move that would encourage people to choose Xfinity over other services.
According to Higginbotham, Comcast also has plans to create a joint operating entity over the Verizon spectrum that would pool the telecom giants’ technology. Opponents of the proposed move argue that the new entity would result in more barriers for over-the-top providers. Higginbotham also argues that Comcast, which now owns a portion of the streaming TV video service Hulu, is behind the push to make the joint video venture a service that is only available to pay TV subscribers.
I would like to know when the FCC is finally going to wise up and return the Internet back to its Title II roots? There it's afforded the full protective status of a common carrier, a classification it enjoyed and thrived under until 2005. And frankly, from that time forward, the Internet in the US has stagnated while other countries have pulled ahead.