FCC Considers Hearing Do-Over in Light of Comcast Seat Hogging Charges
(Image courtesy of SaveTheInternet.com)
On Monday the FCC held a hearing in Massachusetts on Net neutrality after which Comcast was accused of hiring seat warmers to hold seats for Comcast employees. This erupted into controversy after it appeared to some that the seat warmers in fact did not give up their seats to Comcast representatives and instead appeared to be in place to block the public from entering the hearing. Perhaps there is nothing so wrong about hiring seat warmers, however when the seat warmers were found asleep during the hearing people started getting peeved.
(Here is a link, compliments of the FCC, to a video of the hearing.)
Now in the aftermath of the Comcast seat-warming storm, the metaphorical gavel is coming down on Comcast. First, New York State Attorney General Andrew Coumo was reported to have issued a subpoena for Comcast's records regarding P2P networks.
One of the focuses of Monday's hearing was Comcast's practice of "limiting," also known as blocking, access to P2P file sharing applications such as BitTorrent. It appears that Comcast's blocking the public from a hearing on that subject has raised Attorney General Coumo's suspicions enough that he wants to look over the details for himself.
The other bit of retribution on Comcast is that site Valleywag is reporting that a second hearing is being scheduled to take place at Stanford. The Stanford community is already in favor against Comcast with big time Net neutrality advocate Larry Lessig on faculty. But the seat blocking incident may spur even more people to attend the hearing and voice out against Comcast.
And to think, all of this could have been avoided if Comcast had simply spent a little more money on their seat warmers by offering them coffee so they didn?t fall asleep.
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My name is Robb Topolski, and I am the Comcast customer identified in the Free Press (et. al.) petition to the FCC and my own personal statement is attached to the filing. Comcast's hacker-style network abuse is over a year old, and the FCC should act immediately to stop it.
The Petition asks for an immediate stop to the discriminatory Comcast interference, rules preventing such practices among other US Internet Service Providers, and a monetary fine.
It has been officially proposed that the FCC extend the time for public comment. It has also been suggested that the FCC hold additional public hearings.
Clearly, sufficient facts about this particular Comcast interference issue are in to grant part of the Petition: The FCC should act to stop the interference immediately.
Once the ongoing damage has been stopped, the FCC may hold additional hearings to address the issue of permanent Network Neutrality rules and the disposition of the remainder of the Comcast case.
Let me get this straight,
they blocked public access to a hearing... which was to see if
they blocked public access to the internet.
Do you see a pattern forming here?
Well I just canceled my Comcast account. DSL and dish is the only option for me. Until Comcast stops these tactics I suggest everyone else do the same.
From what I understand and what I see there are only 2 people who fell asleep during this and companies paying placeholders until their employees who support them get to these types of meetings is not new.
I'm going to switch to dish, wow, alien abduction microwaves!! Come on people do you think you've been duped somehow? Comcast came out and told everyone about the traffic shaping.
I'm all about net neutrality and keep things they way they are supposed to be but if you are deluding youself into thinking that no other company shapes their traffic so the bandwidth is actually shared then I can only shake my head.
I would rather have my bandwith than let someone who is downloading illegal software/movies/music etc.. slowing my connection down. This is more about pirate bing upset than anything else. Don't sugar coat it under a different guise.