Intellectual Property Law

AT&T Will Disconnect Wireless P2P Users

By Cynthia Brumfield

AT&T will jettison wireless users that engage in P2P file-sharing over its network, the company said Friday in a letter PDF filed at the FCC (and flagged today by Ted Hearn at Multichannel News). Senior lobbyist Robert Quinn answered a question posed at hearing last week by Republican FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell about the company's policies of managing P2P network traffic on its broadband wireless platform.

Quinn said that AT&T's terms of service (as well as the TOS for most other carriers) bars the use of P2P applications on the wireless platform. "Use of a P2P file sharing application would constitute a material breach of contract for which the user?s service could be terminated," he said.

Because P2P file sharing applications typically engage in continuous (rather than bursty) transmissions at high data rates, a small number of users of P2P file sharing applications served by a particular cell site could severely degrade the service quality enjoyed by all customers served by that site.

AT&T hasn't yet booted anybody off the network for using P2P, Quinn said.

The FCC's McDowell is likely to vote against an order, slated for vote on Friday, that finds Comcast secretly degraded P2P traffic in violation of the agency's network neutrality principles. AT&T's written admission that it won't permit any form of P2P on its broadband wireless network is likely to be used by McDowell in arguing against the order, saying, in essence, that Comcast's supposed transgressions aren't as bad as blocking P2P altogether. (One crucial distinction between the two circumstances: Comcast wasn't "transparent" about its P2P throttling while AT&T is apparently upfront about it in its user agreement).

However, it's all but certain that the order will pass given that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a proponent of punishing Comcast, likely has the two other votes needed to succeed, with Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein no doubt siding with him on this smatter. Less clear is whether any action by the FCC will stand up on appeal. CNET's Declan McCullagh today joins the growing consensus that the FCC does not have the authority to take this action.

Full post as published by IP Democracy on July 28, 2008 (boomark / email).