Comcast Throttling to be Subject of FCC Hearing

If you've been reading this site, you'll recall the throttling of P2P traffic that the EFF and AP proved Comcast was doing. You'll also recall that Comcast modified their Terms of Service to acknowledge (and justify) throttling. On Monday the FCC has a meeting scheduled to discuss, as they call it, "Broadband Network Management Practices," with representatives from Comcast and BitTorrent attending, among others.

The meeting has been moved offsite for undisclosed reasons, from the FCC's headquarters just off the National Mall in Washington to Ames Courtroom, Austin Hallon on Harvard Law School's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The morning panel will discuss "Policy Perspectives" and will include:

• Marvin Ammori, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
• Daniel E. Bosley, State Representative, Massachusetts
• David L. Cohen, Executive Vice President, Comcast Corporation
• Tom Tauke, Executive Vice President – Public Affairs, Policy and Communications, Verizon Communications
• Timothy Wu, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
• Christopher S. Yoo, Professor of Law, Pennsylvania Law School

The afternoon panel will discuss "Technological Perspectives" and will include:

• Daniel Weitzner, Director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Decentralized Information Group
• Richard Bennett, Network Architect
• David Clark, Senior Research Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Eric Klinker, Chief Technology Officer, BitTorrent
• David P. Reed, Adjunct Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab
• Scott Smyers, Senior Vice President, Sony Electronics Inc.

Not surprisingly, the FCC has heard from many consumers about this issue; surprisingly, they are taking a look at it.

The FCC in 2005 said broadband companies should not block or interfere with lawful Internet use, unless they're doing so for "reasonable" network management purposes. There's the rub: what does "reasonable" mean? For Comcast, stalling uploads to BitTorrent is reasonable, but to many users, it is not.

On the other hand, would users prefer what Time-Warner Cable is trialling? Tiered service, that is, with caps? I certainly wouldn't want that.

What do I expect from this - and probably later - hearings? I'm not sure. There's a lot of public interest in this, and the pressure is on the FCC. However, there was much public interest in the question of media consolidation in local markets - and the FCC ignored a near overwhelming public opinion against further consolidation.

Still, this is just the beginning of what will likely be a long debate.

You can see the agenda and lists of panelists for the meeting here (.PDF).