The new Comcast Xbox Xfinity app is the first nail in net neutrality’s coffin

This mangles two issues - discriminating based on source versus path.<p>Source discrimination is bad. The Internet allows applications and services to run “at the edge” of the network and not centrally; this encourages innovation [1].<p>Path discrimination is more complicated. Many content providers already pay private networks to transport their traffic on faster than the public internet [2]. There is even a market for traders paying tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for low latency connections [3].<p>Given that ISPs charge each other for transporting traffic [4] it costs more to broker traffic across others' networks versus its own. It doesn't seem unfair for the ISP to charge less for the latter. This would allow Comcast et al to compete with the Akamais and Level3s that irk them today [5]. Sooner or later they will find it makes more sense to offer the discount for same-network traffic to everyone.<p>Comcast has made shitty statements about net neutrality before [1]. But it's not okay to vilify anything Comcast says by virtue of it being said by Comcast - that's straight up ad hominem.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.stern.nyu.edu/networks/Economides_Net_Neutrality.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.stern.nyu.edu/networks/Economides_Net_Neutrality....</a><p>[2] <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/level-3-lands-netflix-streaming-business-will-double-its-storage-capability/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/level-3-lands-netflix-strea...</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.highfrequencytraders.com/article/682/options-it-optimizes-chicago-new-york-trading-latency" rel="nofollow">http://www.highfrequencytraders.com/article/682/options-it-o...</a><p>[4] <a href="http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-internet-peering-vs-transit" rel="nofollow">http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-inte...</a><p>[5] <a href="http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3....</a>

Comcast claims that the app turns the XBox into essentially a set top box and that all data is streamed over Comcast's "private" network capacity and do not use any of the traditional public facing internet infrastructure.<p>Standard usage of "On Demand" programming from a DVR or other set top box do not count against the existing data cap quotas.<p>If this app essentially allows an XBox to plug into this private network capacity like any other set top box, I think this is an important distinction.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:<p>Does Comcast allow a user to purchase additional bandwidth beyond their 250 GB cap?<p>If so, how much does that cost?<p>It's not just a cap, it's a hard limit. If you want more, you are forced to go with the ISP's own "blessed" option.<p>This is a significant portion of what bothers me with these caps. They are not graduated in a reasonable fashion. Instead, they are a cliff -- either entirely, or through absurdly high "addtional bandwidth" costs, limiting the service that the user can receive.<p>THEN, the ISP comes along and offers the user a sole way around/past this limit: Purchase whatever subset(s) of the additional service exclusively via the ISP's "value-added" content. (You can only have more bits if you buy your movies (well, movie viewings) from us.)<p>THAT, my friends, is a monopoly. Especially when you only have one or two ISP options, and they're all doing it. (Again, to you overseas, this is the case for much of the U.S.)

You can see the danger of this right here in the comments. Everyone is fine with it depending on the way it's presented.<p>Imagine that suddenly your smaller, lesser-known favorite sites are all bandwidth limited. There are just a couple hundred sanctioned ones that you get "for free". Small endeavours like Reddit or HN don't have a chance to grow fast anymore. That's the future if you are ok with this.

About 90-95% of the bandwidth available 'on the wire' is already being used to deliver Comcast's video service. So if this is the first nail it's been there for an awful long time. The way traditional VOD is delivered (QAMS full of MPEG2 programs) is actually very inefficient. There may be 4-8 QAMS just sitting there inactive if your neighbors aren't watching VOD. The switch to IP delivery eventually will allow Comcast and other MSOs to use their bandwidth more efficiently.<p>From the customer's perspective nothing really changes. Technically your modem will probably be provisioned differently to support the extra services. So for example if you buy a 50Mbit/sec Internet package and a video package from Comcast your modem would actually be provisioned with multiple service flows -- a 50Mbit/sec for Internet traffic and another 50Mbit/sec reserved for Comcast services. That second 50Mbit/sec service flow allows you to have the same video service functionality as the 2-3Gbit/sec of broadcast video they presently waste 90-95% of their spectrum on. This will be reclaimed for the big general-purpose IP data pipe. Comcast will continue to use some percentage of that pipe for their own services but it will be a much smaller percentage than they use today.<p>So really everyone wins in the end. IP set tops are cheaper than traditional cable set tops. Consumers get to use Comcast services integrated into devices they already own. Comcast's competitors get a bigger dumb-pipe into people's homes to ride on. I admit it looks bad if you don't understand the technology but it's important to remember the bandwidth crunch that Comcast and other MSOs have is directly related to how they presently deliver their own services. Any effort they make to solve that problem is good for consumers in the end.

I do not like this trend, but my fears is that Wikipedia is being used in a similar way. You can argue against free XBox traffic, but can you argue against free Wikipedia traffic?<p>Past HN topic: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3505922" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3505922</a>

I think the nail in net neutrality's coffin will be when they start charging (or discounting) other parties' services. That isn't the case here.<p>The way I see it you get all their content through a cable box today without paying data usage fees for the bandwidth TV uses on their network (that's the point of the TV subscription fee). Now they're allowing that content on another "set-top box", in this case the XBox. The implementation details (the fact it uses internet streaming vs cable tuner card) shouldn't matter to the end-user. You pay the TV subscription fee, you get it without additional fees.<p>If the situation were reversed and they were charging data fees for accessing content you already pay for, we'd be up in arms about that, too...

Our government's failure to enact network neutrality is the latest sign that it is completely driven by corporate interests and will work against society's overall interest when there is a conflict. The only way to get any true democracy anymore is by creating mass panic as with SOPA, but it isn't possible to achieve that with every issue, and corporations are tirelessly relentless. I believe that without a functioning government this superpower is in a period of decline which will be characterized by increased authoritarianism and chaos as we go from crisis to crisis.

This announcement is contrary to a statement made in July of 2011. Do they suddenly not give a shit about other customers service if it's xbox live traffic?<p>"If someone's behavior is such that it degrades the quality of service for others nearby -- that's what this threshold is meant to address," said company spokesman Charlie Douglas. "It can negatively affect other people."<p><a href="http://hothardware.com/News/Comcast-Cuts-Customer-Off/" rel="nofollow">http://hothardware.com/News/Comcast-Cuts-Customer-Off/</a>

I might be wrong but hasn't the Kindle been offering a free internet access to browse its store and even some online content for a while now?

Just another point of the Xfinity app's disregard to Net Neutrality is the sensing of "viewership". By "viewership" I mean switching video inputs and finding a nice network error upon returning to xfinity app's input. This was tested yesterday with an HD enabled Samsung and 1st gen Xbox360. I imagine this is just a preview of what is to come when Kinect enabled commercials stop entirely if you are not physically looking at the tv and restart the video so, you have to view in full in order to progress. Can you imagine starbucks making you have to watch a commercial before you drink your macchiato?!

A good book to read is Tim Wu's "The Master Switch", which predicts this as something called The Cycle. Reading the book gives you a sense how history repeats itself with new and open technology and how these open systems eventually get molded into closed systems that only a few companies control. It's been done with telephones, the radio and television. It seems the internet is in the early stages of this transistion.<p>What Comcast is doing is testing the waters. I personally find it just the beginning, as if this is allowed, other companies will follow suit.

There are already quite a few nails in that coffin, unfortunately.

FiOS already does this, in a way.<p>I recently switched to Verizon FiOS for TV, which necessitated the installation of a FiOS branded Actiontec router, so that the cable boxes can access the Internet over MoCA. The router has QoS rules to prioritize VOD traffic over all other traffic (which is why I purchased an Ethernet to MoCA bridge, so I can use my own router).

Maybe it's different here in Poland, where ISPs really have next to nothing to offer except for Internet access and maybe some VoIP services, but the whole discussion around net neutrality sounds panicky to me. Using your ISP's services is obviously technically easier and cheaper for them so why wouldn't/shouldn't it be reflected in prices?<p>Maybe we'll reach a point when consumer connections start to be billed like business ones are now (95th percentile, or whatever) but I don't think there's anything wrong with pricing that better reflects real usage. It may turn out to be a little more expensive for some of us, here on HN in particular, but if we want a better Internet infrastructure, we'll have to pay for it because AFAIR ISPs' ROIs aren't particularly impressive.

I don't understand the outrage here. Comcast is offering something for free to its customers that other ISP's customers have to pay for. It's good to be a Comcast customer I guess.<p>A lot of the arguments in the article and even some in this comment thread are "imagine if"... Either something is wrong on its face or its not. You shouldn't have to come up with theoretical examples of Comcast charging for unlimited access to Youtube and Netflix in order to make your point.<p>My cell phone service by the way (Bell Mobility) offers free unlimited access to Twitter, Facebook and Myspace that don't count against my mobile data plan cap. If you consider that against net neutrality, then net neutrality died a long time ago.

&#62;Comcast’s FAQ strongly implies that Microsoft is compensating it in some fashion for the new service; the document states several times that the Xfinity app is only available to those with an Xbox Live Gold subscription<p>&#62;For companies like Comcast, which has railed against the concept of being a dumb pipe, Microsoft’s decision to pay it for free access for Xbox Gold users is a major coup.<p>Why does the article take as a given that Microsoft is paying Comcast? What if the arrangement is that MS gets more value added to XBox Live Gold subscriptions and Comcast gets more value added to it's TV service? Now this may not be the case, but doesn't seem any less likely than the article's assertions given what we know.

This was an inevitable outcome of deregulating monopolies, refusing to recognize antitrust violations, and it's not the last shoe to drop.

That's ok. Those kind of things only happen there in the US. In Europe we have and will have internet like it is supposed to be. No bandwidth limits at all!

Net Neutrality legislation scares me. Any legislation of the internet to "protect" you from corporations will most likely include new and invasive powers of government to monitor and control the Internet (like SOPA). No thanks.<p>Let's see if I understand this article though: I can pay $$$$ dollars a month for 250GB of <i>dumb</i> data transfer a month. If I go over that quota, I have to pay $$$ more or I get shut off or slowed down.<p>But now Comcast allows me to pay $ to get an unlimited access to certain sites like NetFlix that would otherwise eat up most my "dumb" quota (if I watched movies all day).<p>That sounds good to me, I'd rather pay $$$$+$ than $$$$+$$$ for the 400GB of NetFlix traffic and 100GB of other traffic I use per month.<p>In a way, this is the market's solution to the piracy problem. Licensed media sources are offered at a discount while torrent traffic is still allowed, but under general traffic prices. Say what you will but, if the market doesn't create a solution, the government will and I guarantee you won't like their solution.