Comcast messing with VoIP?

Where there's smoke, is there fire?

It's a story that won't go away and the complaints are getting louder.

Andy Abramson:

I'm not at all surprised to read that one of the nation's largest cable operators is getting accused of packet shaping. Nor am I surprised that their support folks are being mum on the subject.

It seems thought some unhappy Comcast customers are happy to write about their issues which directly impact the ability to use real time apps like video conferencing and VoIP rather well.

Earlier, Light Reading reported on the issues too. “We’re not blocking access to any application, and we don’t throttle any traffic,” said Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesman. Note that Douglas didn’t explicitly deny the use of deep packet inspection or traffic shaping products. ”Comcast has a responsibility to manage our network to ensure our customers have the best service, and we use available technologies to do so.”

Their marketing tends to center around faster speeds than DSL, but the practice of download caps and traffic shaping could neutralize that advantage for real customers.