Valleywag
Cable and internet service provider Comcast, half of the local broadband duopoly here in the Bay Area, has promised to stop throttling traffic generated by users of the BitTorrent protocol. This comes in the wake of a mountain of bad press sparked by the discovery that Comcast was interfering with customers' file-sharing transmissions — including an AP reporter's entirely legal Bible download. In return, BitTorrent Inc. promises to optimize the company's client for Comcast's network. However, Comcast isn't showering away the stink; it's just applying deodorant.
For starters, Comcast will still throttle its heaviest users; it just won't discriminate by protocol. Secondly, the BitTorrent client isn't exactly the P2P prom queen — Azureus has held that distinction for some time. The nut? You still won't get unlimited bandwidth at the promised speeds that you paid for, and will be forced to use inferior software for the privilege of downloading the new season of Battlestar Galactica. Comcastic!
Comments
The story said nothing about requiring people to use official BitTorrent client, and not having dedicated bandwidth isn't a big deal; abusing a 10mbps connection for a month would cost Comcast around $300 for bandwidth. It would be nice if they told you how many GB you're entitled to, but it's not reasonable to expect a dedicated 10mbps connection for $40 / month.
No, the BitTorrent client won't be required, it'll just have an advantage over other clients over the Comcast network. And Comcast advertises that speed at that price with no notice of data restrictions, so why is it so unreasonable to expect?
Actually, Jackson, you're wrong. Comcast doesn't "advertise that speed at that price with no notice of data restrictions," they advertise a service that runs at speeds UP TO a certain level downstream and UP TO another level upstream (pay special attention to the phrase "UP TO," it's important.)
Networks, you see, have a certain capacity and no more. Most people understand that at some level.
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