Comcast/BitTorrent agreement raises questions

by Grant Gross

March 28, 2008 —

Thursday's announcement that Comcast
and BitTorrent will work together to solve network management problems won
praise from some quarters, including members of the U.S. Federal Communications
Commission, but some net neutrality advocates said the deal doesn't diminish
the need for new government rules.

Comcast, the largest cable provider in the U.S., announced it would work with
peer-to-peer vendor BitTorrent on ways to better manage network traffic as many
users trade high-bandwidth files. Comcast has come under fire for slowing some
BitTorrent traffic; some consumer and digital rights groups have said Comcast's
behavior, revealed in an Associated Press investigation last October, shows
the need for Congress or the FCC to approve net neutrality rules.

The two companies said they will work together, and engage the broader Internet
community, on new ways to manage network traffic during peak times. Comcast
also said it will migrate to a network management technique that is protocol-agnostic
by the end of the year.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he was pleased that Comcast has "reversed
course and agreed that it is not a reasonable network management practice to
arbitrarily block certain applications on its network."

Martin also praised Comcast for working with BitTorrent. But he expressed some
reservations.

"I am concerned, though, that Comcast has not made clear when they will
stop this discriminatory practice," he said in a statement. "It appears
this practice will continue throughout the country until the end of the year
and in some markets, even longer. While it may take time to implement its preferred
new traffic management technique, it is not at all obvious why Comcast couldn't
stop its current practice of arbitrarily blocking its broadband customers from
using certain applications."

Martin called on Comcast to provide its broadband customers and the FCC with
a date when it plans to stop slowing BitTorrent traffic.

FCC member Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat, praised the agreement but said the
FCC will need to see more details of the deal. He also urged the "broader
Internet community" to engage in similar dialogue.

FCC member Robert McDowell, like Martin a Republican, was more forthcoming
with his praise. "Consumers will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this
agreement," he said in a statement. "As I have said for a long time,
it is precisely this kind of private sector solution that has been the bedrock
of Internet governance since its inception. Today's announcement obviates the
need for any further government intrusion into this matter."

Several consumer and digital rights groups disagreed with McDowell.

Comcast's agreement with BitTorrent has no bearing on net neutrality complaints
now before the FCC, said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, one of the
groups calling for the FCC to pass net neutrality rules. Sohn called Comcast's
agreement "irrelevant" to the complaints before the commission.

"The FCC has the responsibility to protect the rights of consumers against
discriminatory network management practices," Sohn said in an e-mail. "Any
future agreements in the private sector do not change that reality, particularly
if the companies involved reach agreements that work specifically with some
technologies or network companies and not with others. Any arrangements made
now would not cover any future developments in blocking, throttling or filtering
that any other companies may use."

Internet users still need strong net neutrality protections, added Nicholas
Reville, executive director of the Participatory Culture Foundation, a nonprofit
that distributes the open-source BitTorrent application Miro.

"Comcast can see that public demands for net neutrality protections are
growing -- this announcement is a transparent attempt to distract from that
debate," Reville said in an e-mail. "The announcement from Comcast
and BitTorrent Inc. has absolutely nothing to do with the need for net neutrality
protections and BitTorrent Inc. certainly does not speak for other torrent technology
companies."

But Bret Swanson, a senior fellow at conservative think tank the Progress and
Freedom Foundation (PFF), called the agreement a "huge win for common sense
and for a healthy, growing Internet."

"We at PFF have been arguing for years that the Internet is a fast-moving
realm of changing technology and content," he wrote in a blog
post. "We advised that Washington should not wade into this dynamic
arena with static rules that are likely to be misguided, and sure to be outdated
even before they go into effect."

IDG News Service