Public Knowledge Lays Comcast Bandwidth Practices at FCC’s Doorstep
Public Knowledge brought to the FCC allegations that Comcast has been favoring its Internet Protocol-video traffic over that of third parties (CD May 16 p3). In a petition filed with the agency Wednesday, the nonprofit group that’s backed the commission’s net neutrality rules said the way Comcast treated video traffic for its Xfinity video apps on TiVos and Xboxes hits on the concerns the regulator raised in the 2011 order approving Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal. “A consumer trying to decide between a number of OTT [over the top] video options on her Xbox 360 or TiVo knows that all of her choices count against her Comcast broadband data cap -- except the choice offered by Comcast,” the petition said.
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The behavior violates condition G.1.a of in the NBCU deal order which bars unfair methods, deceptive acts and practices that prevent other video distributes from providing online video programming to its subscribers or customers, the petition said. “A customer could watch Xfinity-delivered online video 24 hours a day for an entire month and not run into a problem,” the petition said. “With any other online video service, a customer could hit her cap before the end of the first week,” it said. “Caps transform video from an all you can eat experience to one that must be carefully monitored and limited."
"Behind-the-scenes engineering and billing details” shouldn’t affect way the Xfinity video app is treated under FCC rules, the petition said (http://xrl.us/bnizvb). It should be considered a broadband service, not a cable service governed by Title VI of the Communications Act, Public Knowledge said. “From a viewer’s perspective, there is no real difference between the Xfinity app and a competing internet video app,” it said. “Both are simply apps the consumer launches that stream video over a broadband connection. The fact that Comcast locates its servers on its own network or engages in discriminatory billing practices does not change the basic character of its service.”
The FCC should order Comcast to stop exempting its Xfinity app video traffic from its data caps and prohibit the cable operator from “implementing discriminatory data caps again,” Public Knowledge said. Comcast, which is in the process of evaluating its broadband usage policies, didn’t immediately comment on the Public Knowledge petition. During the company’s quarterly earnings teleconference Wednesday morning, an analyst asked Comcast Cable President Neil Smit to describe any feedback the cable ISP had received from customers on the new methods it is testing. “Caps are gone,” Smit said. “We raised the amount people could consume to 300 gigabytes as a base limit. We have not announced the markets or the rollouts yet, but I would expect something shortly."
Comcast reported Q2 results Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bniz96). Sales at its broadband business increased 8.9 percent from a year earlier to $2.38 billion. It added 156,000 broadband subscribers during the quarter to end with 17.5 million. Video revenue increased 2.8 percent to $5.1 billion despite a loss of 176,000 subscribers during the quarter. It had 22.1 million video customers as of June 30. The operator added 158,000 phone customers, for a total of 9.66 million, and phone revenue increased 1.2 percent to $889 million.