Trial of the Internet begins today

Comcast should have disclosed it was interfering with it ISP traffic FCC Chair Kevin Martin has declared ahead of today's critical FCC Harvard forum on traffic management. The forum is a public meeting to discuss the issue of ISP traffic management. It will feature several of the main players with a stake in the ISP world, including senior representatives from Comcast and Verizon. U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who earlier this month introduced an "Internet Freedom Preservation Act" bill, also will speak.

"One of the concerns I have is that (Comcast) did not disclose it beforehand," Martin said in today's Boston Herald. "If they have certain bandwidth concerns, they should disclose it upfront." Martin has been pursuing Comcast over its practices, and last year unsuccessfully sought to regulate the cable company, the largest in the U.S., to reduce its market power and to promote competition. Comcast has forcefully submitted it needs to prioritize traffic so as to best ensure traffic quality for the majority. It has admitted to interfering with P2P streams when local nodes become congested and has subsequently changed its terms to indicate it may manage traffic flows if required. 

The FCC is investigating after complaints from P2P operator Vuze. Columbia University's Professor Timothy Wu has described the hearing as "the trial of the Internet." Wu coined the term net neutrality and is attending today's hearing.

The issue of traffic management is critical to cable's ability to offer triple-play solutions. Cable users share band width, so an FCC ruling banning traffic management would make it impossible for cable operators to ensure the necessary quality of service for viable voice and video services.

Cable enjoys 73 percent market share of the U.S. residential VoIP market. The telco ISPs operate DSL systems and do not share bandwidth so are not as threatened by the dramatic surge in traffic coming from video and P2P networks. P2P networks suck up any spare bandwidth across a network. A European study found five percent of users take up 80 percent of Internet traffic.

For more:
- FCC chief blasts Comcast Article [1]
- Comcast hearing stakes are high Article [2]

Related articles:
Comcast defends traffic management Report [3]
Net Neutrality bill restarted Report [4]