Is Your ISP Coming Between You And Your Usenet?
NewsAdmin Staff Writer

You scan the terrain, pick your target, and guide your wobbly wheeled grocery cart to the shortest checkout line you can find. In an effort to pass the time you peruse the latest tabloid headlines... "Man's Pajamas Are Haunted!", "Tornado Helps Family Move!", "Werewolves Sunk The Titanic!"... and ponder the image of an exorcism being performed on a pair of flannel trousers. After what seems like an eternity you finally reach the conveyor belt but are told to move aside as 3 carts are allowed to cut in front of you. The cashier explains that these shoppers have more important things to do than wait in line behind you, and that she'll ring up your groceries once everyone else has been taken care of.

While it's unlikely that you would ever encounter this drama in a grocery store, a similar scenario may be playing out with your Internet connections. Over the past year a few prominent ISPs have made headlines when it was discovered that they were shaping or delaying connection traffic within their network, opposing the FCC's efforts to maintain net neutrality. In these situations the FCC found that ISPs such as Comcast were giving a preference to some connections within their network while intentionally throttling other types of traffic they deemed to be less important. As an example an ISP might allow you to have a fast connection to a business partner's website, while restricting your connection speeds to a FTP or Usenet service.

One of the big concerns is that this practice blocks free choice, leaving it in the hands of your ISP to determine where you can and cannot go on the Internet. For instance an ISP may want to promote the use of a social networking product that they've personally invested into, and to support that effort they could restrict access to competing products (Usenet, Message Boards, P2P, etc.). Similarly a company within a particular market space could theoretically shut out the competition by paying an ISP enough money to throttle consumer connections to their competitors' sites.

In August 2008 the FCC ordered Comcast to suspend their practice of traffic shaping. While Comcast argued that this was done to alleviate excessive traffic within their network and ensure quality of service for their customers, the FCC found that Comcast had intentionally blocked access to specific areas of the Internet without regard to traffic or congestion. Additionally the FCC reprimanded Comcast for failing to disclose its practices to customers.

In the wake of the ruling Comcast has been ordered to provide a detailed explanation of all their current traffic shaping, submit a compliance plan that describes how they'll transition from discriminatory to nondiscriminatory network management practices, and make a public disclosure that details the new network management practices they intend to deploy... including the specific criteria that will trigger any restrictions on a customer's connection performance.

Despite this recent ruling, Cox Cable (the 3rd largest cable provider in the U.S.) announced on January 27, 2009 that they were going to roll out a new system that will throttle connections to content that they've defined as unpopular. In a nutshell when Cox experiences network congestion their new technology will ensure that "time sensitive" traffic... web pages, voice calls, streaming videos, etc... will move uninterrupted through their network. Traffic that does not meet their definition of "time sensitive"... FTP file uploads, Usenet newsgroups, operating system software updates, etc... will experience a delay. All of this would appear to contradict the FCC's ruling against Comcast, which states that ISPs should not be allowed to pick and choose the traffic they wish to throttle.

With companies such as Comcast and Cox enjoying a monopoly in many of the areas they provide services, their "network management" practices ultimately impact a tremendous number of online business and users. If you value the freedom you have to operate an online business, to access the newsgroups, or to experience any component of the open Internet for that matter, let the FCC know how you feel about the companies that are working to restrict those freedoms (Comm. Michael Copps, Comm. Jonathan Adelstein, General Inquiries & Comments).

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