I couldn’t avoid posting this and I cannot stress how important it is. The web site may, at times, undoubtedly include the standard ‘act now before we it’s too late’ text that’s stereotypical of activists globally whenever some braindead lobby tries to threaten our hard earned liberties. Ignore that part. Don’t ignore the fact that it is important that you and the people around you know what’s happening in Brussels and Strasbourg, what’s at stake. You should strive to stay up to date and — last, but not least — act. Do yourself a favour and read the linked page; filter the excessive parts, see beyond the sentimentalism. Then try to find out more about the proposed directive by reading the text [or a summary of the controversial amendments]. An open and neutral internet is way more important than any national election in Europe, even to those that have no clue what the internet really is.

Act today. Call your MEPs and tell them how you feel about the internet. It doesn’t matter which part of the political spectrum you identify with; the internet is part of everyone’s life.

After consistently denying it for months, Comcast just admitted they were throtlling a number of protocols since 2007. After FCC ordered them to abandon the practice in early August, they admitted to throttling traffic using a Sandvine Policy Traffic Switch 8210. The company stated they are going to change the way they manage their network by 2009. According to Comcast spokewoman Sena Fitzmaurice “The new technique does not manage congestion based on the protocol or application a consumer uses. This new technique will ensure that all customers get their fair share of bandwidth every hour of the day”.

In my view they are lying and greedy and if FCC was doing its job right they should have been fined considerably high for others not to imitate them. Their admission comes almost 45 days after the FCC ruling and proves how much regulation is required to keep greedy businesses in line. Regarding their upcoming ‘network management’ policy, I’m somewhat puzzled. In particular, I’m not quite sure how they’ll ensure a fair share of bandwidth without selective throttling (or any other classification technique that would — again — violate the Net Neutrality rules), unless they radically change their offering to a quota-based range of offerings, place relatively low speed caps on everyone for sustained connections or increase their network bandwidth by an astronomical amount. We’ll see.

Update: ArsTechnica seems to have the details. Apparently the system is going to be use ‘shallow packet inspection’ and packet-counting triggers for throttling. It does seem ridiculous and completely unacceptable, given that many legitimate applications actually depend on high packet throughput to function properly (VoIP is a good example here). Of course, without first seeing how this works in practice it’s hard to judge it, but either way either the FCC will stomp on them once again or the system is going to function without enough disruption to Comcast’s (sad) subscribers.

Στις 11-12 Οκτωβρίου η επίτροπος για τη Κοινωνία της Πληροφορίας και των ΜΜΕ της ΕΕ, κα. Viviane Reding, επισκέφτηκε την Ελλάδα στα πλαίσια της συνάντησης του ERG. Το adslgr.com πήρε μια σύντομη συνέντευξη από την Επίτροπο που παρουσιάζει κάποιο ενδιαφέρον και επιβεβαιώνει κάποιες από τις αρχές και βάσεις της ΕΕ σχετικά με τις κατευθυντήριες σε ό,τι αφορά τη ρύθμιση των τηλεπικοινωνιών. Είναι κρίμα που παρά την υποστήριξη της ΕΕ η απόδοση της ελληνικής Ρυθμιστικής Αρχής, της ΕΕΤΤ, δεν μπορεί σε καμία περίπτωση να συγκριθεί με αυτή πολλών άλλων ρυθμιστικών αρχών στην Ευρώπη.