Cox Announces P2P Traffic Throttling

Cox, the U.S.’s third largest ISP announced the new policy the company will follow henceforth which includes a discriminatory treatment targeting traffic that involves downloading files online, CNET reports.

The company divides Internet traffic into two categories: time-sensitive and nontime-sensitive, with the former taking the priority during the congested hours.

The time sensitive category includes:

Web (Web surfing, including web-based e-mail and chat embedded in Web pages)
VoIP (Voice over IP, telephone calls made over the Internet)
E-mail
IM (Instant messages, including related voice and Webcam traffic)
Streaming (Web-based audio and video programs)
Games (Online interactive games)
Tunneling & Remote Connectivity (VPN-type services for telecommuting)
Other (Any service not categorized into another area)

The nontime-sensitive category includes:

File Access (Bulk transfers of data such as FTP)
Network Storage (Bulk transfers of data for storage)
P2P (Peer to peer protocols)
Software Updates (Managed updates, such as operating system updates)
Usenet (Newsgroup related)

The practice didn’t do too much good for Comcast, it’s interesting to see how things will turn out for Cox. You might want to know about the most recent development (courtesy of Google) which can help file sharers find out whether their connection is being messed with.