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Markey hopes to ban throttling
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 14th February 2008
Markey hopes to goad the FCC into outlawing the practice of throttling heavy users' bandwidth.
The bill, currently known as the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008, calls upon the Federal Communications Commission to make a decision on whether or not throttling is beneficial or harmful for the end-user and if the FCC has the right to stop it from happening.
The act, H. R. 5353, states that “Within 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Federal Communications Commission [...] shall commence a proceeding on broadband services and consumer rights,” and “As part of the proceeding [...] the Commission shall assess whether broadband network providers adhere to the Commission's Broadband Policy Statement of August, 2005 including whether, consistent with the needs of law enforcement, such providers refrain from blocking, thwarting, or unreasonably interfering with the ability of consumers to [...] access, use, send, receive, or offer lawful content, applications, or services over broadband networks, including the Internet.”
If the FCC were to be offered a mandate to defend the bandwidth of users it's unlikely that they'd come down on the side of big business. In a statement last week the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau said“that the practice of broadband service providers of degrading peer-to-peer traffic violates the FCC's Internet Policy Statement, and that such practices do not meet the Commission's exception for reasonable network management.” Where I come from, them's fighting words.
Although legislation to preserve the unfettered use of paid-for bandwidth is likely to be cheered by most, not everyone is happy. President of the CTIA Wireless Association Steve Largent has said that the bill is “an attempt to cure a problem that simply does not exist,” and that “Government intervention is not necessary.”
Any US readers want to comment on whether legislation is the way to go, or should the free market decide whether it's worth sacrificing a little bandwidth now and then to get the prices down to a mass-market point? Give us your opinions over in the forums.
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Comments (19)
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now how about implementing the same legislation here instead of championing unworkable banning laws?
bandwidth throttling is like when you have payed for a motorway (that payed one near Manchester) and once you got on, with no other cars, you are forced to drive at speed limit of 30mph.
I have unlimited bandwidth for yeeeeaars already. I collect around 500GB worth of data per month. (I watch a lot of series in HD from overseas that are not available here)
Is this a typical UK thing. I mean being left behind with everything. First the 8mbit ADSL connection introduction last year ( eh... we are on 20+ mbit ADSL now folks). and only now they are willing to discus bandwidth limitation removal?
By the way,
' Steve Largent has said that the bill is an attempt to cure a problem that simply does not exist, and that Government intervention is not necessary. '
Ohhh, so NOW it isn't necessary that big brother is in the mix?
But any other useless case and it would be!
I'd quite happily pay extra to get an un-throttled connection, but the option simply isn't there :(
I Second THAT! ROFL
All this throttling based on ports/protocols HAVE to effect legit uses and unless its stated somewhere that you connection is actually 1:50-1000 contention (hi sky broadband/bt) then the telecomms companies are getting away with murder.
They're happy to sell 1 million people 10mbit connections but can only support this number of clients at worse contention than advertised.
exactly why should we pay for something and then not be able to use it, complete BS.
we pay for a "full speed connection" of 8mbps, but really at most the line is only capable of 3-5 because the network is so degraded, not to mention that crap data caps we get, 10gb for 60NZ= about 45USD or so
Don't get me started on the upload...