Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable operator by subscribers, formally submitted plans to the Federal Communications Commission late Friday detailing how the company plans to manage its broadband network.Rather than target specific types of bandwidth-intensive applications like peer-to-peer file sharing, the company will instead slow Internet speeds for its heaviest users at peak times when its network is congested. Comcast will do this by creating a second stream of traffic for recent heavy users that will have a lower priority when compared to its other customers.
The so-called protocol-agnostic approach is intended to comply with the FCC's network neutrality principles, which restrict Internet service providers like cable and VOIP phone companies from degrading traffic from particular companies. On Aug. 20, the FCC had given Comcast -- the country's second-largest provider of broadband connections after AT&T Inc. -- 30 days to outline its new management policies.
Comcast's filing comes after the company tested the new approach which includes colocation for three months in five cities to study its impact. The company plans to put the policy in effect over its entire footprint by the end of the year. Comcast says no customer complaints were lodged about the new method in its trial markets and less than 1% of customers were affected on a typical day.
Comcast's move may set a precedent for how other carriers manage the rapidly growing traffic on their own networks. Internet traffic is doubling every two years, and other big carriers like AT&T Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s cable unit have also indicated that they will need to take steps to marshal the limited capacity on their networks.
Comcast's network-management techniques became a lightning rod for controversy last year after the company admitted it was throttling traffic from BitTorrent Inc., a popular file-sharing application.
By: Vishesh Kumar
Wall Street Journal; September 20, 2008
