Comcast explains plans to manage network traffic
I wasn’t around yesterday to pick this up (my wife and I were off picking up a new puppy) but I wanted to make note of another development in the ongoing saga involving Comcast and its efforts to manage network traffic.
This Reuters story says the nation’s largest cable provider plans to use software that will essentially figure out which users are hogging more than their share of bandwidth. During peak hours, traffic from those users will be given lower priority than other users.
It said that when a subscriber’s traffic is assigned a lower priority status its traffic could be delayed if the network is congested but would not be delayed if there is no congestion.
The cable company’s plan follows a rebuke by the Federal Communications Commission which said the cable company went too far in blocking traffic from some users.
The disclosure by Comcast was welcomed by Free Press, one of the groups that filed the complaint that spurred the FCC’s involvement. However, the group’s director, Ben Scott, said he was concerned both about the company’s continuing efforts to reverse the FCC ruling and a stipulation that it reserves the right to change its network management practices without notice after Jan. 1.
“Given the years it took to uncover the company’s current blocking, we need assurances that we are not going back down that dark path. Transparency should never have an expiration date.”
Tim has covered a wide range of topics, including tourism, crime, aviation and gambling, since becoming a reporter in 1990. The Oklahoma native joined the Post-Dispatch in 2007 after spending nine years in Orlando. In his spare time, he's often exploring one virtual world or another. He can be reached at tbarker@post-dispatch.com. 
A users ’share’ of the bandwidth is limited by the config that a CMTS sends to your cable modem - in most cases. If Comcast isn’t comfortable with a user using 10MB of his 10MB pipe, then Comcast shouldn’t be advertising and offering pipes that large. I would be very upset if I paid for a huge pipe and then was told that my traffic was secondary to those users that paid for less just because I was using what I paid for. It’s kind of like telling an unlimited plan cell phone user that their calls may not go through because they’re on their phones more than the average user.
Luckily, the market will decide this one. If enough people are affected, they will move back to the phone companies that DO have the bandwidth. FIOS service will become more and more available and then the cable companies will once again have to play catch up.