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FCC Says Comcast Broke Rules

Source: www.voip-news.com

The FCC doesn’t like Comcast’s past behavior. Slowing down their traffic to discourage VoIP? That one was a big — huge — no no. Seriously.

And now, they are talking about it in the open.

According to PC Mag:

Martin announced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that the agency would investigate Comcast after an AP article accused the provider of blocking access to file-sharing applications.

That investigation found that Comcast is “broadly and arbitrarily” blocking certain applications like BitTorrent, which in turn, denies “subscriber access to the legal Internet content of their choice,” according to the FCC source.

Published on July 12th, 2008 under , , ,

Comcast To Work With Vonage

Source: www.voip-news.com

Comcast, Comcast, Comcast.

The television and internet provider is at it again — blocking VoIP traffic. Do they ever learn?

Now, they are saying they will work with Vonage to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

According to Information World:

Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA)’s announcement that it has a collaborative agreement with Vonage to help ensure it can deliver its VoIP services smoothly has drawn criticism.Comcast has been criticized for slowing or blocking network traffic, but the company claims it has done so only to alleviate network congestion, without regard to the source of the content.

Published on July 11th, 2008 under , , , , ,

Did Comcast Just Admit to Vonage Traffic-shaping?

Source: gigaom.com

I received an emailed press release from Comcast this morning about their plans to work with Vonage to address “the reasonable network management of Internet services” that left me a tad confused. Comcast had already admitted to massaging P2P traffic, sparking an online uproar that resulted in the company backing down and announcing plans to use different kinds of network management techniques. (They massaged P2P traffic by either delaying or blocking P2P packets outright, which caused BitTorrent-type services to degrade.)

In an attempt to uncover the real reason behind the release, I called a Comcast spokeswoman and asked her if this was an exclusive deal with Vonage, and if any money was changing hands. She said that the agreement doesn’t preclude others from working with Comcast, that in fact it’s working with a variety of companies and groups. And no, there is no money changing hands.

Still, the press release kept nagging at me. And it wasn’t until I read Cynthia Brumfield’s post (Welcome back, Cynthia, from your blog vacation) that I realized Comcast might have unknowingly admitted to messing with Vonage’s VoIP traffic.

What’s interesting and surprising is that Vonage is not based on P2P technology, unlike Skype and other competitive VoIP providers. So this effort by Comcast, which extends to a seemingly unrelated “over-the-top” technology seems, well, out of the blue. Has Vonage had problems with Comcast causing problems for its customers, problems that stemmed not from the same kind of packet reset technology that spurred the initial controversy?

Well I don’t know about recently, but some two years ago a lot people complained about Vonage’s service quality on Comcast. Comcast, of course, denied that it was blocking Vonage traffic.

That was then. However, the fact that the two companies are announcing a new working relationship has me wondering if Comcast was messing with Vonage’s calls all along — you know, as part of its “network management.”

Published on July 9th, 2008 under , , , ,

Is Cable Voice Getting a Sore Throat?

Source: gigaom.com

The economic downturn, in particular the housing market slump, that has been pressuring U.S. telecom operators now seems to be extending to cable operators as well. After enjoying nearly eight quarters of solid growth, it looks like the U.S. cable telephony business is slowing down.

The proverbial canary in the coal mine sounded the alarm yesterday. ARRIS, which makes hardware for cable operators, lowered its second-quarter forecast for both profits and revenues. Management blamed maturing cable telephony deployments and a slow housing market on the reduced demand for cable telephony services.

I think both are valid points. First, cable voice has become pervasive. You can now call your cable operator and get a fixed line connection without worrying if they actually offer voice service in your market. (Whether you’re happy with them, however, is a different story altogether.) So it’s hardly a surprise that the demand for equipment would slow down.

As we’ve previously noted, cable VoIP has been on a tear. At the end of the first quarter, Comcast had 5.1 million customers, while Time Warner Cable had 3.17 million, followed by Cox’s 2.46 million, Cablevision’s 1.68 million and Charter’s 1.08 million. Many of these subscribers came at the expense of telephone companies. Telegeography estimated that there were about 16.3 million VoIP households at the end of the first quarter of this year.

The cable companies benefited from the previous surge in new housing starts, which led to spectacular growth in their broadband and voice telephony businesses and in turn, made it easier for people to switch away from telephone companies. A slowdown in this business is only natural. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if large cable companies saw a sharp slowdown in broadband growth as well.

The real question is, just how big will the slowdown be? With the second-quarter earnings season just getting underway, it won’t take long to find out.

Published on July 9th, 2008 under , , , , , , , ,

Thanks to Cable, VoIP in the U.S. Is Booming

Source: gigaom.com

Despite all the troubles with VoIP service providers such as SunRocket and Vonage, VoIP as a technology seems to be doing quite well in the U.S., according to data from Telegeography. As of the end of March, there were 16.3 million consumer VoIP lines, or about 13.8 percent of U.S. households, and 27 percent of households with broadband lines installed.

It’s hardly a surprise, as a lot new additions are coming from people buying triple-play services from cable companies. As of the end of the first quarter of 2008, here’s how the cable VoIP data broke down:

* Comcast: 5.1 million
* TimeWarner: 3.17 million
* Cox: 2.46 million
* Cablevision: 1.68 million
* Charter: 1.08 million

Cynthia Brumfield puts the total VoIP lines shared by the top nine cable providers at just over 14 million. The cable guys added about 1.3 million new subscribers. Most of them are refugees of phone companies who are losing customers by the day, as we have previously noted on more than one occasion.

The guys at Telegeography say that since the start of 2007, the three regional Bell Rperating Companies (RBOCs) — AT&T, Verizon and Qwest — have lost 17.3 million residential telephone lines, while VoIP service providers have gained 14.4 million new customers. Nearly 80 percent have come from cable companies.

Published on May 19th, 2008 under , , , , , , , , ,

For Comcast, Broadband Still Growing. For Now.

Source: gigaom.com

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So all the noise, anger and finger-pointing at Comcast’s cheap traffic tricks didn’t impact its broadband business. The company just reported a decent enough first quarter, but what got my attention: It now has 14.1 million high-speed subscribers, compared to 13.6 million at the end of 2007. That translates to about 500,000 new subscribers. Given how broadband sales have slowed down for DSL providers (but not for FTTH services), this is pretty significant. Karl on DSL Reports is taking a glass-half-full approach to the earnings but writes that things are slowing down. Seems like extra speeds are helping push the revenues as well, according to the company:

The strong subscriber and revenue growth in the first quarter of 2008 benefited from the introduction of additional promotional offers and speed tiers, including Comcast’s BLAST and Performance Plus services (8Mbps or higher service) and Comcast’s Economy Internet service (768Kbps service).

Another astonishing number: Comcast added 639,000 Comcast Digital Voice (CDV) customers during the first quarter — penetration reached 12 percent or 5.1 million customers with revenues of about $587 million in the first quarter of 2008. Time Warner Cable also posted a similar kind of growth, adding 280,000 phone customers and 304,000 high-speed customers in the first quarter. In comparison, the phone companies keep losing landline customers. No wonder phone companies are worried.

Published on May 1st, 2008 under , , , , , , , ,

Comcast Working With BitTorrent

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

In an attempt to appease the FCC, Comcast is working around the bandwidth hogs with a solution, on the surface.

What this is really about is Comcast becoming its own CDN of sorts, and eliminating the need for total reliance on the companies who are the giants. By working with Bit Torrent to share files, including programs that are stored locally on users PC and PVR (Personal Video Recorders) Comcast can avoid the long haul of sending files stored on its servers that don’t always stay on their own networks, while also beginning to wean away from Content Delivery Networks like the ones operated by Akamai, Level3, Limelight, EdgeCast, etc.

Basically, what this tells me is the cable operators are looking more and more at how they replace the distributed architecture of the telcos, with the IP efficiency that the Internet brings. Hence the more they can do locally, without having to ever go over someone else’s pipes, and which they can meter, monitor and monitize means more for them.

Published on March 28th, 2008 under , ,

Comcast and the FCC’s Kevin Martin Aren’t Friends

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

A report based on a talk at Stanford University by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin makes me think that the communications czar is waking up to the antics of Comcast.

In many ways Comcast is a company that moves forward at every turn, yet in others they step on their you know what as they walk down JFK Blvd in Philadelphia where their glistening new office is. They have brains, savvy, and very solid leadership, yet their understanding of "customer relations" is lacking, not because their PR people are incapable. They’re not, I actually think they’re PR folks are very talented, but they forever get in trouble because the campany’s leadership believe that doing things that are only good for Comcast is the only way to do things.

Their inability to come off good through any controversy is rather consistent. Now Chairman Martin is of the same mind when it comes to an issue. Compare them to Cablevision, a company that in my mind is the envy of every cable MSO. Cablevision understands where the Internet is going, what consumers want and you almost never hear about a problem like we constantly do about Comcast.

Published on March 11th, 2008 under , , , , ,

Comcast and Vonage Compared

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

A few weeks back Ike Elliott wrote about the differences in growth and momentum between Comcast and Vonage.

Here’s my take:

1) Vonage churn is one, if not the highest in the telco industry. A lot of involuntary churn isn’t even factored in. That’s the folks who don’t pay their bill and get cut off.

2) Comcast lacks a four-play play that matters. Their offer for mobile is a Sprint solution rewrapped, with the big difference being the bill now comes from the same source. Call that Mobile 1.5 that comes from a Voice 1.5 operator. Customers of Comcast would be better to have two bills, and go with the T-Mobile solution that’s being trailed in Seattle and Dallas (see post below) and the HotSpot @ Home solution.

3) Ike didn’t compare Comcast to a worthy peer. Cablevision, a company I think is about the best operating MSO in the USA, with a clear handle on market wants and needs. If I could live somewhere other than SoCal I’d want to be in either a Verizon vs. Cablevision Market. That’s where the action is. The only other markets that are moving are where Fiber is native to the house and office environment.

4) For Vonage to evolve, they need a "Hail Mary" play. That means maybe XOM from Sprint as a suitor, but more than likely someone else with a services roll up mentality will see some value in what they have. With so many ex-Vonage types now looking for other gigs or engaged in new startup ideas, the reality of the situation is Vonage is acting more and more like an old tired horse that needs to be put out to pasture. It’s stud farm days, with the departures, are long since over.

Pal Jim Courtney also has a relevant post about Comcast worth reading.

Published on February 24th, 2008 under , , , , ,

Comcast and the Wall Street Shuffle

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Om Malik writes about the issues now impacting Comcast where it hurts. On Wall Street.

Comcast is not getting love in too many places these days. The blogosphere, the customer and consumer forums, the Street so their most formidable competitor, Verizon is doing their part to smack, sting and irritate the cable giant.

You will note that Verizon’s other competitor, Cablevision is being left alone for now though as the NY based cable giant seems to be more advanced in the areas Comcast is deficient in, thus less vulnerable to customer defections for FIOS and VoIP as CableVision’s platform seems to be better than Comcast.

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Published on November 8th, 2007 under

Two Posts To Reflect Upon

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

London based Uber Analyst (I rank him alongside pal Martin Geddes as bringing sense to all the hype) Dean Bubley has two posts this week (well actually many more) that are home runs in my book.1) His post of the Comcast packet sniffing soon to be fiasco. I say “soon to be” because you can’t go into continual PR denial, then try to spin things to get the story out. I mean how many weeks passed by when the story first broke in the blogs, then the Associated Press broke it big time.It’s time the publicly traded companies started to realize that this kind of obfuscation (my old argumentation Professor Towne would be proud here) is akin to a forward looking statement and thus as much a SOX issue as it is a truth in advertising issue. Maybe its time the FCC/FTC and SEC all got on the same page and looked closer at Comcast by convening a joint task force to investigate their departmental process of “we have to ask before we comment” type of approach. Heck, just imagine if they brought in DOJ and look at RICO (racketeer influenced criminal organization) statutes too, and you found that process, form and custom all smack of a system of keeping things a certain way that may not be in the best interest of the customer, public or even society. HMMMTo my friends at Comcast–this is too easy of a problem to fix. Just at the outset admit what you are doing by selling or offering tiered service. For the people who want to use P2P services raise your prices and offer it, instead of selling a speed boost package that sniffs.2) Dean’s second post is a beauty. It’s about Pudding Media (the start up with the dumbest name in VoIP) Dean has the same questions I have about the service.The idea of offering a free service in exchange for ads only attracts the no pay crowd unless its done right. Personally, I don’t see the future mash up of Meebo, Tok Box and Pudding by investor Sequoia as being that compelling. Ike Elliott’s post on Free is Not a model pretty much sums up what I’ve been saying for years on Ken Radio..about the “If It’s Free It’s Me, If I Gotta Pay It’s No Way” crowd.I mean, what media planner in their right mind wants a 4-6 percent conversion user base after years of free use? With 4-6 percent conversion, which is what those who know say is normal on the uptake rate for getting someone to subscribe, that means if you go pay only the other 90+ percent either never pay, or go elsewhere to the next free service to come along.

Published on November 4th, 2007 under , ,

SaveTheInternet Goes Against Comcast to maintain Net Neutrality

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

On Thursday, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition joined legal scholars to take this case to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). They filed an official action urging the agency to stop the cable giant from meddling with your ability to connect and share information.
Blocking by Comcast — and related censorship by AT&T and Verizon — gives us a glimpse of a world without Net Neutrality. We’ve filed a legal action against Comcast at the FCC.
In the “most drastic example yet of data discrimination,” the Associated Press exposed that Comcast was actively interfering with its users’ ability to access popular and legal video, photo and music sharing applications.
According to Savetheinternet, Despite mounting evidence that Comcast is crippling peer-to-peer communication, the company’s spokespeople have thumbed their noses at the public and the press — refusing to admit that the blocking of connections is underhanded or in any way threatens the free flow of information that’s become the hallmark of an open Internet.

So your Skype calls or Vonage or your plain old SIP calls might get blocked by these folks next if you do not act now. Visit the SavetheInternet.com Coalition (Internet scholars from Yale, Harvard, and Stanford also joined this protest), and promote net neutrality.

Published on November 2nd, 2007 under , , , , , ,

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