The Eye

What are they up to now?

Back in August, Comcast got their knuckles rapped by the FCC for throttling specific P2P programs.

Now the FCC is asking Comcast in a letter filed on January 18, to give “detailed justification” as to why the new network management system they put in place since last August appears to affect the quality of third party VOIP services such as, for example, Vonage; yet doesn’t seem to have any effect on Comcast’s own Digital Voice Service.

I used to have Vonage here myself, but switched away from it last year to considerably reduce costs, and switched to a combination of Skype and MyFax, and this saves over $500 a year.

I’ve not had any noticeable degradation of service myself, and the fax service is noticeably better. (There is a class action suit happening right now regarding Vonage’s Fax service, but that is for another article).

The bottom line regarding Comcast though is this:

If they’re using different technology to provide their Digital Voice Service, then it could become a telephony service and not simply VOIP, and could be taxed as such; if they’re not doing that; then they need to explain why their service is getting priority over other IP based services on their network, contrary to what they’ve told the FCC after last August.

FCC logoIn a letter filed January 18, the US agency asks Comcast to provide “detailed justification” on why its new network management practices affect the quality of competing VoIP services, but apparently doesn’t degrade Comcast’s own Digital Voice Service.

The ISP recently switched its traffic management plan in response to an August order from the Federal Communications Commission demanding Comcast stop throttling specific P2P programs like BitTorrent, eDonkey, and Gnuetella.