Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Comcast exec comments on BitTorrent controversy

October 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Comcast exec comments on BitTorrent controversy

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Asked whether ISP Comcast was disrupting BitTorrent file-sharing traffic and peer-to-peer communications, a Comcast official at the Web 2.0 Summit on Friday said the company has a tiny percentage of customers who use its system excessively.

The question was raised by a panel moderator, Josh Quittner, of Fortune magazine, to Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media. Banse first noted she is not the person managing the pipe at Comcast. But she said she would respond to what she knew about the company's policy.

"I think there is the hypberbole and there's the reality of what we call excessive use," Banse said. While 99.9 percent of Comcast Internet customers happily use the service for functions such as email, uploading of video and sharing video at a speed they enjoy, there is the .01 percent of customers who engage in what Comcast calls excessive use. An example of this that she was told about was akin to a customer sending 18,000 emails every hour, every day of every month. Comcast as the bandwidth provider needs to manage that relationship between what this minority wants to do and what the rest of the customers want to do, she said.

"To the extent that we identify that kind of excessive use, we call those customers up and talk to them about it and tell them what's going on and offer them additional services," akin to commercial services, she said.

A published report stated Comcast has been blocking some users of its service from sharing files.

Posted by Paul Krill on October 19, 2007 03:25 PM

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