It may be pre-mature to be talking about loopholes in an order that is
currently being challenged in court. But it illustrates how crony capitalism
can lead to rather creative workarounds.
From a purely technical standpoint, Comcast may have a solid case that they are
not violating the net neutrality order. They currently sell many services that
share the same wires - analog and digital TV, broadband, VOIP, home security,
etc. While this new streaming service uses the same technology as the broadband
service, these bits are not available to broadband or phone customers; they are
available to TV subscribers.
And there is the caveat that the service only works in the home. Cox offers a
functional equivalent by transcoding the MPEG-2TS streams to h.264 and making
them available via WiFi in the home.
It gets a bit more tricky if we look at it from a different perspective. What
if I only subscribe to the TV bundle - i.e. no broadband. If I want to access
the IP streams on a PC or mobile device do I need to ALSO subscribe to a
broadband package? Will Comcast provide a modem for the streaming service that
does not provide Internet access?
What if Comcast decides to do what Bert wants and moves all of their services
to IP, recovering the spectrum using other technologies? Can they still reserve
a portion of the system for the delivery of a TV bundle with a guaranteed QOS
that is different than the broadband network?
I think the lawyers are likely to be the real winners as this plays out.
Regards
Craig
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