Comcast opens up about how it manages traffic

Comcast came under fire recently when it slowed a "peer-to-peer" transmission of the King James Bible sent as a test by an Associated Press reporter. The transmission slowdown occurred automatically when network congestion started to build in the Boston area, affecting other customers. The King James transmission, which was small, didn't cause the slowdown. Once traffic loads got too high Comcast's network automatically took steps to avoid further degradation. The result: Some peer-to-peer traffic, including the AP transmission, got delayed. But it was never blocked. The transmission "showed up. It just took a little longer to get there." "The only reason you do something like that is to maintain consistent network performance," says Mitch Bowling, Comcast's senior vice president of online service.
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