February 18, 2008
Volume XXI, Issue 1
Open Internet Forces Lobby for Markey-Pickering Bill
Excerpted from Telecommunications Reports Daily Report by Lynn Stanton
The net neutrality bill introduced this week by Congressmen Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-MS) doesn't create "regulations" and "allows the FCC to set policy," Markham Erickson, Chairman of the Open Net Coalition, told Congressional staffers.
Speaking at a lunchtime briefing on Capitol Hill, he urged them to go back to their offices, look at the bill, and encourage their bosses to sign on as co-sponsors of the proposed Internet Freedom Preservation Act.
Speakers at the briefing emphasized the threat to the open, uncensored communications posed by a variety of broadband network provider practices, such as Comcast's method of dealing with heavy loads of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing traffic by sending falsified "reset" messages.
Free Press Counsel Marvin Ammori emphasized that BitTorrent, the file-sharing application that Comcast allegedly targeted, "is the emerging standard for sharing legal TV content," adding, "All the big boys use it."
Mr. Ammori and Columbia University law professor Tim Wu both argued that the reason these openness issues are becoming more prominent is that policy-makers have moved to exempt broadband networks from the prohibitions on discrimination that applied to common-carrier networks.
Public Comments on Network Management Practices
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received some ninety-two (92) comments this week in response to petitions from Vuze and consumer advocacy groups to establish rules governing network management practices by broadband operators. The Commission plans to hold a public hearing on the matter later this month.
Comments include those submitted by the DCIA as well as individual DCIA Member companies AT&T, Verizon, and Vuze.
AT&T's comment contained the following remarks about the DCIA-sponsored P4P Working Group (P4PWG).
"AT&T is part of a new industry-wide working group - composed of representatives from BitTorrent, Joost, LimeWire, Cisco, Verizon, VeriSign and researchers from Yale and Washington Universities, among others - that is trying to develop an efficient, network-aware peer-to-peer technology.
Known as 'P4P,' this new generation of technology is being developed to optimize network resources rather than hoard them.
Specifically, under the auspices of the Distributed Computing Industry Association, the Working Group is pursuing 'win-win' solutions that recognize the legitimate business interests of all of the parties affected by this industry-wide issue - including, most importantly, end users.
These objectives include: providing ISPs with the ability to optimize utilization of network resources while enhancing service levels for P2P traffic; providing P2P software distributors with the ability to accelerate content delivery while enhancing efficient usage of ISP bandwidth; providing researchers who are developing P4P mechanisms with the support to advance and the ability to publish their work; determining, validating, and encouraging the adoption of methods for ISPs and P2P software distributors to work together to enable and support consumer service improvements as P2P adoption and resultant traffic evolves, while protecting the intellectual property (IP) of participating entities; and establishing appropriate and voluntary best practices for the deployment of P4P mechanisms to meet the above identified objectives in a way that can be sustained by all of the necessary participants.
While the P4P Working Group may, or may not, ultimately achieve all of these goals, the very existence of the Group and the progress it has made to date vividly illustrates how private industry initiatives can promote consumer interests without any need for government intervention."
Verizon's comment included the following.
"Verizon is working together with Pando Networks - a peer-to-peer technology provider - and researchers from Yale University 'to figure out a way to put the file-sharing technology to better use.'
The P4P Working Group, which was organized through the Distributed Computing Industry Association, is seeking to find ways to reduce the strain on networks from peer-to-peer applications, while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of such applications.
'Using basic subscriber information from ISPs, researchers claim to have developed a solution that can reduce provider's P2P bandwidth consumption on their networks by about 60 percent, while also speeding up P2P downloads by nearly a third.'
In contrast to current peer-to-peer practices, 'the P4P solution adds network intelligence to the peering process, so that P2P applications can make smarter decisions about where they get content.' By 'sharing information about the network topology' and the location of customers, 'a P2P service can understand how the network is configured to request the file at the closest peers rather than arbitrarily getting it from a peer across the country or around the globe,' thus saving significant network resources.
Verizon and Pando are starting a test of this new approach this month. Other companies, including AT&T, Telefonica, Cisco Systems, and VeriSign are also part of this effort, and several cable companies, including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, and Cablevision, are observers of the working group."
Vuze's comment concluded as follows.
"Vuze supports the Formal Complaint filed by the Free Press and several other consumer groups, and urges the Commission to act promptly to make clear to network operators, consumers, and companies such as Vuze that develop Internet applications that blocking (or severely degrading) P2P traffic is impermissible and violates the Commission's Broadband Policy Statement...
While Vuze has asked the Commission to initiate a rulemaking proceeding to establish reasonable rules to foster an open Internet, facilitate greater transparency regarding broadband network operators' network management practices, and provide further guidance as to unacceptable network management practices, it recognizes that such a proceeding may take years - particularly since much is still unknown regarding the network management practices of broadband network operators.
In the meantime, however, consumers and Internet applications developers like Vuze need to be confident that network operators will not continue to block or severely degrade P2P traffic.
In conclusion, Vuze urges the Commission to act to make clear that blocking or degrading traffic based solely on the technology or application used is impermissible. By doing so, the Commission will provide companies like Vuze greater assurance that they can continue to deliver innovative content and services to consumers."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The DCIA is concerned about allegations that the distribution of rich media content by independent peer-to-peer (P2P) companies can be unfairly impeded by some Internet service providers (ISPs), who would prefer to restrict their Internet subscribers to content in which the ISP has a financial interest.
The alleged degradation and blocking of content delivered calls into question whether consumers are effectively able to access the content of their choice, run applications and use services of their choice, and benefit fully from competition among network providers, applications and services providers, and content rights holders - in a manner consistent with the FCC's broadband principles.
The DCIA believes that the best way to accomplish these goals is for all of the relevant stakeholders to work collaboratively toward mutually beneficial solutions.
To that end, we recommend that the Commission encourage network operators, Internet companies, content rights holders, consumer groups, and other interested parties to discuss a variety of reasonable network management practices using private sector forums such as the P4P Working Group (P4PWG) as well as public platforms.
With respect to the current petitions pending before the FCC, the DCIA encourages the Commission to ensure that its examination of any ISP's network management practices is properly grounded on a clear and well-established factual record, while avoiding speculative rulings that unnecessarily limit the flexibility required by ISPs and P2Ps to develop innovative solutions in the rapidly evolving and expanding marketplace for digital distribution of rich media content.
In light of the rapid growth in this area, the scope of its impact on important consumer services and the commercial value of the offerings thereby represented, and the potential impact of this area of activity on other vital Internet services, the Commission should seek to provide consumers, ISPs, and applications, services, and content providers with clarity regarding what to expect with respect to broadband network management practices.
Meanwhile, we are pleased to announce our first wave of speakers and sponsors for the upcoming P2P MARKET CONFERENCE. This first-of-its-kind DCIA event is scheduled for Friday March 14th at the Princeton Club of New York, and is being held in conjunction with Media Summit New York (MSNY).
Our confirmed speakers now include Abacast's Mike King, AHT International's Praveen Bhutani, DigitalContainers' Chip Venters, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz's Rick Kurnit, FTI Consulting's Bruce Benson, JamboMedia's Rob Manoff, Javien Digital Payment Solutions' Leslie Poole, KlikVU's Lowell Feuer, Manatt's Bill Heberer, MediaDefender's Chris Gillis, Media Global Intertainment's Jakob Schwertz, MediaPass Network's Daniel Harris, Oversi's Eitan Efron, Pando Networks' Robert Levitan, PeerApp's Frank Childs, P2P Cash's Tom Meredith, QTRAX's Allan Klepfisz, Rebel Digital's Robin Kent, RightsFlow Entertainment Group's Patrick Sullivan, TAG Strategic's Ted Cohen, Unlimited Media's Memo Rhein, Velocix's Phill Robinson, and VeriSign's Steve Condon.
The P2P MARKET CONFERENCE will highlight progress in advancing new business models and revenue generation at various levels of the emerging distributed computing industry.
In the business-to-consumer (B2C) arena, developments are now moving beyond conventional ad-supported, subscription, and paid download methods of monetizing the distribution of copyrighted works, as value propositions shift in response to increasingly empowered users.
In the business-to-business (B2B) arena, work is also now underway that similarly reflects the value of improved quality of service (Qos), speed of delivery, and dramatically reduced costs for participants at multiple points in the distribution chain, who are taking advantage of the latest P2P-related offerings.
The P2P MARKET CONFERENCE is being held in conjunction with Media Summit New York (MSNY), and registration for both events yields a substantial savings for attendees. For more information, please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pmcny2008.
Pre-registration rates, which save attendees up to $325 end March 7th. To register, please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pmcny2008/register.html.
P2P MARKET CONFERENCE sponsors include FTI Consulting, Javien Digital Payment Solutions, and QTRAX. For sponsor packages and speaker information, please contact Karen Kaplowitz, DCIA Member Services, at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info. Share wisely, and take care.
Verizon: No Need to Degrade P2P Traffic
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Anne Broache
Verizon Communications doesn't currently block or slow down P2P file-sharing applications like BitTorrent on its broadband network.
The comments from Verizon EVP Tom Tauke arrive as Comcast has taken heat for throttling BitTorrent traffic in the name of reasonable network management and as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is studying whether ISPs should be permitted to manipulate P2P traffic.
Consumer interest groups have asked the FCC to declare that "degrading P2P traffic" violates the FCC's Internet Policy Statement, which says consumers can generally use the applications and access the websites of their choosing, with an exception for "reasonable network management."
Tauke, for his part, said Verizon has "more robust" networks than its cable competitors, in part because its customers have direct lines to their homes, rather than sharing capacity with the rest of their block or neighborhood.
Because of that set-up, "We see no need at the current time to slow P2P traffic," Tauke said in response to a reporter's question during a roundtable discussion at the company's offices.
Still, he also talked at length about the importance of what he variously called "legitimate" and "appropriate" network management in ensuring the network runs smoothly for all subscribers.
If, for example, large file transfers were hogging bandwidth, Tauke said Verizon might choose for a time to prioritize voice traffic, which is quite latency-sensitive, over, say, e-mail traffic, which could perhaps stand to arrive half a second later without causing great inconvenience to the recipient.
In doing any network management, however, Verizon recognizes it has to be very careful not to interfere with the transfer of "legitimate" messages (as in, non-spam material) or alter the content of any packets being sent across the Internet, Tauke said.
Tauke is the same Verizon executive who, as reported by CNET News last month, said his company wants nothing to do with policing for transfer of copyrighted content on its network. That position was clearly meant to differentiate his company from AT&T, which has revealed plans to try to do just that.
Ever interested in setting his company apart from the competition, Tauke implied that if Verizon's practices were to change, it would let consumers know - a clear shot at accusations by consumer interest groups that Comcast hasn't been transparent enough about its treatment of P2P traffic.
"One of the most important things is transparency," Tauke said. "Any impact on consumers should be fully disclosed."
On a related note, Tauke said Verizon still believes there's no need for so-called net neutrality regulations prohibiting ISPs from prioritizing content.
Net Firms Reject Monitoring Role
Excerpted from BBC News Report by Mark Ward
UK net firms are resisting government suggestions that they should do more to monitor what customers do online.
The industry association for net providers said legal and technical barriers prohibit them from being anything other than a "mere conduit."
The declaration comes as the government floats the idea of persistent pirates being denied net access.
And in the US one net supplier has admitted to "degrading" traffic from some file-sharing networks.
Net firms have been stung into defining their position by the emergence this week of a draft government consultation document that suggests ISPs should be drafted in to the fight against piracy.
It suggested that people who persistently download and share copyrighted material could have their net access removed.
A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) said the 2002 E-Commerce Regulations defined net firms as "mere conduits" and not responsible for the contents of the traffic flowing across their networks.
He added that other laws on surveillance explicitly prohibited ISPs from inspecting the contents of data packets unless forced to do so by a warrant.
The spokesman said technical issues also made it hard for net firms to take action against specific types of traffic.
For instance, he said, while some people use P2P networks to download copyrighted material, many commercial services, such as Napster and the BBC's iPlayer, use file-sharing technology to distribute music and TV legally.
In the US, Comcast admitted in documents filed with the FCC that it does "degrade" some traffic from P2P networks.
The spokesman added, "We know that all ISPs are involved in traffic management but that is to optimize the service for all their customers."
A spokesman for Virgin Media said its traffic management system came into play during peak times - between 4:00 PM and 9:00 PM.
Action was taken against any customer whose usage exceeded a limit associated with their tariff during that five-hour window, he said.
"If you exceed that threshold we will drop your speed for five hours from when the excess is recorded," he said.
Andrew Ferguson, an editor at Think Broadband, said net service firms manage their bandwidth in many different ways.
Almost all, he said, manage traffic but at certain times impose other systems to smooth out the peaks.
"Some firms will happily let you use as much as you like but will charge you accordingly, and business products that are more expensive often allow unlimited use," he said.
Others impose charges on customers who regularly exceed their download limits and a few manage their system so users cannot exceed a monthly download cap. The limits that firms impose can also vary widely.
"Any ISP that does not do traffic management is not going to stay in business very long," said Gavin Johns, Managing Director of net management firm Epitiro.
He said it was essential to ensure that services which have to be delivered in real time, such as voice and streaming video, were usable.
"Different applications use different ports and have different payloads," said Mr. Johns. "They look completely different from a network point of view."
"If they didn't do traffic management we would all complain," he said.
Mr. Ferguson from Think Broadband said although traffic management was common, net providers imposed it in contrasting ways.
"What varies is the degree it impacts users and the openness of providers in telling users it exists and what is and is not managed," he told the BBC News.
"Traffic management has a poor reputation as in many cases it is used to keep bandwidth costs down for a provider with little respect to the consumers' wishes," he said.
Officials Step Up Net-Neutrality Efforts
Excerpted from WSJ Report by Amy Schatz, Dionne Searcey, and Vishesh Kumar
Big broadband companies are headed for a clash with Washington over whether consumers have a right to get as much as they want from the Internet, as fast as they want it, without paying extra for the privilege.
Complaints that cable titan Comcast is deliberately delaying some Internet traffic are prompting moves in Washington to block efforts by broadband providers to favor some kinds of Internet traffic over others.
Congressman Edward Markey introduced a bill that would change federal laws to make sure Internet traffic has protections similar to phone calls, which companies are required to connect without hesitation.
Together with Rep. Chip Pickering, Mr. Markey is proposing the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which says it is the policy of the US to "maintain the freedom to use for lawful purposes broadband telecommunications networks, including the Internet, without unreasonable interference from or discrimination by network operators." Essentially, the bill would give the FCC more authority to police Internet providers to make sure they're delivering traffic fairly.
Meanwhile, comments are due today at the FCC in the agency's investigation of complaints that Comcast is deliberately slowing some Internet traffic, as well as a broader look at what should be done about such complaints in the future.
The stepped-up efforts by regulators and lawmakers to enforce what tech-industry officials call "net neutrality" come as an explosion in downloading of online video is prompting cable and phone companies to rethink their Internet pricing models, opening the door for fee plans based on the extent of usage.
Time Warner recently announced a trial of a capacity-based pricing plan in Texas.
Consumers will pay more if they exceed caps for downloading movies and other high-capacity content. "It's not set up to be a punishment of people's responsible Internet usage," Time Warner spokesman Alex Dudley said. "This is an attempt to get the high-end users to think differently about how they consume their Internet usage."
Comcast, the No. 1 cable operator by number of subscribers, and Verizon also refuse to eventually rule out adopting a similar capacity-based pricing model.
This type of pricing plan is a radical departure from current practice. Cable and phone companies in the US have long adhered to plans that allow web surfers unlimited downloading for a monthly flat fee. They typically charge higher rates for faster speeds of Internet service but consumers can generally download or upload as much content as they want.
Separately, AT&T plans to track pirated movies and other content across its network. While it is unclear how the company would execute the plans, consumers have feared it would block content.
In a statement AT&T said, "We want to set the record straight that we have not said we are going to filter, and in fact, there is no technology solution available at this time. What we have said is that we are working with some in the content industry on the very real issue of piracy that has raised costs for all Internet users."
While the heavy usage by music and video downloaders has prompted cable companies to consider different pricing plans in the past, the fear of attacks from advocates of maintaining neutral pricing and access has stopped companies from changing their policies.
Public interest groups worry Comcast's decision to delay Internet traffic from P2P file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent is just the beginning. They want to prevent companies that offer both cable and Internet access from protecting their lucrative television franchises by preventing consumers from migrating to Internet video. Comcast says it has done nothing wrong and needs freedom to manage its Internet network to ensure the best service for its customers.
Regulators now face a challenge to set rules in a rapidly shifting market where changes in technology and consumer tastes are running faster than Washington's ability to react.
Cable and telephone companies say their networks are being overwhelmed by huge increases in video downloading. In December, a record 10 billion videos were viewed online, researcher comScore reported.
AT&T says consumer broadband traffic on its network has doubled in the last two years alone. And broadband customers are using 40% more bandwidth each year. Time Warner estimates that 5% of its users account for 50% of the bandwidth usage in many parts of its network. This small percentage of users is able to absorb so much bandwidth because of the rapid growth of P2P networking services such as BitTorrent, popular among video downloaders. One user downloaded the equivalent of 1,500 high-definition films in a month, the company says.
Use of BitTorrent is exploding. The software has been downloaded 160 million times, up from 80 million a year ago, according to Ashwin Navin, the President of BitTorrent. Managing this type of heavy network use is a particular problem for cable operators because their networks are shared by neighborhoods. That means if a consumer is downloading hours of high-definition video, subscribers living nearby could see their Internet speeds slow.
After investigations by the Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation last year showed Comcast was delaying, if not totally blocking, some P2P Internet traffic, the company admitted it sometimes delays traffic. In late January, the cable company quietly changed its terms of service to disclose that fact.
In comments filed at the FCC last night, the company denied it has violated the FCC's net-neutrality principles and said it is using "carefully limited measures" to manage Internet traffic.
Further, the company asked the agency to "make it clear that the FCC will not be drawn into second-guessing the reasonable network management decisions that engineers and service providers must make on a daily - and sometimes hourly - basis to respond to a dynamic and ever-changing Internet."
Mark Cooper, of the Consumer Federation of America, said he fears the explosion in video will give companies an excuse to engage in discriminatory behavior. "The testing has begun where they will push network discrimination as far as they can to see what they can get away with," he says.
Cox Communications also says it may put other types of traffic ahead of P2P traffic. "We reserve the right to manage traffic on our network but we don't get into the specific methodologies that we use," said David Grabert, Director of Media Relations at Cox. "You have to manage traffic on the network and prioritize certain types of traffic - like phone traffic - over other types of traffic."
The FCC's ability to referee net-neutrality issues isn't clear, although it plans to hold a public hearing in Boston later this month to examine the issue. Three years ago, after consumers complained that a rural North Carolina phone and Internet provider was blocking Vonage, a competing Internet-phone-service provider, the FCC launched an investigation. Within a month the company, Madison River Communications, had agreed to stop and forked over $15,000 to make the investigation go away.
Soon after, however, the FCC changed the rules and deregulated Internet lines, effectively giving itself less authority to regulate Internet services. The Comcast complaint has prompted the FCC and Congress to look at remedying that problem.
Comcast, Congressman on Opposite Sides of Issue
Excerpted from E-Commerce Times Report by Keith Regan
Cable carrier Comcast on Wednesday defended its practice of managing web-based traffic over its network as legal and necessary, providing new fodder for the network neutrality debate even as a lawmaker revived legislation to require that all Internet traffic be treated equally.
In an 80-page document filed with the FCC, Comcast describes what it calls "reasonable measures" taken to manage broadband traffic in the face of massive demand for bandwidth from users of BitTorrent and other P2P technologies.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin disclosed earlier this year that his agency was looking into complaints that P2P users were having their traffic blocked. A Comcast customer has filed a civil suit against the practice in California as well.
In its response to the FCC, Comcast maintains it was not blocking specific content or singling out service providers, but instead was using back-end network management techniques to ensure that its 13 million high-speed subscribers could continue to access services without interruption or slowdown.
"Simply stated, there is nothing neutral about a network that is not managed," Comcast says in the filing, which is meant to answer such critics as consumer groups and Internet freedom organizations.
The cable company says it was not blocking any traffic -- simply managing the flow of data to ensure equal access, much in the way that engineers use signals at on-ramps to keep rush-hour traffic moving.
"One would not claim that a car is 'blocked' or 'prevented' from entering the freeway, rather, it is briefly delayed, then permitted onto the freeway in its turn while all other traffic is kept moving as expeditiously as possible," the filing states.
The FCC has not indicated whether it will take action on complaints issued by consumer groups and others about the activities of Comcast. Other top broadband providers, such as AT&T and Verizon have publicly stated that they do not currently manage traffic to account for heavy use of certain applications or sites, but that they are constantly monitoring their networks to judge whether such steps are necessary.
Comcast argues that regulating traffic is necessary to ensure free access: "An unmanaged network simply means that users who make disproportionately resource-intensive demand on the network can crowd out fellow users."
One of the main criticisms against Comcast is lack of transparency - that the company is not up-front about the way it handles the surges in traffic created by the sharing of large files.
"The way it was revealed leads to suspicions about what exactly was being done," Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) staff attorney Fred von Lohmann told the E-Commerce Times.
A move by some cable companies to begin testing metered access options for broadband users - plans that charge power users for the bandwidth they consume - could help clear up the confusion among consumers, he noted, and help network operators address the congestion issues.
It's unlikely that the FCC will find Comcast doesn't have the right to manage traffic as long as it is not actively blocking certain content in the process, said von Lohmann, adding that the FCC may look to Congress for direction on the issue of neutrality as well.
In fact, the Comcast document was filed a day after Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey, a Democrat who chairs the House Subcommittee on Telecommunication and the Internet, reintroduced legislation that would order the FCC to study network neutrality and propose rules or additional legislation to ensure the Internet remains open to all traffic.
The Internet Freedom Preservation Act is cosponsored by Chip Pickering, a Republican from Mississippi.
"The open architecture nature of the Internet is baked into its technological DNA - it is what has ensured the Internet's place as the greatest level playing field ever created," Markey said.
The goal of the bill is to "assure consumers, content providers and high tech innovators that the historic, open architecture nature of the Internet will be preserved and fostered."
Markey's bill is likely to face stiff lobbying pressure from the Hands off the Internet Coalition, whose backers include major telecommunications companies. The group helped keep previous net neutrality legislation from being passed, despite strong lobbying from Google and others who argue that without such protection, broadband carriers could squeeze them out of business.
This time around, though, the bill has won quick support from groups pushing for an open Internet guarantee.
"People want to have control of their own Internet and don't want the phone and cable companies making these decisions about traffic," Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott told the E-Commerce Times. "What's happening with Comcast is what we'll see more of without solid and well-conceived net neutrality laws."
The Comcast controversy could help crystallize the debate, Scott said, as could signals from the FCC that it needs guidance from lawmakers on how to proceed on the issue.
P2P Companies Join in Outcry Against Comcast
Excerpted from PC Magazine Report by Chloe Albanesius
File-sharing executives again slammed Comcast's network management practices Thursday, accusing the cable giant of throttling P2P services in an effort to stifle competition.
Comcast likens its intentional network slow-downs to cars being delayed as they get on the highway, but "what we really have is a horse race," Jay Monahan, Vice President & General Counsel at Vuze, said during a conference call sponsored by Free Press. "Comcast not only owns a horse in the race," but they're taking the liberty of slowing down the other horses in the race to win.
Free Press and Vuze last year filed separate complaints with the FCC after an October Associated Press article accused Comcast of blocking access to P2P networks like BitTorrent; an experiment that was later replicated and confirmed by the EFF.
Comcast admitted to delaying certain file-sharing applications when its network was experiencing high traffic, but denied ever cutting service.
File-sharing services accuse Comcast of slowing down their services because their offerings are in direct competition with Comcast's on-demand and cable services.
In January, the FCC agreed to open a public comment period on the Free Press petition that will examine whether "degrading P2P traffic" violates FCC rules for reasonable network management.
The agency will also examine the Vuze complaint, which asked for clarification on what constitutes "reasonable network management."
BitTorrent has the foundation for "countless" new technologies, Eric Klinker, Chief Technology Officer for BitTorrent, said during Thursday's call. "Companies have leveraged the BitTorrent open-source protocol to innovate in ways that were never envisioned by the founder."
"Media files today are large and efficiently delivering them over the Internet is a significant technology challenge that is adequately met by the BitTorrent protocol," Klinker said. Comcast's network management could potentially have a "significant bearing on our economy and the Internet at large."
One company to emerge from the BitTorrent technology is Vuze, which has been "playing cat-and- mouse with network operators to avoid any significant interference with our business," said Monahan. "This is a situation that can't continue."
He called on the Commission to establish "clarity on the rules of the game so we can build a business going forward."
BitTorrent is responsible for 50% of all traffic on the Internet today, Klinker said. When asked why ISPs like Comcast should not be allowed to regulate services like BitTorrent if they are eating up half of web traffic, Marvin Ammori, General Counsel for Free Press, said he takes issue with Comcast targeting an application rather than its bandwidth problem as a whole.
"The choice of what to use your bandwidth for should be made by the user and the consumer, not the cable industry," Ammori said.
Vuze's Monahan acknowledged that "reasonable network management is clearly permissible," but said that Comcast's policies were far from reasonable.
Comcast needs to work on "optimizing the efficiency of its network and building enough infrastructure," Monahan said. "There are other sectors, the phone sector in particular, where we seem not to hear the same complaints about excessive traffic."
Comcast dismissed that comparison, and said that cable is managed differently from phone networks.
"Cable is shared infrastructure in the last mile," whereas phone networks have "choke points deeper in the network," according to a spokeswoman.
On Wednesday, Comcast submitted comments to the FCC in response to the Free Press and Vuze complaints. A spokeswoman pointed to that filing in response to the Free Press call.
"Virtually every broadband service provide in the United States and abroad manages its network in some manner," the cable provider wrote in the filing.
Conference-call participants voiced support for a net neutrality bill introduced Tuesday by Congressman Edward Markey, but Monahan called for industry cooperation in addition to regulation. FCC rules "we believe are required, but are not the only answer," he said. "They have to be coupled with industry cooperation."
The events of the past few days left Monahan "more convinced than ever that rules are necessary," he said.
The fact that Comcast only delays service during peak hours is of no comfort. "They're only slowing down content when you want it most," Monahan said.
Any slowdown could have detrimental effects. The average tech-savvy, 18-to-24 year olds want "their content now and they want it fast," he said.
Comcast insisted that traffic slowdowns only affect uploads. It does not affect downloads or simultaneous uploads and downloads, the spokeswoman said. Most people are not even at their computer while uploading files, so they are less likely to notice a slowdown, she said.
Why Net Neutrality Matters
Excerpted from Marketing Shift Report
The FCC and lawmakers are probing how broadband providers manage their networks and how this affects Internet access.
Comcast says it uses "reasonable measures" when it slows down the traffic to sites such as BitTorrent to ease congestion. This is discrimination, but it makes sense from a network management standpoint. If traffic becomes a problem, then addressing the largest bandwidth consumers is the fastest way to provide faster access to the largest number of users.
But is BitTorrent the biggest aggregate bandwidth hog? If you collect all of the traffic to the web's most popular sites at any time - MySpace, Google, MSN, etc. - this would surpass the traffic to BitTorrent.
However, slowing down access to all of those sites would be more complicated than to a single site, and it would be to the detriment of a larger number of users.
The real questions is - should web traffic that requires higher bandwidth to any user from any site or P2P application - not just BitTorrent - be managed so that the maximum number of users can have unfettered access?
Any net neutrality regulation or law should address this fundamental question: the legal transfer of large media files - which will increase as movie and music downloads via iTunes, Movielink, etc. increase in popularity.
Companies that offer these types of services should not be penalized by slowing performance to their customers as they become more successful. Every service that requires more bandwidth to deliver its product to its customers should be treated equally.
P2P file sharing exists to limit the overall bandwidth and increase network performance.
Any regulation similarly shouldn't discriminate against P2P.
Also, content providers continue to discriminate in providing "free" content depending on ISP relationships. ESPN, for example, has free streams of content, but only through preferred ISPs.
This practice is used to leverage relationships with ISPs, but is not to the benefit of users.
Comcast: FCC Cannot Act on Net Neutrality
Excerpted from MediaPost Report by Wendy Davis
For the last three months, Comcast has defended itself against accusations that it wrongly impeded P2P traffic by saying it was only managing its network and wasn't discriminating against particular types of content or users. But this week, for the first time, the company also raised a new argument - that the FCC has no authority to enforce net neutrality principles.
At least one former FCC Commissioner said this position might carry the day for Comcast. "There's some rational basis for Comcast's argument," said Nicholas Thompson, now a visiting law professor at the University of Iowa. "They might actually be able to prevail on that."
Near the end of its written comments, Comcast asserts that the FCC's Internet Policy Statement, in which it endorses net neutrality in general, "was not published in the Federal Register and is not contained in the Code of Federal Regulations," and therefore does not have "binding legal effect."
If the FCC accepts this latest contention, it might not be able to take action against Comcast, regardless of whether the company degraded P2P services in order to discriminate against potential competitors.
The FCC is currently considering a petition against Comcast filed by a coalition of net neutrality advocates who are asking for an injunction banning the company from interfering with P2P services.
But even if the FCC doesn't now have the authority to act against Comcast, the agency could change that state of affairs by publishing the rules and following the technical procedures necessary to turn them into regulations, Thompson said. Such regulations might not apply retroactively, but would still apply to Comcast and other companies in the future.
Net neutrality advocate Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge, said she was unimpressed with Comcast's argument, which appears to be at odds with prior comments by critics of net neutrality laws. "In the many times I have debated the carriers, they have said that the FCC has the power," she said.
In 2005, the FCC fined broadband provider Madison River Communications $15,000 for having allegedly blocked Vonage's Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to some consumers. But that settlement occurred before the US Supreme Court threw net neutrality laws into flux by allowing the FCC to classify broadband as an "information service," which isn't subject to common carrier anti-discrimination rules.
Developers Introduce Comcast Busting Encryption
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
Several BitTorrent developers have joined forces to propose a new protocol extension with the ability to bypass the BitTorrent-interfering techniques used by Comcast and other ISPs. This new form of encryption will be implemented in BitTorrent clients including uTorrent, so Comcast subscribers will be free to share again.
BitTorrent throttling is not a new phenomenon; ISPs have been doing it for years. When the first ISPs started to throttle BitTorrent traffic, most BitTorrent clients introduced a countermeasure, namely, protocol header encryption. This was the beginning of an ongoing cat-and-mouse game between ISPs and BitTorrent client developers, which is about to enter a new level.
Unfortunately, protocol header encryption doesn't help against more aggressive forms of BitTorrent interference, like the Sandvine application used by Comcast. A new extension to the BitTorrent protocol is needed to stay ahead of the ISPs, and that is exactly what is happening right now.
Back in August, we reported that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds. Comcast of course denied the allegations, and ever since there has been a lot of debate about the rights and wrongs of Comcast's actions. On Wednesday, Comcast explained its BitTorrent interference to the FCC in a 57-page filing. Unfortunately, they haven't stopped lying yet, since they now argue that they only delay BitTorrent traffic, while in fact they disconnect people, making it impossible for them to share files with non-Comcast users.
In short, the Comcast interference works like this: a few seconds after you connect to someone in a BitTorrent swarm, a peer reset message (RST flag) is sent by Comcast and the upload immediately stops. Most vulnerable are users in a relatively small swarm where they only have a few peers to whom they can upload a file.
For networking-savvy people, here's an example of real RST interference (video) on a regular BitTorrent connection. In this case, the reset happened immediately after the bitfields were exchanged. Evil? Yes - but there is hope.
The goal of this new type of encryption is to prevent ISPs from blocking or disrupting BitTorrent traffic connections that span between the receiver of a tracker response and any peer IP-port appearing in that tracker response, according to the proposal.
"This extension directly addresses a known attack on the BitTorrent protocol performed by some deployed network hardware. By obscuring the ip-port pairs, network hardware can no longer easily identify ip-port pairs that are running BitTorrent by observing peer-to-tracker communications.
This deployed hardware, under some conditions, disrupts BitTorrent connections by injecting forged TCP reset packets. Once a BitTorrent connection has been identified, other attacks could be performed such as severely rate-limiting or blocking these connections."
So, the new tracker peer obfuscation technique is especially designed to be a workaround for throttling devices, such as the Sandvine application that Comcast uses. More details on the proposal can be found at BitTorrent.org, which aims to become a coordination platform for BitTorrent developers.
Ashwin Navin, President & Co-Founder of BitTorrent Inc., who has some employees working on the new extension, said, "There are some ISPs that would like people to believe that 'slowing down' BitTorrent or 'metering' bandwidth consumption serves the greater good. Consumers should be very wary of this claim."
"In recent months, consumers enjoyed unprecedented participation in the political process thanks to the ability to upload opinions and feedback in the YouTube presidential debates. Musicians, filmmakers, and artists are finding ways to connect with their audiences across the world thanks to MySpace and BitTorrent. Students are engaging with interactive learning tools in their schools. Which bandwidth intensive application will be banned or shaped or metered next by these ISPs? The creative spirit of millions has been ignited, and our need to participate, to communicate will not be silenced."
"The US government should encourage ISPs to innovate and invest in their networks," he said. "Permitting them to interfere with or interrupt the communications of consumers, to protect ISP profit margins, would be a tremendous setback for our country and economy, when we are already slipping behind the first world (UK, EU, Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc.) in broadband capacity."
We wholeheartedly agree with Ashwin Navin on this one, as we've said before. If the plan is to keep using the Internet in the future, ISPs need to upgrade their networks. So, invest in more Internet gateway capacity, 10Gbps interconnect ports, and peering agreements.
BitTorrent users are not the problem, they only signal that ISPs need to upgrade their capacity, because customers will only get more demanding in the future. The Internet is not only about sending e-mail, and browsing on text-based websites anymore.
The new protocol extension is still under development, but the goal is, of course, to get it out as soon as possible.
ISPs, the Music Industry, and the Web
Excerpted from The Industry Standard Report by Larry Borsato
Unlimited Internet for only $44.95 a month!
That's all it took for me to sign up. That's why we all became Internet users. And everything was fine at first. We sent a few e-mails, read a few web pages - that was about it.
Then a bright guy named Shawn Fanning figured out that you could actually use the Internet to share stuff with each other. Like music. And then all hell broke loose.
When people actually started to use their Internet connections, and ISPs realized what "unlimited" meant, they realized that they might have a problem on their hands. But that wasn't the only problem.
Record companies used to have a great business model. Take two decent songs by Band X, add 8-10 pieces of filler, put it all on a vinyl record, and sell it for $10. Then, a few years later, sell customers the same stuff on a cassette tape for $10, so they can play it in their car or at the beach. Then, a few years later, sell 'em the same stuff on a CD for $15, so they can hear the songs without the hiss and crackle. The record companies took $45 from many customers from just two decent songs.
When the Internet and MP3 file format came along, the rules changed. Suddenly people could take the music from their CDs, put it on their computer as a digital file, and share it. With everyone.
Cue the sound of business models collapsing.
Claiming that they were losing money, record companies started adding digital rights management (DRM) to their music. They made various failed attempts at selling music online. They started suing their customers. None of which did anything to stop the losses, or P2P file sharing, estimated to comprise about 50% of all Internet traffic today.
Finally, U2 manager Paul McGuiness went off on a tirade about how ISPs should be filtering copyrighted content, since they have "built multibillion-dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it" - conveniently forgetting that even if file sharing stopped tomorrow, the music industry would still be hurting. When people can buy the two good songs they want for a buck apiece on the web, instead of being forced to buy a $15 CD, revenue is going to fall.
Those multibillion-dollar industries that McGuiness attacked have their own problems. Claiming that the top 5% or its heaviest users consume 50% of its bandwidth, Time Warner is moving away from the unlimited Internet access originally promised to customers, and is testing consumption-based billing using a per-gigabyte scale. AT&T is talking about filtering content.
Other ISPs simply throttle bandwidth for certain types of content.
ISPs want to be more than just dumb pipes. They want to be content providers, delivering services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or IPTV services. So blocking copyrighted content is in their own best interests.
So, record companies and ISPs seem to want the same thing - a halt to copyrighted content being distributed over the Internet outside of their control.
And what's going to happen next?
Suppose ISPs filter copyrighted content. Music sales won't actually increase. People will just stop listening to that free music. Because of consumption-based billing, people will think twice about legally downloading music or movies. Internet traffic will drop by 50% without that P2P traffic, so the ISPs won't see an extra dime. And innovative use of the Internet as a medium for communication or information-sharing will be reduced, or perhaps cease, because of the higher cost and lower availability of bandwidth.
The US leads in the use of information and communication technologies, precisely because of the economy and pervasiveness of broadband, but I'm sure we're willing to give that up so that record companies and ISPs can make a bit more money - for a little while anyway.
QTRAX Jukebox to the Rescue
Excerpted from New University Online Report by Christina Nersesian
Some of us may have been too young to remember when Napster came out. It's okay to come out of hiding now and admit we have a few Napster-downloaded tracks still floating around on our iPods.
Lars Ulrich and his band of millionaire music-makers already had their field day arresting 14-year-olds for downloading music. Since then, there has been a rise in legal downloading venues online.
With the surge of Apple's family of portable music players and iTunes, they've created a lucrative side-project with their iTunes Store. Costing an extra buck, one can download that special track from the latest diva's premiere album.
This gives you instant gratification and keeps you from having to find parking at Borders, and even eliminates those wasted dollars spent buying overpriced albums at Tower Records (R.I.P).
The rise of the BitTorrent downloading protocol encouraged P2P file sharing. From this we saw Torrent search engines like Mininova and The Pirate Bay provide one search field for varying forms of media. Regardless, this is still considered illegal.
A possible cure to all these ills emerged in late January. QTRAX advertises itself as the world's first free and absolutely legal P2P downloading station.
Expecting a platform holding over 25 million songs, they put the likes of the iTunes Store to immediate shame. With zero adware or spyware promised, you won't get that unwanted porn-site subscription just because you downloaded The Beatles' discography.
QTRAX works directly with the record labels and music publishers. These groups have licensed their products for online distribution and get paid through the money QTRAX makes from advertisers. You don't have to sign away any first-borns either, since the software can be downloaded for free.
QTRAX came out of the woodwork recently and still has a few kinks here-and-there to iron out. Currently, the QTRAX player is only compatible with Microsoft Windows XP and Vista, though in the future it is promised to Mac OS X and Linux users. With QTRAX on the horizon, Apple stands outside a potentially growing world where everyone's music may be coming from in the future.
QTRAX could be the precedent for a world of legally free music to come.
Music is free in a theoretical sense. It was argued in the early days of broadcasting that the airwaves are a natural resource and should not be used for profit. The concept of music is just stylistically bringing together various natural resources for a finished product of a song.
Viewed in this way, we're all free to obtain what's already free by whatever means available.
Regardless, it's absolutely amazing to have this idea of free and legal downloading in possible fruition thanks to the emergence of QTRAX.
Velocix Brings Best of Bollywood to the Web
Velocix - formerly known as CacheLogic - announced that its Velocix Video solution is being used to deliver the world's largest on-line collection of south Asian films. Bollywood.tv is the first global movie-on-demand service for Asian film with a library that includes classic and cult movies not available elsewhere on the web or TV or DVD.
Velocix Video allows Bollywood.tv's viewers to watch films at broadcast quality in Windows Media format, streamed or downloaded directly to their PCs. More than 1,900 new and back catalog films are exclusively available online, including movies in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, and Bengali as well as a range of exclusive Pakistani dramas, and music from genres as diverse as pop, classical, and Sufi.
"The Velocix Network enables us to deliver a high quality service to millions of worldwide followers of South Asian films," Nigel Glynn-Davies, CEO at Bollywood.tv commented. "We chose to work with Velocix because it offers a unique network technology that provides fantastic delivery performance and video quality, together with flexible options for managing distribution costs. We look forward to adding to our growing collection of movies in partnership with Velocix in the future."
Added Phill Robinson, CEO, Velocix, "We are proud to be helping Bollywood.tv take some of the world's most popular and widely loved films to a massive global audience. Bollywood.tv's selection of our Velocix Network is further validation of our ability to deliver a high quality video experience over the web that is unrivalled in terms of performance and quality for the viewer, as well as economics and control for the content owner."
The Velocix network is designed to enable content owners, movie studios, and broadcasters to deliver video and other large digital assets, such as software and games over the web, with unprecedented performance, breakthrough economics, and an asset delivery lifecycle management system that provides content owners the control, analytics, and reporting they need to manage their asset libraries through the digital distribution chain.
Microsoft Mulls P2P Worms for Patching
Excerpted from TechWorld Report by John Dunn
According to Microsoft, the much-maligned computer worm could offer the perfect model on how to distribute software patches more efficiently.
According to an article in the New Scientist, researchers at Microsoft's UK lab in Cambridge have hit on the unorthodox solution of distributing software updates using the techniques by which worms spread, copying themselves from machine to machine.
As with worms, a patch sent out into the world with such a design would copy itself to as many PCs as possible, probing for further machines through which to continue the virtuous cycle.
The advantage is that such a model is more efficient, removing bottlenecks caused by having to have banks of servers to distribute updates, as is the case today.
"After it fails to reach new uninfected hosts a fixed number of times in a row, say 10, it moves on to find new groups using random sampling," Microsoft Research team member Milan Vojnovic said. "These strategies can minimize the amount of global traffic across the network."
The spread of such patches would also help model the nature of worm attacks themselves. "If we understand how future worms might be capable of spreading, we can design better counter-measures," said Vojnovic.
The idea of 'friendly' worms isn't new. In 2001, a German programmer released an anti-worm designed to spread with the sole purpose of patching the effects of the infamous Code Red worm.
Although Microsoft's worm concept is slightly different - the anti-worms were designed to counter only specific threats - it is likely to be just as controversial. The problem is that a hosted patch can be verified as coming from a specific server and passed as fit to be accepted.
It is not clear how the same patch coming in P2P fashion could be safely assumed to be legitimate.
Microsoft's researchers will present their idea at the IEEE Infocom Conference to be held in Arizona in mid-April.
P2P Software Application Shazzle Beta 1.0 is Released
Shazzle, a free community-based software application that combines free file sharing with live communication within private and public communities, has announced the beta release of its P2P application.
Shazzle offers users communal file sharing and communication. Shazzle communities can be made private (password-protected, and invite-only) or public (viewable and editable by the public at large), and offer a download synchronization option, which allows community members the option of having all uploaded content automatically downloaded onto their hard drives. Shazzle communities and the application as a whole also offer a host of other features and benefits.
Features included in the Shazzle beta 1.0 release include community-based P2P file sharing (audio, video, documents, PDFs, etc.); live community chat, web browsing functionality; the ability to share and sort links; community member presence; community instant messaging (IM); compatibility with programs such as AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.; and personal profiles, which can be browsed within community member lists.
Shazzle is a file-sharing and communication application that synchronizes, streamlines, and enriches all of the things people do online. Shazzle presents users with a hybrid of P2P music sharing, live chat, the unique ability to share links and browse the web.
Shazzle consolidates these diverse e-functions and makes them all accessible from a single, easy-to-manipulate screen. Shazzle's elegant user-interface and multifaceted utility can be applied to business, e-learning, personal sharing and communication, old and new inter-personal connections, and much more. To find out more, please visit the Shazzle Blog.
White House Objects to Plan for .gov P2P Security
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Anne Broache
The Bush administration on Thursday questioned a proposed law that would force federal agencies to develop specific plans for guarding government computers and networks against "risks" posed by P2P file sharing.
The Democratic-sponsored bill, called the Federal Agency Data Protection Act, contains a section asking federal agencies to report to Congress what "technological" (e.g., software and hardware) and "nontechnological" methods (such as employee polices and user training) they would employ to ensure P2P file-sharing programs do not harm the security of government systems.
The proposal, introduced late last year, is the latest manifestation of congressional Democrats' concern about the perils of so-called "inadvertent" file-sharing - that is, when inexperienced or uninformed P2P users set their applications to share folders containing sensitive files without realizing they're doing so.
At a hearing last summer, Rep. Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said such a practice can pose a national security threat and warned of plans for new legislation. He and others grilled the founder of LimeWire, a popular P2P application, about how his service warns users about the files and folders they're poised to share. At the time, a Federal Trade Commission official told politicians that it has found any risks are largely rooted in how individuals use the technology.
The Bush administration appears to be backing up that view. Without naming the P2P file-sharing provision in particular, Karen Evans, the federal government's Chief Information Officer, told a House information policy subcommittee that she objects to singling out a particular technology when issuing computer security requirements.
"While we recognize that technologies that are improperly implemented introduce increased risk, we recommend any potential changes to the statute be technology-neutral," Evans said at the hearing.
Coming Events of Interest
Digital Music Forum East - February 26th-27th in New York, NY. Major and indie music label executives, artists, technology and consumer electronics leaders come together for this "must attend" event. The DCIA will conduct the closing session interview with QTRAX Chairman & CEO Allan Klepfisz.
Canadian Music Week - March 5th-8th in Toronto, Canada. The 26th installment of this international festival. Conference registration includes access to performances by over 500 of the hottest global artists throughout 41 downtown venues. Register early to secure your place and save. The DCIA will moderate a P2P panel on Thursday afternoon focused on P2P and music.
Media Summit New York - The fifth annual MSNY, March 12th-13th in New York, NY. Jointly produced by Digital Hollywood, McGraw-Hill, Business Week, and Standard & Poor's. Keynoting this year will be Robert Iger, President & CEO, The Walt Disney Company.
P2P MARKET CONFERENCE - March 14th in New York, NY in conjunction with the Media Summit New York (MSNY). The industry's premiere marketplace focused on the unique global revenue generation opportunities available in the steadily growing universe of open and closed P2P, file-sharing, P2PTV, and social networks, as well as peer-assisted content delivery networks (CDNs).
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA - May 4th in Los Angeles, CA. The third annual P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA. The DCIA's flagship event featuring keynotes from industry-leading P2P and social network operators; tracks on policy, technology and marketing; panel discussions covering content distribution and solutions development; valuable workshops; networking opportunities; and more.
Digital Hollywood Spring - May 5th-8th in Los Angeles, CA. With many new sessions and feature events, DHS has become the premiere digital entertainment conference and exposition. DCIA Member companies will exhibit and speak on a number of panels.
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