“Months after third parties were able to demonstrate that Comcast was throttling some BitTorrent (and Lotus Notes, since fixed) traffic, the cable giant has quietly changed its terms of service. Comcast updated the ToS on January 25—the first update in two years, according to company spokesperson Charlie Douglas—to more explicitly spell out its policies on traffic management,” Eric Bangeman reports for Ars technica.
“According to Section III of the revised ToS, Comcast ‘uses reasonable network management practices that are consistent with industry standards,'” Bangeman reports.
“Not long after Comcast’s traffic management practices came to light, the company was hit with a class-action lawsuit by a disgruntled subscriber. Online video provider Vuze complained to the FCC, and the Commission officially opened its investigation of the cable company in mid-January,” Bangeman reports.
“Since the investigation began, the FCC has been bombarded with comments from angry users. ‘If you so much as open a BitTorrent client on a computer on the Comcast network, your entire connection drops to almost a crawl,’ says one comment,” Bangeman reports.
“Comcast has denied throttling BitTorrent traffic, saying that the ISP just “delays” or “postpones” it on occasion,” Bangeman reports.
Full article here.