F.C.C. Finds Against Comcast For Slowing Down File-Sharing Users’ Internet Access
By Anna Johnson on August 5th, 2008The United States Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.) voted on Friday to uphold a complaint against Comcast, the country’s largest cable company, for inhibiting certain of its customers to access the popular file-sharing software, BitTorrent.
The complaint was brought against Comcast after it installed equipment to slow down the Internet access of customers who used the popular file-sharing software, BitTorrent, to download files. BitTorrent is known for facilitating the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted movies, television shows, music and software. But it’s also used for legitimate file transfers too.
According to Comcast, it introduced the equipment because customers using BitTorrent were consuming a disproportionate share of its network capacity, degrading the Internet access of other customers. The F.C.C., however, said that communications companies could not prevent customers from using their networks as they saw fit.
