Time Warner Cable has been hit with an informal net neutrality complaint
Broadband provider Time Warner Cable was hit with an informal net neutrality complaint on Monday that claims the company is violating the FCC’s “no paid prioritization” and “no throttling” rules. The complaint was filed by streaming company Commercial Network Services (CNS) and essentially insists that Time Warner is forcing the company to use the highly populated traffic routes unless it wants to pay for low-latency connections.
“By refusing to accept the freely available direct route to the edge-provider of the consumers’ choosing, TWC is unnecessarily increasing latency and congestion between the consumer and the edge provider by instead sending traffic through higher latency and routinely congested transit routes” said CNS chief executive officer Barry Bahrami. “This is a default on their promise to the BIAS (Broadband Internet Access Service) consumer to deliver to the edge and make arrangements as necessary to do that.”
Bahrami states in the complaint that Time Warner Cable’s setup directly degrades the quality of service on the consumer end because of the increased latency. The only way to rectify the problem is to sign a “commercial transit agreement” that requires what he calls a “ransom."
Bahrami goes on to clarify that the company doesn’t want to go through Time Warner Cable, but rather is requesting peering access to the paying BIAS subscribers on the Time Warner Cable network. This will allow CNS to deliver broadband-quality content that customers are requesting and Time Warner Cable customers are paying for and expecting.
In the complaint, he lists three examples: Any2 Los Angeles, NYIIX, and Equinix NYC. “TWC has repeatedly refused to peer and instead offered ‘a commercial transit arrangement that will provide you with a functionally equivalent solution,’” he said.
Time Warner Cable responded to Bahrami on Tuesday, indicating that CNS doesn’t have high volumes of traffic and thus doesn’t qualify for fast peering arrangements as used by a number of network operators.
"Most companies like Commercial Network Services purchase transit service from one of the many commercial operators that interconnect with Time Warner Cable, and such transit providers have ample capacity available at low, market-based rates. TWC also offers comparable transit service at a competitive price," the company told The Register.
"TWC's interconnection practices are not only 'just and reasonable' as required by the FCC, but consistent with the practices of all major ISPs and well-established industry standards,” the company added. “We are confident that the FCC will reject any complaint that is premised on the notion that every edge provider around the globe is entitled to enter into a settlement-free peering arrangement."
For now, the complaint is informal, but Bahrami will make it official if the problem isn’t settled. As the Washington Post points out, the FCC may discover that Time Warner Cable isn’t in the wrong here. The rules seemingly only pertain to the connection between the consumer and the Internet Service Provider, and not the area of the Internet that’s causing so much drama between Time Warner Cable and CNS.
From maximumpc
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