Last week, the folks at cable giant Comcast asked for more time to give a nuanced response to a report
that the company was blocking some peer-to-peer traffic on its network.
The public relations staff at the Philadelphia company seemed genuinely
baffled by accusations that it was interfering with file-sharing
applications like BitTorrent and Gnutella. They stubbornly insisted that they did not monitor or block any Internet traffic – despite strong evidence to the contrary.

Today, Comcast tried to do a bit better – while sticking to its
guns. “Comcast does not block access to any Web sites or online
applications, including peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent” read a
written statement. “We have a responsibility to provide all of our
customers with a good Internet experience and we use the latest
technologies to manage our network so that they can continue to enjoy
these applications.”

Speaking on background in a phone interview earlier today, a Comcast
Internet executive admitted that reality was a little more complex. The
company uses data management technologies to conserve bandwidth and
allow customers to experience the Internet without delays. As part of
that management process, he said, the company occasionally – but not
always – delays some peer-to-peer file transfers that eat into Internet
speeds for other users on the network.

The executive declined to talk in detail about the technology,
citing spammers or other miscreants who might exploit that knowledge.
But he insisted the company was not stopping file transfers from
happening, only postponing them in certain cases.
He compared it to making a phone call and getting a busy signal, then
trying again and getting through. In cases where peer to peer file
transfers are interrupted, the software automatically tries again, so
the user may not even know Comcast is interfering.

The executive also noted that peer-to-peer network users represent a
minority of Comcast customers, but that they use a disproportionate
amount of bandwidth.

And that was about the extent of the explanation.

It seems unlikely that Comcast has a secret agenda to shut down
file-sharing applications and combat piracy on its network. But the
company is clearly trying to have it both ways. It claims it is a
neutral Internet service provider that treats all packets equally, not blocking
or “shaping” its Internet traffic. Meanwhile it also positions itself
as the champion of average Internet users whose speeds are being slowed
by file-sharing.

The result of that discrepancy is that Comcast has a major public
relations problem on its hands. In the absence of a transparent
explanation about what the company does to disadvantage certain
applications in the name of managing traffic on its network, anecdotal
reports and conspiracy theories are filling the vacuum.