This concerns the market
Will Comcast be be forced to stop restricting bandwidth to video and phone services not owned by Comcast in 2008?.
This market was settled yesterday as "Yes", using this article as a settlement source:
Comcast agrees not to interfere with file-sharing.
The following settlement notes were made by the category editor:
"Taking 'forced' to mean take action as a result of external pressure from negative publicitly etc., video services to mean BitTorrent video and phone services to be VoIP (as all Internet traffic affected by being treated equally)."
Today's
Washington Post carried this story, from
PC World:
Comcast/BitTorrent Truce Raises Questions.
Included, below, are a few short paragraphs, with emphasis added, that, in my view, add clarity that (1) Comcast has
not stopped slowing BitTorrent traffic, (2) that in the words of the FCC Chairman,
"it appears that, in some markets this practice will continue ..." into 2009 (or beyond) -- thus not meeting a significant criteria of this market, i.e. "in 2008", (3) the FCC Chair has asked Comcast to be date-specific, and (4) given the totality of the article, (which I encourage you to read in full), Comcast has not, as of yet, been forced to do anything.
"FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he was pleased that Comcast has 'reversed course and agreed that it is not a reasonable network management practice to arbitrarily block certain applications on its network.'
"Martin also praised Comcast for working with BitTorrent. But he expressed some reservations.
" 'I am concerned, though, that Comcast has not made clear when they will stop this discriminatory practice,' he said in a statement. 'It appears this practice will continue throughout the country until the end of the year and in some markets, even longer. While it may take time to implement its preferred new traffic management technique, it is not at all obvious why Comcast couldn't stop its current practice of arbitrarily blocking its broadband customers from using certain applications.'
"Martin called on Comcast to provide its broadband customers and the FCC with a date when it plans to stop slowing BitTorrent traffic."
In my view, given Comcast's tactics (see the comments thread to get a sense of some of them), I don't think Comcast has (yet) been forced to do anything -- and, in fact,
hasn't done anything, except, perhaps, delay the FCC from taking actual action. I believe it is clear that the "by 2008" criteria of the question is not likely to be satisfied.
I wonder if this market ought be reopened, or otherwise settled differently.
[Disclosure: I had a H$20 stake in this market ;-) ]
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