Is Comcast a Phone Company?Is Comcast a Phone Company?

Comcast may be considered a phone company with all the limitations that imposes. Comcast may be in a lose-lose situation.

I have written several times about the ISPs and their terms and conditions agreements. I also reported on Comcast's traffic throttling for BitTorrent traffic. In this case, tests demonstrated that Comcast slowed or disconnected traffic from P2P users who went beyond the Comcast accepted level of traffic. See "More Data on Comcast and Cox Traffic Blocking," posted on May 23, 2008.Now the FCC is questioning the voice quality levels of the Comcast service vs. that provided to competitors such as Vonage and Skype. It appears that Comcast's net neutrality is not neutral when it comes to VoIP services.

The FCC, in a letter to Comcast on January 17, 2009, asked Comcast to provide "a detailed justification for Comcast's disparate treatment of its own VoIP service as compared to that offered by other VoIP providers in its network." The FCC also wants Comcast to publicly disclose "the distinct effects that Comcast's new network management technique has on Comcast's VoIP offering vs. those of its competitors."

The letter sent to Comcast stated that Comcast "draws no distinction between Comcast's VoIP offering and those of those offered by its competitors. To the extent that Comcast maintains that its VoIP offering is a telephone service offering transmission facilities for VoIP calls distinct from Comcast's broadband offering, then it would appear the fee Comcast assesses its customer for VoIP pays in part for the privileged transmission of information of the customer's choosing across Comcast's network." As expected, Comcast is restating that Comcast has "fully complied with the FCC's order regarding our congestion management practices. We are reviewing the FCC staff's letter."

Comcast's network management technique was declared by the FCC to be violating the FCC Internet policy. This was declared last August 2008. In addition, the FCC found that Comcast misled their customers by not disclosing the full extent of their P2P policy. Comcast was not fined, but was ordered to change their traffic control policy.

Kathryn Zachem, VP of Comcast's regulatory affairs, received a letter from the FCC dated January 18, 2009, asking for clarification of the present traffic throttling policies. The Comcast web site has a FAQ explaining the policy. If a customer consumes 70% or more of the bandwidth of the cable modem for 15 minutes, then the customer will lose network priority when the network is congested. Packets will be lost, thereby affecting the voice packets. The result will be a choppy and distorted speech. So much for unlimited use.

So why is the Comcast VoIP service not affected? Comcast's web site defines their Digital Voice as a separate facilities-based VoIP service that is not influenced by the management technique used for normal IP service. This separation allows the VoIP calls to be carried over Comcast's private broadband network.

The FCC wants to know what facilities-based Digital Voice means and how it is implemented. Does the facility-based VoIP service cause congestion problems for the VoIP competitors?

Here is the conundrum: If Comcast demonstrates that its Digital Voice is facilities based, then the Digital Voice service falls under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Comcast then may be considered a phone company with all the limitations that imposes. Comcast may be in a lose-lose situation.

Much of this enquiry into the Comcast Digital Voice service was prompted by a letter from an outlet called the Free Press. In a letter dated October 14, 2008, from Ben Scott, Policy Director in their Washington office, he covered the concerns of how Comcast operates its Digital Voice service. This letter is worth reading if you want to know more. Its is available from http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6520175587.

The Free Press website states that "Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications. Free Press was launched in late 2002 by media scholar Robert W. McChesney, journalist John Nichols and Josh Silver, our executive director."Comcast may be considered a phone company with all the limitations that imposes. Comcast may be in a lose-lose situation.