Comcast defends being a "traffic cop"
Comcast has come clean, and admits that they are shaping bandwidth and intentionally slowing certain traffic on their network. This should not shock anyone, but it is nice to have it out in the open.
Not surprisingly, most of the traffic shaping involves “movie and music” files. These tend to be big files so they are logical targets. Comcast says it is necessary because a few users could, in effect, “plug the tubes” to paraphrase an Senator Stevens. The argument on the net seems to center around deceptive marketing. After all, if they sell me unlimited bandwidth at a certain speed, I should be able to get unlimited bandwidth at that speed. Of course there isn’t enough bandwidth for everyone to use what they have purchased, this is a fact. But that is not the real issue in my opinion.
Comcast is a content provider, and what they really want to do is make sure you get your content from them rather then from “the internets.” Comcast depends on subscriber revenue to a smaller and smaller degree every day. Instead they depend on premium subscriptions and…most of all… Pay-per-view (or On-demand or whatever you want to call it). So what we have here is a basic conflict of interest. Comcast really has nothing to gain and much to lose by delivering high quality video and music files to your PC from other sources, regardless if those sources are legitimate or something more shady. Every iTunes rental is $4.99 out of Comcast’s pocket, and they cannot stand for this. If they make the internet experience painful, or even a little annoying, they know that the average Joe will opt for instant gratification and hit the “buy now” button on his remote.
The same is true for most of the cable big guys, they are all media companies and they all depend on premium services for growth. These conflicts of interest should not be ignored by the government. The activities of these companies are nothing more than thinly veiled anti-competitive practices. In my opinion all content companies should be forced to sell off their network businesses and then pay to use them just like everyone else.
