No Comcast 'do-over,' says Martin

There will be no "do-over" of the infamous Harvard network-throttling meeting during his trip to Palo Alto to speak at a Stanford law school conference, FCC Kevin Martin has told reporters. Nor was Martin proposing to investigate Comcast's hiring of seat warmers ahead of the Harvard meeting. "It's usually more interesting for people to attend on their own without being paid to do so, but we're not investigating anything," Martin said.

Comcast admitted to hiring people to take up seats at last week's Harvard hearing because it feared the audience was going to be stacked with Comcast protesters. Some of the seats were then filled by local Comcast employees. Some of the remaining seat warmers were then caught sleeping at the standing-room-only hearing.

Martin said the FCC learned from the hearing and remained open to another hearing. The hearing is considering a complaint from P2P operator Vuze that Comcast blocked their traffic. Comcast has admitted blocking P2P traffic to avoid congestion. The hearing is considered critical to the net neutrality issue and the right of service providers to manage their networks.

The FCC is expected to push for greater transparency by providers but not ban throttling for bona fide network management.

For more:
- No Stanford hearing, says Martin Article [1]

Related articles:
Trial of the Internet Article [2]
Comcast hires seat warmers Article [3]