Cox to test new way to handle Internet congestion

[Brian Warkoczeski]

Cox to test new way to handle Internet congestion

Jan 27, 2009

www.yahoo.com

NEW YORK (AP) - Cox Communications, the third-largest cable company in 
the U.S., stepped on to battleground of the "Net Neutrality" issue 
Tuesday, saying it will be trying out a new way to keep its subscribers' 
Internet traffic from jamming up.

Starting on Feb. 9 in parts of Kansas and Arkansas, Cox will give 
priority to Internet traffic it judges to be time-sensitive, like Web 
pages, streaming video and online games. File downloads, software 
updates and other non-time sensitive data may be slowed if there is 
congestion on the local network, Cox said.

The news is sure to revive the debate about "Net Neutrality," or the 
question of how much Internet service providers like Cox can interfere 
with subscriber traffic. Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable 
company, was sanctioned by the Federal Communications Commission last 
year for its method of traffic management, which involved secretly 
stifling file sharing, a certain type of Internet traffic. It was the 
first time regulators waded into the issue.

Comcast is fighting the FCC's ruling in court, but has abandoned its 
congestion management system in favor of one that doesn't discriminate 
between different types of traffic. It has also abandoned secrecy and 
revealed details on how the new system works.

Tests conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in 
Germany indicated last year that Cox was using the same discriminatory 
network management system that Comcast employed then. Cox never revealed 
the details of its system but said it used "protocol filtering," a 
principle also used by Comcast.

Further testing by the Max Planck Institute indicated that Cox cut back 
sharply on its use of the old congestion system in August, and that it 
was shut down by January.

Cox spokesman David Grabert said the company began evaluating its old 
system after the FCC order on Comcast.

"This new technique is based on the time-sensitive nature of the 
Internet traffic itself, and we believe it will lead to a smoother 
Internet experience with fewer delays," the company said on a Web page 
put up for subscribers.

Cox expects to apply the new technology to all of its Internet 
subscribers later this year if it proves successful in Kansas and 
Arkansas. It has 4 million subscribers, Grabert said, but that figure 
includes business users who would not be affected.

Ben Scott, policy director at Free Press, one of the Washington-based 
consumer interest groups that complained to the FCC about Comcast, said 
he was reserving judgment about Cox's new system until he could get more 
details on its workings. For instance, it's unclear how the company will 
identify each type of traffic.

"As a baseline, I'm uncomfortable with any network management system 
that doesn't give the user the choice of how his traffic is treated," 
Scott said.

Cox Communications is part of privately held Cox Enterprises Inc., based 
in Atlanta.