Cox Blocks, Too; Web Fight Grows

Now its Cox Communications' turn on the hot seat.

Cox, the nation's fourth-largest cable company, has been interfering with internet traffic in the same way as Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, according to a new study being called the most authoritative of its kind to date.

The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany tested the internet connections of some 8,175 internet users around the world and found evidence of internet blocking at three service providers: Comcast and Cox in the U.S., and Starhub in Singapore.

The study, which was first reported by the Associated Press, found that 62 percent of the 788 Comcast subscribers who participated in the study had their connections blocked, while 54 percent of the 151 Cox subscribers polled had their service affected.

In an interview with the A.P., Robb Topolski, a former Intel engineer who first noticed Comcast's blocking last year, call the study the most authoritative of its kind to date.

The study's results appear to directly contradict Comcast's claim that it manages traffic only "during periods of heavy network traffic." Network connections were affected relatively equally at all hours of the day and night and on weekends.

The study's results add new fuel to an already burning debate over whether internet service providers should be allowed to block or degrade legal traffic on their networks. Comcast has come under sharp criticism from Congress, federal regulators, and consumer groups after it acknowledged that it delays traffic on its network. It had long denyied the practice.

The Federal Communications Commission is weighing whether to sanction Comcast over the practice. At the same time, Congress is considering legislation that would enshrine the principle of "network neutrality," which would require internet service providers to treat all content equally.

Comcast has infuriated critics over its handling of the issue, first by denying it engaged in any blocking, then by paying people off the street to pack a public hearing over the issue at Harvard, in an apparent attempt to stifle debate.

While Comcast has sought to downplay the issue, a broad coalition of consumer rights groups, academics, and Web content companies warn that the outcome of the debate could dramatically shape the future on the internet.

Without network neutrality legislation, these critics argue, Comcast and other internet service providers could become internet "gatekeepers" with the ability to pick and choose which content and services to favor on their networks.

Such a scenario could spell the end of internet's largely open, unfettered, and non-discriminatory nature, critics warn, severely hampering the incentive for companies working on next generation internet technologies.

Like Comcast, Cox maintains that it engages only in reasonable network management to ensure that its service runs smoothly during periods of high congestion.

"To ensure the best possible online experience for our customers, Cox actively manages network traffic through a variety of methods including traffic prioritization and protocol filtering," the company said in a statement.

Since 2006, Cox's subscriber agreement has disclosed that it engages in the practice. But the new study is the first evidence that its "protocol filtering" actually degrades legal internet traffic on its network.

Cox denies that the practice amounts to discrimination.

Comcast has tried to appease its critics by pledging to move to a "protocol agnostic" network management policy that would only affect the heaviest bandwidth users on its network. But critics have pointed out that because peer-to-peer file-sharing is so bandwidth intensive, the new policy will inevitably mean that it blocks that kind of activity.

"Consumers have no reason left to trust their cable company," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a consumer rights group. "This independent study confirms that Comcast is still blocking its customers from using popular applications, despite the F.C.C.'s investigation and widespread public outrage.

"And worse," Scott added, "the harmful practice appears to be spreading through the marketplace. Unimpeachable research from network engineers in Germany now demonstrates that Cox Communications is also blocking Internet content, lining up right behind Comcast."

In particular, critics pounced on the study's finding that the network connections affected by Comcast and Cox did not appear to come during periods of high congestion, but occurred at all hours of the day and night, and on weekends.

"These Internet experts have also unequivocally demonstrated that blocking is not limited to times of supposed congestion," Scott said. "Their sophisticated testing shows that Comcast and Cox block BitTorrent applications at all times of the day, not just at times of peak traffic."

by Sam Gustin