Comcast Explains Network Management
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Comcast has submitted to the FCC a network management plan they are using during peak usage times, in order to eliminate slowdowns on their system. They describe the system as not being tied to content that the subscriber is downloading, which in itself is good news, since Comcast has been accussed of throttling back on some P2P sites. They describe their network management program as:
No. The new technique is “protocol-agnostic,” which means that the system does not manage congestion based on the applications being used by customers. It is content neutral, so it does not depend on the type of content that is generating traffic congestion. Said another way, customer traffic is congestion-managed not based on their applications, but based on current network conditions and recent bytes transferred by users.
With this new technique, most customers will notice no change in their Internet experience. The goal of congestion management is to enable all users to have access to a fair share of the network at peak times, when congestion occasionally occurs. Congestion management focuses on the consumption activity of individual customer accounts that are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. As a result, and based on our technical trials of this technique, we expect that the large majority of customers will not be affected by it. In fact, based on consumer data collected from these trials, we found that on average less than 1% of our high-speed Internet customers are affected by the approach.
I am not a Comcast user, so I can’t comment on how well thie new system is working for Comcast customers. If you use Comcast let us know how this works for you. Also include any issues you may have experienced.
This is an interesting experiment that could affect us all, if other ISP’ opt to use network management.
Comments welcome.