Comcast P2P Technology

By Broadside Staff Reporter Edwin Mora

Peer-to-peer Internet traffic has set off a legal vendetta between Comcast Corp.’s D.C operations, accused of intentionally blocking file sharing traffic, and some of its customers.

On Feb. 25, the law firm Gilbert Randolph LLP announced that it filed a class action lawsuit against Comcast Corp.’s D.C. operation for false advertising of “unfettered” access to all Internet applications, because the company obstructs its customer’s access to peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing applications, a press release reports.

According to the suit, the plaintiffs are Dr. Sanford Sidner and certain Comcast customers of D.C who have subscribed to their services within the past three years.

Sanford alleges that when using P2P file sharing through his paid subscription from Comcast, his Internet stops or slows down. He said most customers have “no idea that Comcast is secretly blocking and slowing down their high-speed Internet service,” a press release reports.

In the complaint, the Philadelphia-based cable company is being accused of sending "reset packets" that prevent the sending of data through P2P applications.

The cable company rejects the allegations of obstructing peer-to-peer file sharing.

“Comcast is not blocking any websites or online applications,” said Charlie Douglas, director of corporate communications. “What we are doing is delaying some peer-to-peer traffic by a few minutes during periods when it’s causing problems.”

When asked to comment about the D.C lawsuit Douglas said, “While I can confirm that we have been served with this suit, we don't comment on ongoing litigation.”

According to Brian Weinthal, an attorney at Gilbert Randolph LLP, Comcast has not reacted to the lawsuit at the time of publication.

“The next step Comcast will file some sort of response or motion, but thus far there has been no response,” said Weinthal.

The issue at hand is whether networks like Comcast should have the authority to monitor Internet applications, such as P2P file sharing.

This kind of file sharing is a bandwidth intensive activity and bandwidth refers to the rate at which data is transferred, according to Jimmy Rodgers, the author of Mason Connect Tech Beat Blog.

“[P2P] can degrade the Internet experience for all customers,” Douglas said. “We have to protect our integrity and only a small number of customers engage in P2P.”

The Federal Communications Commission organized a panel hearing to address Comcast’s possible degradation of P2P Internet traffic.

“If and when we delay a P2P upload, we only delay it until such time as the congestion alleviates, in which case it is honored," said David Cohen, executive vice-president of Comcast Corp. and part of the panel hearing held by the FCC.

Net neutrality supporters were also at the meeting. The principle of net neutrality is the Internet being free of restrictions.

“Comcast is deliberately targeting and interfering with legal peer-to-peer technology,” said Cohen’s fellow panelist Marvin Ammori, a general counsel for Free Press.

The FCC’s panel hearing was held on Feb. 25 at Harvard University, where Comcast was caught paying people to fill up the limited seats. This allegedly kept some net neutrality supporters out of the meeting.

“No one was blocking anyone from attending the meeting,” Douglas said. “We paid a few individuals to hold seats.”

Senior director of corporate and consumer communications for Comcast, Jennifer Khoury, also admitted that people were paid to get to the hearing early.

Khoury told portfolio.com, we "informed our local employees about the hearing and invited them to attend," with no intentions of preventing the public from attending the meeting.”

The alleged problem with Comcast is not experienced by all customers. A George Mason University freshman who uses P2P through Comcast is satisfied with the Internet service. “It is good, fast, reliable and it never goes down,” said Navid Hosseini, finance major. “The upload speed was fast; I never had a problem with it [P2P].”

Other Mason students think that Comcast does have many problems. Sophomore Ana Gaitan, a sociology major, experiences problems with Comcast’s Internet. “Sometimes it [Internet] does not connect altogether,” Gaitan said. “Usually it happens in the morning around 10 and 10:30.”

Mason provides its students with an Internet network that allows P2P.

“We don’t filter nor monitor P2P,” said Randy Anderson, director of network engineering and technology at Mason.

According to Anderson, it is the students’ responsibility to check whether the files they are sharing are protected by copyright law, since Mason does not police P2P traffic for copyright infringement.

Peer-to-peer file sharing can be used as a venue for illicit file sharing, such as sharing music and videos protected by copyright law.

“It’s not the P2P technology that violates copyright laws, but the content of the files being shared,” said Wally Grotophorst, associate university librarian for digital programs.

There are copyright awareness campaigns driven by the copyright office at Mason.

According to Grotophorst, the biggest offenders, which are tracked through to their Mason ID, are on the dorms.

However, these students are not tracked down by Mason. Instead, copyright police agencies, like the Recording Industry Association of America, report the students to Mason officials.

At Mason, for a first offense, a letter is sent telling the offender to stop and a second offense requires that the offender write a note back stating they will stop. If the student commits a third-offense, which according to Grotophorst has not happened, he or she will loose network privilege.

Mason’s Internet provider is Above Net. “Students are provided with limited upload and download bandwidth for everything on the Internet, not P2P in particular,” Anderson said.