It’s been over a year since I wrote about my views on Net Neutralityand suddenly the issue is back at the forefront.
Just this week it’s been found that Comcast has disabled bittorrent seeding effectively making the protocol useless. Now strictly speaking, this is not really a Net Neutrality issue. Comcast, to my knowledge, has not accepted any fees from another entity in exchange for disabling the bittorrent traffic. In fact, Comcast’s actions are in accordance with their TOS, however vague the terms of service may be.
The real problem with this situation is that Comcast is a monopoly in many areas. If they disable a particular service, many of us have little alternative but to continue with their service. Of course, it will be interesting to see the fallout. Many Comcast subscribers use their Internet connection primarily for bittorrent, and may change service if this continues.