Comcast's Technical Expert: Mary Bono?
Date : 02 20 2008 Category : Business
We've already discussed just how weak Comcast's defense of its traffic shaping efforts are, but Ed Felten chimes in with another point. It appears that Comcast relies on rather questionable "experts" in trying to present its traffic shaping as reasonable. For example, rather than quote an actual technical expert concerning how P2P file sharing systems work, it quotes Congressional Representative Mary Bono Mack saying (totally incorrectly):
For the record, broadband service providers are investing in their networks, but simply adding more bandwidth does not solve [the P2P problem]. The reason for this is P2P applications are designed to consume as much bandwidth as is available, thus more capacity only results in more consumption.
As Felten notes, P2P apps are not designed to consume as much bandwidth as is available, and certainly just having more bandwidth does not result in more consumption -- but the larger point is why is Comcast not just using incorrect statements, but relying on a Congressional representative to support a technical argument?
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