Comcast Accused of Blocking Internet Traffic for Businesses, Individuals

This entry was originally posted non the nowpublic media site.

Athens, GA (Sept 13, 2007) - There is a lot of grumbling going on in the technical world. Users from across the United States are raising their voices in the blogosphere and in the content of online technology magazines. The accusation is that Comcast is intentionally blocking the transfer of large files by users of their cable internet service. What is concerning people is that Comcast, in its efforts to reduce the amount of file sharing on their networks, appears to be intentionally cutting off transfers when they reach a certain size. While Comcast is denying any such activity on their part, businesses are being prevented from using the tools they need to conduct commerce.

For Kevin Kanarski, who manages the Lotus Notes Messaging and Collaboration operations for a company in the Chicago area, the frustration level has been rising. In a response to a posting on IBM executive Ed Brill's blog, Kanarski says that "IBM Support has also acknowledged that other customers have been calling in with this issue." On his own blog, Kanarski says that even though IBM plans to write a technote about this issue, the company has no plans to contact Comcast about it.

Most people acknowledge that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have the right to decide what and how much traffic. Chris Soghian, a doctoral student at Indiana University, writes on CNet that if indeed Comcast is doing what they are accused of, they may be violating a number of laws. "Comcast is perfectly within its right to filter the Internet traffic that flows over its network. What it is not entitled to do is to impersonate its customers and other users, in order to make that filtering happen. Dropping packets is perfectly OK, while falsifying sender information in packet headers is not," writes Soghian. Soghian feels that if they are indeed sending falsified reset (RST) packets to terminate transmissions, then they are likely to be in violation of the laws of New York, Connecticut, Alabama and other states.

For businesses, it does not come down to such technical discussions. For those who have paid for Comcast business accounts, there is a feeling of anger and frustration. There is also curiosity as to why Comcast would arbitrarily block traffic without examining the real impacts to their business customers. Meanwhile, Comcast will not say if they are indeed blocking traffic. Many people would like it if they would just come out and say if they are doing it or not.

In the meantime, Comcast customers are taking their frustration to the web. In the end, this may cost Comcast more than what they are trying to minimize.