Orangeman Burns - Sriram Sridharan's Blog

With the unveiling of Sprint's new WiMAX service called Xohm in Baltimore, it also revealed the ground rules for using its service that Internet Free Speech groups warn: :May prevent users from experiencing full and unfettered access to the Web". At the bullseye is Sprint’s Acceptable Use and Network Management Policy for its high-speed data network. In the ToS statement, Sprint warns against usage that could

"result in an excessive burden of system or network resources."

In those cases,

"Xohm may use various tools and techniques designed to limit the bandwidth available for certain bandwidth intensive applications or protocols, such as file sharing."

Sound familiar? Didn’t Comcast just get royally screwed over by the FCC for the BitTorrent throttling??? I think I have covered the issue pretty well in my previous posts:
http://www.sriraminhell.com/2007/08/peer-to-peer-ii-bit-torrent.html
http://www.sriraminhell.com/2008/05/bittorrent-blocking-prevalent-in-us.html
http://www.sriraminhell.com/2008/07/combating-internet-throttling-with.html

Comcast is appealing against the order and says now it won’t target specific applications but will continue to manage its traffic. But after the decision against Comcast last August, Sprint ’s practice of managing its network traffic is coming under scrutiny. Sprint said by managing traffic of heavy users, it helps the carrier provide better overall service for all its users. I say BS and typical PR spin encouraged by lobbyists from MPAA and RIAA. The stooges at Legal in Sprint just want to avoid any further nasty backlashes against it in the future, when MPAA and RIAA and other assorted anti-piracy bodies sue ISPs for gross negligence. Freakin' funny isn't it. Reminds me of the old proverb

Never bite the hand that feeds you.

But public interest group Free Press declares that Sprint’s policy could go against the FCC’s broadband policy statement which promotes open Internet access and prevents Internet service providers from intentionally slowing down service for use of certain applications - such as file-sharing applications. Watch this space for further updates.

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Labels: bittorrent, blog, comcast, downloads, FCC, file sharing, Filesharing, illegal, Internet service provider, Sprint, sriram sridharan, sriraminhell, throttling, WiMAX, Xohm