Testifying before Congress, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin
presented a damning
contrast (PDF) to Comcast’s claims that it blocked traffic only when
needed.
“Contrary to some claims, it does not appear that [Comcast’s
BitTorrent technique] was used only to occasionally delay traffic at
particular nodes suffering from network congestion at that time,” said Martin. Basing
his statements on testimony received, he added that Comcast’s blocking
equipment is “typically deployed over a wider geographic or system area and
would therefore have impacted numerous [regions] within a system
simultaneously.”
Martin further accuses Comcast of not using “content
agnostic” management equipment, a point that violates FCC policy and
inadvertently conceded by Comcast, who recently
announced a switch to “content agnostic” network management techniques.
Comcast says it expects to have its network switched over by
either the end of this year or early 2009 – a timetable that many, including
the FCC, have found unsatisfactory. Comcast claims that it can’t implement a
change instantly as such a tactic would overwhelm its network.
Regardless of Comcast’s stated intentions – and prior praise
for the change, taken entirely on Comcast’s own initiative – Martin expressed
doubts on Comcast’s commitment: “Indeed, the question is not when they will
begin using a new approach but if and when they are committing to stop using
the old one,” he said.
However, the seemingly adversarial relationship between ISPs
and the FCC enjoys at least one common ground: Kyle McSlarrow, president and
CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, urged Congress
not to regulate (PDF) ISPs’ management of their networks – a point that Martin agrees
with.
“Congress should resist calls to interfere with broadband providers’
freedom,” said McSlarrow. “The disaster scenarios voiced by network neutrality
proponents for many years have never happened. In fact, the opposite has
happened — the Internet is booming without regulation. There is quite simply no
problem requiring a government solution.”