Facing Sanction, Comcast Threatens 20- to 30-Minute Web Slowdowns

Sam Gustin observes: The Federal Communication Commission has officially released its order sanctioning cable giant Comcast for blocking Web traffic.

Over the next 30 days, Comcast is required to:

- Disclose the details of its discriminatory network management practices to the Commission
- Submit a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop these discriminatory management practices by the end of the year
- Disclose to customers and the Commission the network management practices that will replace current practices

Although Comcast is expected to appeal the decision, the company is already threatening to implement an even more draconian form of network management.

As a result of the F.C.C.'s ruling, Comcast will begin slowing the internet speeds of its heaviest users for 20- to 30-minutes at time of network congestion, Mitch Bowling, Comcast's senior vice president and general manager of online services, told Bloomberg.

This idea would be consistent with the company's new "protocol agnostic" approach to network management, which would not regulate traffic on the basis of application type, but rather based on how much bandwidth an individual is using.

"If in fact a person is generating enough packets that they're the ones creating that situation, we will manage that consumer for the overall good of all of our consumers,'' Bowling said.

Of course, given that the heaviest traffic on broadband networks tends to come from peer-to-peer file swappers, it's no mystery who would be most affected by this policy.