Competitors Ally With Comcast In FCC P2P Filings

crocoduck writes "Right before the deadline passed for filing comments in the FCC investigation of Comcast's traffic-management practices, telecoms and other cable companies submitted a slew of comments defending Comcast's actions to the FCC. 'Just about every big phone company has filed a statement challenging the FCC's authority to deal with this problem. AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest all submitted lengthy remarks on February 13th, the last day for comments on the proceeding (parties can still reply to comments through the 28th). "The Internet marketplace remains fundamentally healthy, and the purported 'cure' could only make it sick," AT&T's filing declared. "At best, the network-management restrictions proposed by Free Press and others would inflict wasteful costs on broadband providers in the form of expensive and needless capacity upgrades — costs that would ultimately be passed through to end users, raise broadband prices across the board, and force ordinary broadband consumers to subsidize the bandwidth-hogging activities of a few."' P2P fans have also weighed in."

Yep

[mikkelm]

I've gotta go with AT&T on this one. Allowing people to use their connections without restrictions would create a need for needless capacity upgrades.

Why Did They Wait Until The Last Day?

[Wandering Wombat]

That's what they get for throttling their own connections...

If I wanted AT&T's opinion...

[jesdynf]

I'd solicit it through illegal means and shield them with retroactive immunity.

Its like this son...

[GlobalColding]

The "tubes" aren't limitless. If we dont cap their use, we will run out of Internets.

Re:Watershed Moment

[Smidge204]

watch the US economy stagnate, and fall behind the rest of the developed world

This has already happened =(

Hey! No spoilers... I'm still waiting for the download to finish!
=Smidge=

Re:Western countries' telecoms seem crotchety

[ardin,mcallister]

I think if I met the decision makers at Comcast, I'd probably throttle them... so i guess that would work in the USA too

Re:Expensive and Needless?

[esocid]

So capacity upgrades are 'expensive and needless', eh? Is that why we're among the worst in the developed world for broadband speed and penetration? I don't know about anyone else, but I heard, "If our customers would only stop using our services, we wouldn't have to throttle them!"

Sorry, all I heard was penetration.