Tag Archive: Virginia

Earlier this week, the FCC made it official (PDF) and ordered U.S. cable operator Comcast to end discriminatory network management practices that deliberately blocked certain types of network use by its customers. In Comcast’s case, this means peer-to-peer file-sharing applications like BitTorrent and Gnutella; during periods of network congestion, last year Comcast was revealed by the Associated Press to be forging reset packets that would shut down customers’ fire-sharing sessions. After months of claims, counter-claims, spin control, and even attempts to stack FCC hearings in its favor, the FCC ruled Comcast’s “network management” practices violated FCC’s 2005 Internet Policy Statement (PDF) that essentially gives consumers the right to use any legal application and access any legal service they like. Network providers may engage in “reasonable,” transparent network management practices, but can’t just decide to shut down particular types of application traffic.