RCN P2P Settlement Is Not Even a Slap On the Wrist

Ars covers the settlement of the RCN P2P throttling class-action lawsuit, which lets the company walk away without admitting guilt, without paying affected users, and without any meaningful restraint on their network management practices. "[The] settlement is due to be finalized on June 4. ... The case has largely flown under the radar. Yesterday, a notice ... was issued that alerted RCN customers to the settlement, and one Ars reader was aghast at the terms. Those terms provide nothing for users affected by RCN's practices. Instead, they require the cable company to change its network management practices. These changes are in two parts. ... These cessation periods would be retroactive. ... A moment's math will tell you that, when the settlement is finally approved, one cessation period will already have ended and the other will be ending soon. Once both cessation periods are over, RCN is allowed to implement whatever throttling regime it wants. Given that a federal court has just removed the FCC's authority to regulate network management, RCN appears to have carte blanche to single out BitTorrent and other P2P traffic for special throttling attention after November 1, 2010."

Re:A settlement is an agreement by the two parties

[denis-The-menace]

"if they can lay fiber to my house for internet and tv service"
sounds like FIOS.
Make sure your copper phones lines get to stay in case you want to leave from them later.

Re:Choices

[ZekoMal]

The only problem is that the majority of the US has either one or two ISP options; whenever a smaller one comes along it gets either bought out or put out of business by the larger corporations that own all of the infrastructure. Leaving is reduced to two options: Pick the other abuser, or have no internet.

Re:So change providers

[waspleg]

I don't even have 2 choices. It's comcast or dialup and there aren't even sub-40 year old telephone lines in this apartment complex.

This whole RCN thing is just Comcast deja vu. I wish Gates would set up billions in some non-profit for shit like this and not just malaria (yea, malaria is important, so is broadband and he's an American ffs; we already give out more foreign aid than anyone else without him).