The Crazed Man’s Words

Yesterday I attended the public hearing held by the FCC at Harvard Law School that was addressing allegations lodged against Comcast and other ISPs that they deliberately have (and continue) to delay and block P2P applications to and from their users, whom are paying customers. No matter if the files being shared are legal or not, these ISPs have been accused of managing their networks unfavorably to the file-sharers all across the United States.

I was invited to the event by my Professor, David Monje, whom shares a friendship, academic and otherwise, to the members of FreePress.net. From FreePress’ perspective this was billed as an attemp “To Save The Internet” as Net Neutrality is a major lobbying issue for this non-profit organization. I was really excited to be there and hear what both sides had to say.

There was a lot of enlightening information from both panels, specifically panelists Marvin Ammori, Yochai Benkler, Timothy Wu, Richard Bennet, David Clark, and Eric Klinker. These men are all from different backgrounds surrounding the internet and this issue of net neutrality. I am going to follow from the notes I took and expand from what kind of discussion developed.

David Cohen, the Executive Vice President of Comcast, made the statement that all internet networks, no matter how small or grandiose, are managed- their has to be some type of management or else the network will not function properly. He went on to explain (in response to Marvin Ammori’s comments) that what Comcast has been doing is within their rights as their language has changed in their Terms of Service; “For example, these network management activities may include … (iii) temporarily delaying peer-to-peer sessions (or sessions using other applications or protocols) during periods of high network congestion, (iv) limiting the number of peer-to-peer sessions during periods of high network congestion, and (v) using other tools and techniques that Comcast may be required to implement in order to meet its goal of delivering the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers“. Mr Cohen specifically stated that all of this delaying and blocking is a result of network management from congestion during peak hours. These agreements that Comcast has with their customers do not explicitly state define congestion, the hours of peak traffic, the manner or practices of delay. This was a major point of the other panelists during the Policy Perspectives first half of the hearing. A final point that Mr Cohen made was at the request of the FCC Chairman, Kevin Martin, who asked both Mr Cohen of Comcast and Tom Tauke, an Executive VP for Verizon, if they believed that the FCC has the power and right to levy fines against these companies for these allegations- Mr Cohen stated replied “No”. Responding as the opposing argument was Timothy Wu stating his understanding of their attitude: “Comcast is blocking Bit Torrent and that’s the end of the story“- they feel there is no reason for the FCC to be involved in a seemingly minority issue within their customer base nor do they feel reprehensible for their actions (mp3 of this excerpt).

A few different metaphors were used to describe ongoing situation of the ISPs versus the various content providers of the internet, Vuze included, and the best was the idea that the internet is a horse race where the ISP’s own the track, charge admission, control the gates, and are running a horse. This was viewed as a unfair and unethical business practice to most of the members of the first panel. At one point Marvin Ammori incited that these cable-television providing ISPs were now the Old Media in comparison to the world wide web, the New Media, and that they were grasping onto the last vestiges of control that they could before being pushed to the wayside as radio and network television has. This comment was pompous but still worthy to note because no matter Comcast or Verizon’s true intentions this is a fairly accurate assumption of their current actions.

A very interesting discussion arose out of the second Technological Perspectives panel, which was less attended by many, that addressed the ability of the ISP’s broadband size. Comcast and Verizon are primarily telecom companies that serve the majority of the US with broadband(+) internet access; it was stated by the second panel that for television broadcasts the average consumer will download over 200 megabits of content whereas through the internet they only access 20 megabits [I could be horribly wrong in the memory of these figures, but the resulting picture that was painted was the same significance] a month. These telecoms have bandwidth issues and cannot guarantee the quality service that is marketed throughout the day because of congestion. Their solution to the bandwidth hogs is to delay or block their service by recognizing the protocols the applications use. The point is that the physical cable has been laid and will continue to be strewn about the country as demand sticks around, but whether or not the ISP’s like it more and more people are watching less television and in its stead downloading, uploading, streaming, and engaging in file-sharing. A question I ask that wasn’t clearly explained was whether or not the television signals paths could be used for internet transmissions or that these were not the same tubings. But moving beyond that, more and more bandwidth is required to meet today’s demand and tomorrow’s growing internet usage.

Oddly and coincidently enough also attending the hearing was my best friend’s father, a field engineer for Comcast. He is in charge of one of the nodes that is the centralized meeting point for a community/neighborhood’s signal for television and internet access. He told me that Comcast, and probably also Verizon, had previously had over 2000 residential homes linked to one node and has worked that figure down around 500 more recently [I am unsure whether or not these is the same for most areas with Comcast's service but assume it likely]. Even with this change and increase in bandwidth over the past five years they still experience massive network congestion between 7pm-11pm. I asked him about the alleged practices and he said that it was a part of the network management above his position that looks at the network on the whole, even though Comcast states that the delaying and blocking of p2p services is only done at a local level, in distinct situations, in distinct areas. This understanding came to the FCC commissioners who asked what these companies were doing about the bandwidth issues beyond network management practices, and Mr Cohen replied that the investment to lay more cable/fiber/etc. wasn’t enough to meet the demand at these congestive hours. Is it likely that the duopoly of these two companies will buck up and foot the bill? No.

This means that the areas without broadband access, mostly rural in the US, are without what most Americans consider absolutely necessary and what most small, entrepreneurial, and/or non-profit businesses need to compete with content providers like Comcast and Verizon. This interesting argument brings in ethics, which was not directly mentioned or addressed by any of the commissioners. Yet again to get back to the horse race metaphor, with the ISPs controlling the gates and running their own horse what would stop them from holding back their competition? Threats from the FCC? Not by Mr Cohen’s response [something I did not know at the time was that Chairman Martin has got some issues]. I do not think that the ISPs should be barred from displaying their content through the internet but to deal with the duopoly that exists there needs to be some standards, practices, maybe even legislation to help net neutrality not fall to the wayside of corporate influence. The discrimination of certain types of content to users/consumers is wrong and the ISP doesn’t have the right.

Beyond that David Clark, a Senior Research Scientist at MIT, went into the mythos of delaying and blocking that has occurred. He explained how messages are sent across a network from one user to another for a request of a file, very similar to our current snail mail or email processes it requires sender, receiver, and routing information. Without opening the letter all of this is available to the network in order to send the message properly, but Comcast specifically was targeted for “reset packet” techniques. Here’s a quick explanation of this: “The RESET packet is used when a computer receives a packet that is not associated with any connection. By sending a RESET signal, the source is telling the destination “I have no connection information for you, so close your connection.” When a computer receives a RESET it deletes any information it has about the connection in question“. Thereby Comcast is wrongfully opening the contents of these messages from their users, inspecting the contents, and making a judgment as whether to continue or delay. As Mr Clark said “Internet service providers should not impose a value judgment on the consumer” their responsibility relies in relaying the message. David Reed, an Adjunct Professor at MIT as well, continued by saying Comcast’s secretive practices are wrong. “The internet providers don’t provide the internet to customers” but rather they provide access.

This gets to the heart of net neutrality. Is deep packet inspection the right of the ISP in order to manage their network the most efficiently? Is this discrimination the right of the ISP because of the manner in which they employed their network with a 20-1 download-to-upload ratio in mind? And if this duopoly exists how can any other businesses hope to break into this market to provide a different and better internet service? This leads me into the last point I want to address: disclosure. Comcast and Verizon were chastised for their lack of disclosure about their policies and requirements unto the consumers when congestion exists, even with their updated terms of services. Marvin Ammori stated that more transparency is needed in order for other businesses to compete against these two giants, in addition transparency is needed to ensure the rights of the consumers who enter into their contracts.

Overall the experience was extremely enlightening and valuable. To witness this important issue firsthand was great and I encourage others to attend the upcoming hearings that the FCC will hopefully host to help raise public knowledge and receive direct feedback from our consumer industry. What I really hope is that the FCC will entrust in the American citizenry the right to free and open access to the internet.