Martin Ponders Blocking of P2P Traffic
The FCC wants comments on what’s acceptable broadband network management, the agency said in two public notices unveiled late Monday. Chairman Kevin Martin was spurred to step up scrutiny of the practices by complaints from public- interest groups including Free Press and online video distributor Vuze, agency and industry officials said. They said the other commissioners are also considering whether broadband network operators ought to be allowed to block or slow bandwidth-intensive peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent. But the commissioners seem divided on how to handle the complaints, agency and industry sources said.
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The commission wants comments by Feb. 13 on a petition by Free Press and other groups opposing media consolidation contending the FCC should find that blocking P2P and other traffic violates the agency’s four network neutrality principles, said one of the public notices. The other asked for comments on a similar filing by Vuze, which came two weeks after Free Press’ Nov. 1 petition for declaratory ruling. Replies are due Feb. 28, the notices said. The notices didn’t state policy conclusions on the petitions.
The public notices come as commissioners seem divided on how to handle any inquiry into the allegations, said FCC and industry sources. All the commissioners want to intervene if Comcast is found to have broken FCC rules, agency sources said. But not all are convinced that there’s strong enough evidence the company did anything wrong to justify a public notice or other process to seek comments on how network management relates to the FCC’s four principles, the sources said. Some commissioners are still studying the issue and haven’t had time to form opinions on the Free Press and Vuze filings, FCC officials said. An FCC spokesman said the public notices were standard practice for dealing with such petitions to the agency.
Republican Commissioners Deborah Tate and Robert McDowell may be less inclined to support action beyond investigating specific complaints against Comcast, FCC and industry officials said. The two commissioners appear to believe that cable operators and Bells should be able to give e-mail and other traffic priority over BitTorrent and other P2P applications, the sources said. The FCC Democrats may want to examine network management practices by all companies -- as the notices appear to do -- and not just against Comcast or cable operators, FCC and industry officials said.
Martin’s comments at the Consumer Electronics Show last week that he wants all allegations of such traffic blocking investigated by FCC staff (CD Jan 9 p3) seemed to foreshadow a more intensive review by the agency, communications lawyers said. The petitions by Free Press and Vuze asking the FCC to examine the practices in general both cited specific allegations that Comcast blocked access to BitTorrent applications by its broadband cable subscribers. Comcast wasn’t mentioned in Monday’s public notices. The company has said it follows FCC rules and “the Commission clearly recognized that reasonable network management is necessary for the good of all customers” in its August 2005 network principles. A company official didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.
Free Press thinks it has a strong case and wants the FCC to take quick action, said General Counsel Marvin Ammori. The group plans to meet Tuesday with McDowell and hopes to soon meet with Tate, said Ammori. “We think nondiscrimination principles should be applied to all [broadband] ISPs, not just the cable industry,” he said. P2P blocking represents “the paradigmatic problem, the No. 1 problem that everyone was afraid of… and they're going to have to address it sooner rather than later.” Netcompetition.org Chairman Scott Cleland, who opposes network neutrality rules, said “reasonable network management” doesn’t violate FCC rules. Without such practices, he added, “there is no way to ensure quality of service, prevent a network from shutdown by outside forces, or guarantee it will be available in emergencies for public safety and first responders.”