Comcast doesn’t deny, they “Delay”
They’re applying traffic shaping to the internet they’re offering. I do this too, but only to a certain extent. I must be much smarter than comcast, because I’ve never had to deny bittorrent traffic to keep my web service snappy. I believe the root of the issue here is Comcast is overselling themselves. They offer bandwidth rates that they can’t maintain. They’ve promised 6Mbit (for example) no cap, and they can’t deliver.
Web browsing is very light on the bandwidth. Not much happens. Mostly simple text data. (Most of the larger items on pages now are advertisements :( ) Look at the average size of most web pages. 58k maybe? Upwards of 1 to 2 MB when you’ve got flash and stuff? Not much. So Big Media Inc. can offer 6mbits worth of download, because it’ll only be bursty. Most people won’t ever hit most of that bandwidth for any length of time. Maybe to download one file or so.
At least that’s the way it used to be. Enter BitTorrent, YouTube, iTunes. Now people are downloading large files often. Sometimes constantly. Big Media Inc. hasn’t been upgrading their networks, because that would reduce the amount of money they make. They didn’t plan for the future, because there’s no competition, so people don’t have any other alternative to switch to if they’re dissatisfied.
Or if there is “competition” it’s not very good competition. From what the way things seem to be right now, the only thing one company offers over the other, is grouping of services. They make it cheaper if you buy stuff from them exclusively. Not really offering anything better than any of the other companies, just cheaper if you buy them all. So you really end up spending more money, because you’re buying TV, Internet, and Phone, instead of Just internet and TV. The internet rates are the same, the bandwidth limits are the same. The technology is the same.
I’d like to see an ISP that didn’t suck. One of you european companies should come over here and offer 10/10Mbit or something. I’d sign up in a heartbeat.
EDIT: I read some more about this. This isn’t just a bandwidth issue. Comcast is actually killing traffic. They’re actively monitoring what you’re doing on the internet, then sending falsified packets to kill the connection. They’re doing a MITM attack. WTF?!? This is what the media would call “hacking.” There’s malicious logic being run against these internet transactions. If a single person had done this against a corporation, they’d get sued and potentially charged with a criminal offense. But since it’s a Media Giant Inc. it’s not hacking and it’s not illegal. Last I heard, corporations were people too, according to the law. This needs to be treated the way it is. It’s malicious actions against the people on that line.
A good analogy is mentioned on Slashdot. However it could be better if it elaborated a bit. You’re not stopped if you go use the Weights. Only the Treadmill. The trainer also watches everything you’re doing and is constantly there looking over your shoulder, writing down what you’re doing, how much weight you’re lifting, how long you run. Evil.
