Comcast takes lumps at FCC panel

Comcast Tuesday defended its traffic management methods in the face of sharp criticism from some panelists at an FCC hearing on broadband network management practices. (See also: Comcast paid people to stand in line at FCC hearing.)

During the panel, which included a wide array of experts from a variety of backgrounds, Daniel Cohen, Comcast executive vice president, reiterated many of the same points that his company made in its recent FCC filing that described Comcast's traffic management as "reasonable network management." Comcast has been under fire from advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Free Press since last October when the Associated Press reported that the company was actively interfering with some of its customers' ability to share files online through peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent.

Specifically, Cohen noted that the company only interferes with P2P traffic when such traffic is at a high enough level to degrade service for its high-speed Internet customers. Additionally, Cohen denied that Comcast is blocking or discriminating against certain applications and is only "delaying" the delivery of certain content during peak hours when network traffic is highly congested. Cohen also called the Associated Press' report on Comcast blocking P2P traffic an "experiment" and said that if the AP reporters had used BitTorrent "in the way that it was designed to be used," then they would have experienced no problems.

Panelist Tim Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University and a regular columnist at Slate, said that Comcast was being disingenuous in describing its methods and noted that it shouldn't be in the business of telling its users how to use lawful applications.

"Comcast is telling you that you can't use BitTorrent in a certain way. Who is Comcast to tell you how to use the Internet?" he asked. "Comcast is blocking BitTorrent, end of story."

Panelist Marvin Ammori, the general counsel for the Free Press, accused Comcast of engaging in anticompetitive behavior, noting that applications such as BitTorrent can be used to deliver on-demand movies that Comcast charges customers for in its cable services.

"By targeting peer-to-peer, Comcast is disrupting investment and innovation in online competitors," he said, and warned of a future in which large companies could stifle competition and create a market where "online companies and device makers would need a permission slip to innovate."

Other panelists were more sympathetic to Comcast's predicament, although none of them explicitly endorsed the tactics the company used to manage traffic. Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president for public affairs, policy and communications, said that his company did not use the same tactics Comcast used to manage traffic "because of the capacity of the network that we're currently deploying." However, he did note that the rapid growth of high bandwidth-consuming applications made it very difficult for ISPs to determine just how much to invest in building out capacity.