Comcast filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission Thursday after the federal agency determined to impose penalties on the cable giant for unlawfully blocking user Web traffic. "We filed this appeal in order to protect our legal rights and to challenge the basis on which the Commission found that Comcast violated federal policy in the absence of pre-existing legally enforceable standards or rules," said David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast, in a statement. "We are compelled to appeal because we strongly believe that, in this particular case, the Commission's action was legally inappropriate and its findings were not justified by the record."Comcast's lawsuit followed in response to an FCC 3-2 vote last month to sanction Comcast for what it deemed were arbitrary restrictions against Web users who share video, music and other media, which violated regulations regarding its open Internet policies. The FCC's "net neutrality" laws, which were established by the federal agency in August 2005, require that all Internet traffic be treated equally and establish consumer rights to freely access the Web.
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FCC are right, ALL Internet traffic SHOULD be treated equally, and we should all have access to ALL parts of the internet.
Otherwise, if we let these ISP's to have thier own way, it's going to be like China & Korea etc, sites blacklisted and unavailable (in this case because they may offer BitTorrents or movie downloads etc).
If I lived in USA and was a Comcast customer, I'd drop them tommorow - I've done the same here in the UK, I'm no longer with Virgn Media who want to avoid net neutrality and considering bandwidth shaping according to what you download.
FCC are right, ALL Internet traffic SHOULD be treated equally, and we should all have access to ALL parts of the internet.
Otherwise, if we let these ISP's to have thier own way, it's going to be like China & Korea etc, sites blacklisted and unavailable (in this case because they may offer BitTorrents or movie downloads etc).
If I lived in USA and was a Comcast customer, I'd drop them tommorow - I've done the same here in the UK, I'm no longer with Virgn Media who want to avoid net neutrality and considering bandwidth shaping according to what you download.
I would if Verizon would get on their asses and bring me FiOS to my part of the district. Everyone else in my district seems to be able to get FiOS except for my town, its a joke.
That aside, until FiOS is available my options are:
1) Comcast 6mbps down, 1mbps up
2) Verizon DSL with 3mbps down, 768kbps up. However, because I am like ~3mi from the telephone company I've been told that DSL in my area is more like 768kbps tier, if that.
3) Cavalier DSL which advertises 10mbps down, 1mbps up. However, they use the exact same copper phone wires that Verizon uses so I doubt I would see anything better than the speeds I would get with Verizon DSL.
4) Dialup 56kbps
Because of the Cable Company monopolies on certain areas of this country, choices are limited. In most cases its Comcast or nothing.
Granted other ISPs would do the same, I've had the worst experience w/ Comcast.
I'm very grateful to be using FIOS atm.
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