TAG | FCC orders Comcast to stop arbitrarily blocking Internet traffic |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Tuesday, 05 August 2008 | |
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Page 4 of 4 If it could do that without telling its customers, they would be left thinking the fault was in their systems or the services concerned - just as originally happened with Comcast's interference with peer-to-peer traffic.As congestion occurs, "reasonable discrimination" can ensure that people using small amounts of bandwidth aren't disadvantaged by the presence of others running any type of application that involves large amounts. Even if you are on a shared-medium system such as cable, you don't really care how much bandwidth your neighbours are using, as long as you can get your share when you want it. Indeed, the asynchronous nature of most peer-to-peer applications (download now, watch later) is arguably more considerate of others than video being streamed directly from a server, at least when reasonable network management measures are applied. The latter needs a relatively steady flow of data to keep the buffer ahead of playback, where a peer-to-peer transfer can run in fits and starts with no detriment other than an increase in the elapsed time needed to complete the transfer. Nations should not be afraid to regulate businesses. Their first duty is to protect their citizens, and sometimes that means protection from arbitrary decisions made by businesses.
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