Telemarketing: Comcast’s Traffic Shaping Feature
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So this telemarketer from Comcast called me the other night. He attempted to sell me their Triple Play package. He kept letting me know how much I needed their services… even though I already have them. Once it became apparent that the guy had no clue what their services actually ARE and what they DO… I decided to have fun with him.
You’ll hear me tease the guy, and ask him if I can get the Traffic Shaping “feature” with my order. He, of course, had no idea what that even was. I was astounded. For anyone else who may not know, let’s see what Wikipedia has to say:
Traffic shaping (also known as “packet shaping”) is an attempt to control computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, low latency, and/or bandwidth by delaying packets. More specifically, traffic shaping is any action on a set of packets (often called a stream or a flow) which imposes additional delay on those packets such that they conform to some predetermined constraint (a contract or traffic profile). Traffic shaping provides a means to control the volume of traffic being sent into a network in a specified period (bandwidth throttling), or the maximum rate at which the traffic is sent (rate limiting), or more complex criteria such as GCRA. This control can be accomplished in many ways and for many reasons; however traffic shaping is always achieved by delaying packets. Traffic shaping is commonly applied at the network edges to control traffic entering the network, but can also be applied by the traffic source (for example, computer or network card) or by an element in the network. Traffic policing is the distinct but related practice of packet dropping and packet marking.
Accusations of Comcast shaping traffic has been widely publicized lately. On Monday, there will actually be a special meeting of the FCC to discuss this exact claim. The main discussion will be focused on “network neutrality and traffic shaping”. It will be interesting to see what affect this meeting could end up having on the way traffic shaping is applied.
This past Friday, another Class Action Lawsuit was filed against Comcast. While Comcast insisting their brand of network management is “reasonable” might thwart the FCC’s investigation into the practice, the courts may see things differently. According to a statement from the law firm involved, Comcast is misleading customers by saying they offer the “fastest Internet connection,” because the ISP “intentionally blocks or impedes its customer’s access to peer-to-peer file sharing.”
Of course, Comcast is defending its practices. While the company finally admits that its doing some traffic shaping, it’s clearly gearing up to fight any allegation that it was wrong in its actions. As Broadband Reports notes, the company uses the word “reasonable” over 40 times. That’s no surprise, since the FCC has said that it would allow “reasonable” network practices. It also uses some questionable metaphors for its actions suggesting that forging packets (oops, sorry, “resets”) are perfectly normal activity, comparing it to a fax machine getting a busy signal.
So… what do you think? Should the FCC be cracking down on this? Or is Comcast just possibly in the right? Leave me a follow-up comment, or send me an email to chris@pirillo.com, and share your thoughts.
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