Ever since Comcast unveiled its VOD service on the Xbox, it’s come under criticism from those who believe the service violates the spirit of net neutrality, not to mention also violating some of the FCC’s conditions on its big NBC Universal deal from last year. After weeks of staying out of the discussion, the top cable provider in the U.S. explained in a blog post how the content was being delivered within a subscriber’s home.

Comcast had always maintained that the VOD streams were being delivered through its own internal CDN architecture and not over the broader Internet, but the latest blog post gives a little more detail about how those streams get delivered over the last mile. From the post:

“Specifically, we provision a separate, additional bandwidth flow into the home for the use of this service — above and beyond, and distinct from, the bandwidth a customer has for his or her regular Internet access service.”

In short, Comcast is provisioning whatever traffic it’s using to deliver Xbox video separately from whatever traffic is being used by a customer’s Internet connection. So if you pay for a 25 Mb/s broadband connection, for instance, Comcast isn’t sending its Xbox VOD streams through that pipe. Instead, it’s provisioning a whole different connection that handles only the Xbox VOD service.

That’s why VOD streams that go directly to the Xbox don’t count against Comcast’s 250 GB broadband cap, while streams from its iPad app, XfinityTV.com website, or those of NBC.com or other NBC Universal properties do count toward the cap. It’s also why, when someone like Brian Berg floods his Internet connection with synthetic traffic, the Xbox Xfinity VOD stream continues unabated — because it’s not riding on the same pipe as usual Internet traffic.

Of course, that doesn’t really answer the question about whether it’s prioritizing its traffic, or if its streams are being delivered in a non-neutral fashion.

In the sense that Xbox VOD streams are being sent over a whole separate pipe from regular Internet traffic, of course it’s prioritized and of course it’s not neutral — not only does it not count toward bandwidth caps, but it also isn’t subject to all the vagaries of best-effort Internet streaming, including all the hiccups, jitter, buffering and the like.

But that’s the entire point, according to Comcast: This isn’t an Internet video service at all, but a cable TV service that just happens to be delivered via IP. In that sense, it’s no different from similar services being delivered by Verizon and AT&T, both of which provision streams for its IPTV services that are separate from the general broadband traffic that they carry.

That’ll provide little solace to online video publishers and distributors who are streamed over the broader Internet and do actually count against Comcast’s caps. But for policy wonks at the FCC and in Congress, this is probably as good of an answer as any as to why Comcast isn’t discriminating against the traffic of others.

[Image via Flickr/Kevin Burkett]

Complaints by Netflix's Reed Hastings and a handful of politicians must have rankled Comcast CTO Tony Werner, as he just posted a particularly detailed explanation of why Comcast believes the Xfinity TV app on the Xbox 360 isn't violating net neutrality. We'd previously heard the argument that the Xfinity app's traffic is simply being routed through Comcast's internal network and isn't the same as the Internet data of Netflix, but Werner now contends that the Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) tags that some think are breaking FCC rules by favoring Xfinity video are really just necessary switches. They're not prioritizing traffic, they're setting it aside, the claim goes. Of course, Hastings and others believe that setting Xfinity video aside is prioritizing, and Comcast's point of view sidesteps the practical reality that watching Netflix, Amazon Instant Video or iTunes will lead you closer to that ever-present 250GB cap while Xfinity doesn't. The FCC during its rulemaking warned against special private services being used as end-runs around neutrality concerns; it's up to the agency to decide whether or not that's true here, or whether Comcast is just offering its usual service in a new way.

Comcast fires back over Xfinity TV on Xbox 360, says no way, no how it's violating net neutrality originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Actor, author and celebrity geek Wil Wheaton is pleading with ISPs not to degrade or downright block BitTorrent traffic and with studios not to push for laws that would force ISPs to do so.

In a post on his blog, Wheaton wrote this week:

“Some ISPs are blocking all BitTorrent traffic, because BitTorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws which would force ISPs to block or degrade BitTorrent traffic, too. Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away.”

Wheaton’s reason for writing the post was his downloading of Ubuntu this past weekend. First, he tried to simply download it via HTTP from one of Ubuntu’s mirror servers, but the download was taking more than an hour. So Wheaton turned to the popular BitTorrent client Transmission, which allowed him to download the whole ISO file in about six minutes – something Wheaton called “an example of the usefulness of bittorrent for entirely legal purposes.”

Wheaton went on to write that he is often frustrated with the lack of understanding of Internet policy issues in the entertainment world:

“One of the things that drives me crazy is the belief in Hollywood that bittorrent exists solely for stealing things. Efforts to explain that this is not necessarily true are often met with hands clamped tightly over ears, accompanied by ‘I CAN’T HEAR YOU LA LA LA.’”

Wheaton has been outspoken about issues of piracy and net neutrality before. Just in January, he blamed the entertainment industry’s insistence on DRM as the reason for piracy.

Image courtesy of (CC-BY-SA) Flickr user ste3ve.

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Wireless networks are for the bold, the lucky and the impossibly rich. And as LightSquared, the company that hoped to build a wholesale LTE network using airwaves once reserved for satellite signals, files for bankruptcy, I feel an I-told-you-so coming on. I was doubtful of LightSquared’s success from the beginning, but I was hoping I’d be proven wrong.

Instead I was right about LightSquared’s eventual failure, but wrong about the reasons. Maybe it would have failed for economic reasons if it had ever gotten off the ground, but before it got that far it fell victim to D.C. politics, spectrum warfare, and interests that don’t want more competition in the wireless industry.

This was a story I was close to. I had broken the news of the network’s approvals with the FCC late on a Saturday night after sniffing around the story for two weeks trying to get confirmation. Just 24-hours after reporting the news I declared the idea of building a hybrid terrestrial and satellite network “Mission Impossible.” But after watching the LightSquared saga unfold, we now know there is a bigger story here here than the business model failure I focused on immediately after learning of Falcone’s plans.

The road to Chapter 11 was paved with rushed decisions.

LightSquared began as a tale of spectrum speculation with Falcone betting that the value of his satellite spectrum would tempt a buyer to snap up his investment, especially as concerns of a spectrum shortage started making it into the mainstream news. But with no buyers, the speculation turned into an actual effort to build a wireless network. Along the way, the FCC bent over backward to help Falcone build a wholesale 4G network that might help add a competitor to a markets dominated by AT&T and Verizon.

With the final waiver it granted, the agency eliminated some of the daunting technical and business model problems facing the proposed network and gave LightSquared the best chance to succeed. But it wasn’t enough, and absent a firm stance on how to solve the issue of interference, the FCC couldn’t keep pushing for LightSquared. After that point, a mix of vested interests and politics stepped in to replace the technical and business hurdles with controversies around interference and cries of political favoritism.

The GPS industry in January of 2011 began crying interference between LightSquared’s terrestrial network and everything from consumer’s phones to airplane navigation systems. There were real issues there and LightSquared’s proposed solution may not have entirely solved the problem.

Added to the GPS battle, the FCC was called on the carpet by politicians concerned about Falcone’s status as a Democratic donor and how far the agency had gone to help LightSquared succeed. The FCC should have just admitted that it did walk the extra mile for LightSquared in the interest of promoting broadband competition, but by then the GPS battle was inflamed and AT&T and T-Mobile were planning a merger. The agency decided to stop focusing on LightSquared, and saved its political capital for squelching the AT&T and T-Mobile merger.

When you play with politics you play a rigged game.

So what began as a business and technical drama ended in the hysterical flames of political wrangling between partisan groups, the GPS industry and operators and politicians out to use this as a sledgehammer to beat the FCC into submission. Ironically the FCC’s actions in LightSquared and in killing the AT&T and T-Mobile merger have drawn so much ire from Republicans and the big telcos that back them, that a bill has passed the House to effectively neuter the agency.

For the clearest example of how the interests that oppose more broadband competition view this entire issue, here’s Scott Cleland discussing the broad issue of wireless competition issue in a debate on Verizon’s plan to buy spectrum from the cable companies in a debate hosted by Stifel Nicolas in March. Cleland is Chairman of NetCompetition.org, which is a group he created to support broadband interests in their fight against network neutrality.

So it all comes down to, there are folks that want to manage competition at the FCC or they want to preemptively take the visible hand of the FCC and redistribute spectrum and customers and market share and economics to those companies they feel are needy so that the big companies can’t succeed. And that’s basically a de facto growth tax, a de facto success tax. It goes counter to everything about competition and market forces that people do win and lose.

But really the political argument here is that the folks that lost in the marketplace are running to Washington and asking for the regulators to level the playing field so that they can win with regulatory capitalism what they can’t win with real capitalism.

In Cleland’s worldview, LightSquared isn’t an innovator, it was a whiner that went to the FCC to try to level the playing field — to win with regulatory capitalism what it couldn’t do with real capitalism. If you don’t have the spectrum to build a network, see if the FCC can use a waiver or two to turn your spectrum into something that might be used to build a real network. I think LightSquared’s play was far more subtle, but it’s attempt at regulatory capitalism failed. It never even had the chance to compete with real capitalism because the powers that already control regulatory capitalism sent it to bankruptcy. It’s a rigged game.

So instead of saying I told you so, I’m going to hope that people remember LightSquared — not as some failed attempt to bring wireless competition to the U.S. market — but as a very real example of how ill-equipped the FCC and Washington are when it comes to trying to manage our spectrum resources and ensure the consumer interest. It’s a valuable thing to keep in mind as Congress and the FCC approach the clawback of spectrum from broadcast TV companies and the upcoming incentive auctions, and especially as the agency and the Department of Justice weigh in on the $4 billion spectrum deal that Verizon has signed with several cable companies.

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The Dutch Parliament

Flickr user Andrew Griffith

A year ago, the former Dutch telecoms monopolist KPN unveiled a plan to make mobile users pay extra for data used by certain third-party apps, such as WhatsApp and Skype, that replaced KPN services like text messaging and voice calls. In response, the Dutch parliament quickly added net neutrality provisions to its telecommunications law. Tuesday, the Dutch senate at last approved the law, making the Netherlands the second country in the world (after Chile) with net neutrality written into statute.

The new law also requires websites to ask users for permission before cookies can be stored in their browsers, but these provisions won't go into effect until 2013, giving the European Union some time to address the user tracking issue.

How we got here

Let's return to 2011, when KPN issued a press release announcing its annual report. "In Q4 2011, the wireless market remained challenging, and a further decrease of voice and SMS service revenues was noticeable," it said then. "Data usage continued to rise due to the increased usage of communication apps. This changing customer behavior, which was first witnessed in Q1 2011 at the Hi brand, is now also visible at the KPN brand." (The Hi brand is targeted at a young/urban demographic.)

Read more on Ars Technica…

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