WASHINGTON, DC - February 14 - Last night, Free Press and members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission in response to the federal agency’s inquiry on discriminatory blocking by Comcast and other Internet service providers.

Summary of the legal argument:

In our comments, Free Press urges the FCC to declare that discriminatory tactics, such as those employed by Comcast, violate federal policies and will not be tolerated. Four relevant sources of law prohibit broadband discrimination: 1) the FCC Internet Policy Statement; 2) the Communications Act; 3) precedent in a recent FCC order; and 4) the FCC orders eliminating ISP open access.

We also refute the arguments advanced by Comcast and others that discrimination is merely “reasonable network management.” Arguments based on bandwidth and “delaying” are as dangerously wrong as they are irrelevant. Comcast’s discrimination has nothing to do with network capacity problems — the company is employing anti-competitive tactics to maintain market advantage.

Comcast’s measures are not aimed at heavy users, but rather at users of certain protocols such as BitTorrent that compete with their online offerings (like Fancast), as well as their video-on-demand services. The Electronic Frontier Foundation specifically tested the network for interference and found that Comcast even blocked a low-activity user attempting to transmit a small file through BitTorrent.

Network providers have repeatedly promised the public and the FCC in merger reviews, sworn declarations and FCC proceedings not to interfere or block content online. In exchange, the network providers were relieved of competition in the broadband market through the elimination of “open access” requirements. Similarly, the FCC pledged it would ensure for consumers an open Internet should the network providers break their vows. The rubber has now hit the road.

The FCC should act quickly to clarify that discrimination against specific applications and protocols violates federal policy. This practice is clearly anticompetitive and the defenses of network providers are specious.

Read the full filing at: http://www.freepress.net/docs/fp_et_al_petition_fp_comments.pdf

Read the statement made by Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press and lead author of the comments: http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=337

Listen to Marvin Ammori and web innovators BitTorrent, Vuze and Miro discuss Comcast blocking: http://www.freepress.net/docs/freepress_open_internet_call.mp3

###