Monday, November 29, 2010

Level 3: Comcast Demands Fees For Web Movie Viewing

IDG News Service - Comcast has demanded that broadband fortitude provider Level 3 Communications pay it a repeated price for delivering video traffic to Comcast customers, Level 3 mentioned Monday.

Comcast mentioned it would cut off its own customers' access to the cinema and other Web traffic unless Level 3 paid the fee, Level 3 mentioned in a press release.

The Comcast preference violates network neutrality beliefs that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission granted in 2005, Level 3 said. Comcast successfully challenged the FCC's coercion of the net neutrality beliefs when, progressing this year, a U.S. appeals justice threw out its statute against the broadband provider negligence peer-to-peer traffic on its network.

It's misleading because Comcast would look for to assign Level 3 is to actions of its own broadband customers. Level 3 voiced Nov. 11 that it would be the first smoothness associate for streaming video service from Netflix.

Comcast sensitive Level 3 on Nov. 19 that it would start charging the fortitude provider for transmitting online cinema and other calm to Comcast customers, Thomas Stortz, Level 3's arch authorised officer, mentioned in a matter .

A week ago, "after being sensitive by Comcast that its urge for remuneration was 'take it or leave it,' Level 3 concluded to the terms, beneath protest, to be able to make sure customers did not experience any disruptions," Stortz mentioned in the statement.

A Comcast mouthpiece mentioned late Monday she was seeking in to the Level 3 complaints. She didn't have an evident comment.

The timing of Comcast's actions are curious, since rumors that the FCC skeleton to deed on grave net neutrality manners during its Dec. 21 meeting, mentioned Matthew Wood, associate executive at the Media Access Project (MAP), a communications process organisation bearing stronger net neutrality rules.

"That is precisely the type of thing that we're perplexing to head off from happening, a few arrange of paid prioritization or remuneration is to special consideration of terminating your traffic with a specific ISP's customers," Wood said. "The type of thing they're describing ... is precisely the reason that you must be have manners in place."

Opponents of stronger net neutrality manners have frequently referred to that there have been few examples of broadband providers selectively restraint or negligence Web traffic. "The problems appear to keep gathering up without us carrying out sufficient stirring to find them," Wood said.

Comcast's efforts to gather repeated fees from Level 3 go "well beyond" filtering or prioritizing Web traffic, Stortz said. "With this action, Comcast is preventing competing calm from ever being delivered to Comcast's subscribers at all, unless Comcast's unilaterally gritty toll is paid -- even even though Comcast's subscribers requested the content," he said. "With this action, Comcast demonstrates the danger of a 'closed' Internet, where a sell broadband Internet access provider decides either and how their subscribers correlate with content."

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