Comcast vs. the FCC

The public hearing which the FCC has convened on Comcast's practices is a classic battle of false alternatives.

On the one hand, Comcast is offering platitudes such as "There's nothing wrong with network management," ignoring the fact that Comcast violated broadly accepted protocols by using forged packets for what it calls "network management." Meanwhile, the FCC's Michael Copps is using the occasion to call for "a specific enforceable principle of nondiscrimination."

What we have is a breach-of-contract issue; Comcast limited certain types of traffic by deceptive means and without notice. But neither side wants to admit that. Comcast, rather than coming clean on the matter, is trying to obfuscate the matter and effectively inviting regulation. Earlier it had lied outright. The regulation advocates, blinded by their desire for government-mandated "net neutrality," are using the hearing as a springboard for their agenda rather than focusing on the deceptive practices.

It may be reasonable to give lower priority to streaming protocols, which are bandwidth hogs, in order to let other traffic flow more quickly. There are ways to do this, and it was probably technical blundering rather than intentional deception which led to the forged-packet approach. But by justifying its approach as legitimate "network management," Comcast is digging a pit for itself.

There have been too many cases -- the names Diebold and Belkin come to mind immediately -- where high management at technology companies has decided that when something goes wrong, deceiving a technically illiterate public is the golden road to success. It doesn't work, and it leads to more government control.