The US government's new consumer friendly net neutrality laws have been in effect for less than a week, but it seems one company has already fallen afoul of the new regulations.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) is being accused by webcam hosting company Commercial Network Services of charging fees to ensure that CNS' traffic is not throttled.
The Washington Post reports that TWC has been purposely degrading the video streams of CNS because the two parties could not come to a 'free peering' agreement.
"It Web-casts one of the largest Fourth of July fireworks displays on the West Coast, and has amassed a large military audience that logs in from afar whenever its cameras show the comings and goings of U.S. Navy vessels based in San Diego. But TWC's actions are resulting in degraded video quality for those viewers, said CNS chief executive Barry Bahrami."
"This is not traffic we're pushing to Time Warner; this is traffic that their paying Internet access subscribers are asking for from us," said Bahrami, who accused TWC of a "blatant violation" of the FCC's rules.
The new pro consumer Net Neutrality laws were put in place to combat practices like these. They prohibit internet service providers from blocking user's access to certain websites, throttling internet speeds on certain sites on purpose, and accepting payments from website operators in order to have their content work faster on that particular ISP's connection.
Time Warner told the Washington Post that they believe the complaint will be junked by the FCC:
"TWC's interconnection practices are not only 'just and reasonable' as required by the FCC, but consistent with the practices of all major ISPs and well-established industry standards," the company said. "We are confident that the FCC will reject any complaint that is premised on the notion that every edge provider around the globe is entitled to enter into a settlement-free peering arrangement."
