thats um. BS. comcast sure does block the UPLOADING of torrents. straight up blocked. .0001k/sec for your upload. especially if its unencrypted. or runs longer than some magical time allowed. or if your upload exceeds your download for awhile.

and while that is happening you may or may not be able to use the web for anything else either.

thats blocked. filtered. screwed. hey i’m bein robbed. blocked.

you shill.

By the way, I have COX. No filtering here. I have never had problems in my area, with COX.

You’ll have a better chance of getting a person in retention if you phone in to cancel (via key selection) and call between 7-9PM. Why? If you push the prompts to “add service” your going to get an inside sales person. They get dinged (reduces commision) for your call if they don’t add or upgrade a service and since they just got dinged they are going to be less likely to offer a significant discount! The time is important as well …. if retention is overwhelmed with calls for what ever reason … you go in to the queue and may be helped by billing, sales, support etc.

Sorry for run-on sentences!

Packet shaping really has nothing to do with whats going on here. Sure, it’s an underlying part of the discussion, but the real issue is that Comcast is being extremely devious with it’s customer base, and isn’t being honest about what they are doing.

Sure, the Comcast network belongs to Comcast. That’s fantastic. This DOES NOT mean they can do anything they want with it. There are regulatory bodies that control certain aspects of what communications companies are allowed to do. Now with regards to packet shaping, I doubt the FCC or anyone else intervenes here, so sure, Comcast can shape all they want. That’s FINE… but they sure shouldn’t be lying about it, or perhaps more accurately; carefully avoiding being honest about it. The fact that this dishonesty is the core issue means that being able to use encryption to bypass the shaping is an irrelevant point.

The fact that torrents are frequently used for illegal activities is also completely irrelevant. Many illegal activities also involve the exchange of money, so when the bank starts refusing to allow you access to your bank accounts, are you going to accept the response “Money is often used for illegal activities, so we can’t let you have it.”? Of course you won’t. Thats ludicrous.

At risk of using a slippery slope fallacy, I posit that accepting this “it’s often illegal” argument is pure stupidity. Almost everything in the world can be and IS used for illegal and nefarious purposes. This does not give anyone the right to deny access to those people who use it legitimately.

In closing, I’d like to reiterate that the issue here is not the packet shaping, but the blatant dishonesty Comcast shows it’s customers. If they were up front about it, sure some people would still complain, but they can find another provider.

P.S. Wayne: Your country doesn’t even come close to having a monopoly on intelligence – or stupidity. Sure we have idiots in Canada, too, but you’re way out of line to think that you are in any way superior to us in the technical field. There are a number of extremely gifted programmers and technicians up here, and on behalf of all of them I bid you a fond “Die in a fire”.