At Ars Techica, a sober look at Comcast’s explanation of its disruption of the peer-to-peer networking of some of its customers. The story is geeky but detached and fairly presented by writer Nate Anderson:

According to [Comcast’s] filing, network management only kicks in “when P2P unidirectional upload sessions (i.e., sessions where a computer is only uploading and not simultaneously uploading and downloading) reach a predetermined congestion threshold in a particular neighborhood.” The goal here is to stop unattended machines from using significant upload bandwidth, though Comcast says that the “delay” is removed once the “number of active uploading sessions drops below that threshold.”

The major problem seems to be Comcast’s method, which basically involves sending a fake error message that makes the computer in question reset its connection. This graf is ineresting, too:

Throwing more bandwidth at the problem won’t work, Comcast says, because P2P apps will (by design) soak up every available drop of it. In short, there’s no way to fix the problem short of imposing “reasonable network management” on P2P apps to make sure everyone can get along. While the argument has a certain obvious logic to it, one wonders how Comcast is in fact able to handle unlimited P2P downloads without any delay or filtering. Perhaps because it has thrown a lot more bandwidth at the problem?

The WSJ ($) says Comcast’s shenanigans in trying to disrupt some of its customers’ downloading habits has reinforced support in Congress for network neutrality legislation. It’s a brief but useful overview of recent developments in the area, including not just l’affaire Comcast but also whether AT&T is going actually to filter the content that goes over its tubes. The company says it isn’t, but …:

In a statement AT&T said, “We want to set the record straight that we have not said we are going to filter, and in fact, there is no technology solution available at this time. What we have said is that we are working with some in the content industry on the very real issue of piracy that has raised costs for all Internet users.”

How are they goin to do that save by … filtering? Doesn’t this go to the heart of the debate? Network neutrality isn’t a cut-and-dried issue; in theory, companies would spring up that didn’t prioritize one type of content over another. But there’s nothing wrong with the U.S. making network neutrality formally a part of the telecommunications laws and letting the companies compete with the same playing rules.  No story that I’ve read explains coherently why current practice—charging folks reasonably more for higher bandwidth or sheer download tonnage—can’t solve the problem. What business of AT&T’s is piracy? The company’s not moving to shut off phone service to the Gambino family members arrested in New York last week, even though they presumably used their phones at work.

The story also contains this tidbit …

 Time Warner estimates that 5% of its users account for 50% of the bandwidth usage in many parts of its network. This small percentage of users is able to absorb so much bandwidth because of the rapid growth of peer-to-peer networking services such as BitTorrent, popular among video downloaders. One user downloaded the equivalent of 1,500 high-definition films in a month, the company says.

[Emphasis added.] That has all the marks of a fairy tale. Fifty HD films a day? A terabyte of data every day for a month? Who has that sort of storage lying around?