Comcast’s designs on the internet

I’ve had problems with Comcast as a customer. Sometimes big problems. Most recently, I noticed huge amounts of lag on my connections and interference on the phone lines. Most troubling was the type of problem I was having. The connection would be fine, then it would throttle down to zero over the course of a few minutes before restarting.

That’s usually a sign that it’s being managed and rationed.

It took a great deal of arguing before they’d consent to sending out a technician. Along the way, they try the usual stalling tactics, which generally include telling you that the problem lies with your computer. If that doesn’t work, they read the scripted responses that basically say, “it’s complicated and technical, and you wouldn’t understand.”

That works until I tell them I’ve been running Unix systems for over a decade, and they realize I can not only see through the jargon smokescreen, I know it better than they do.

So, they finally admitted that yes, the problem was on their end, and they sent out a technician. My first question was, “is my connection being managed?” He stammered and said, “no, Comcast doesn’t do that.” He replaced the modem/telephone adapter, and this didn’t seem to help. I made him stand there while I ran a ping test to show how the connection was dwindling and resetting.

He went out to check the outside wiring, and when he came back in, the connection had improved quite a bit. I asked specifically what had been done, and his response was that he had given my house a “Speed Boost.” Waitaminmit…

So, my connection was crippled the whole time. Customers have to bitch and scream until Comcast deigns to come out and give them a “Speed Boost,” which is what they’ve theoretically been paying for the whole time. That’s right. If you’re on Comcast, call and get your Speed Boost today.

Not only does it hack me off, it falls right in to line with what we’ve been hearing about Comcast’s practices lately. They publicly deny it, of course, but they’re managing traffic on P2P networks and deliberately crippling it. It’s called Traffic Shaping, and it’s very similar to what China uses to manage their internet traffic to the outside world.

What this means is that peer-to-peer applications are being singled out and robbed of bandwidth. “That’s okay,” you might think, “since those are just ways for people to pirate music and such, right?” You’d be wrong.

First, plenty of software is distributed over the Bittorrent system, in which bandwidth is conserved by sharing downloads and uploads between client systems, and many artists freely seed the P2P networks with their own material when they don’t want to deal with the major labels for distribution. Comcast’s measures are throwing a wrench into this process.

Second, the same type of bandwidth-sharing is the foundation for online video gaming, and the Traffic Shaping causes huge amounts of lag on those connections, causing frequent disconnects. Which is strange, because Comcast claims to explicitly support online gaming.

Third, we’re down to issues involving the 1st and 4th amendments. They have to be monitoring network traffic to shape it, and what they’re doing prevents the free exchange of information over certain channels on the internet.

Comcast at first denied doing any such thing, but their denials are easy to refute. Try to download any file on Bittorrent, and you’ll notice that not only is the download speed very slow, you’re unable to seed (upload) any data. To other clients, it’ll look like you’re “leeching,” which means taking bandwidth but giving none back.

I’ve verified it myself, and so has the Associated Press. Comcast does it by using forged reset packets, which not only slow down P2P applications, they slow the whole connection down. This affects almost any application that requires a steady connection to the internet.

These are the typical actions of a money-grubbing company that places tiny slivers of revenue above customers’ experience. What’s more, this whole situation casts a grim pallor over the whole idea of “Net Neutrality,” the notion that all information should not be censored, monitored or controlled. If this goes unchallenged long enough, it won’t take long for the government to consider it acceptable.

Lawsuits are brewing, but I don’t have the highest hopes.  I get the sneaking suspicion that this is where the internet is heading.