Comcast serves as the most visible target for Internet users' anger over tampering with BitTorrent and other peer to peer traffic, but the issue may extend beyond them to other Internet service providers.
The practice of traffic shaping ostensibly keeps heavy users of P2P services from dominating network bandwidth for other customers surfing the Internet. It isn't exactly new, but it does detract from a carrier's promised level of service when people pay for faster connections.
Video P2P sharing site Vuze claimed it suffers from the effects of the increasingly aggressive false reset tactics being used against P2P traffic. They petitioned the FCC to look into the practice, and have made available a plug-in so users of the Vuze Platform could discover if any traffic shaping took place by their ISPs.
After collecting over a million hours of data since the start of a beta test of the plug-in in January (Vuze opened the program to all of its users in March), they published a report based on the first results [1] they collected. Though the plug-in is for Vuze, when installed it looks at all Internet traffic and collects the reset rates.
Comcast appeared in the list of providers eleven times out of the top twenty, including the first three positions, for carriers interrupting Internet traffic with a reset message. Plenty of other big names appear in the list, with double-digit percentages of resets experienced by Vuze plug-in users.
"Vuze's report suggests what many have feared all along: In addition to Comcast, other phone and cable companies may be censoring legal Web traffic over their networks. Many industry practices remain unknown and are increasingly difficult to detect.
"Consumers and innovators cannot be expected to police for abuse, nor should they have to accept interference until their network provider is exposed," Free Press general counsel Marvin Ammori said in a statement.
"Until the FCC makes it clear that it will not tolerate Internet blocking, phone and cable companies will continue to engage in this harmful practice." The FCC recently held two hearings on net neutrality, though any decision on taking Comcast and others to task for their traffic shaping does not seem to be a priority.