BitTorrent Case Calls for New Rules by the FCC

Tomorrow is scheduled Comcast’s appeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s BitTorrent decision as the third of three cases. The ISP says that each side will have 25 minutes to present its arguments. Judges may allow extra time if necessary.

Comcast was found guilty in 2008 of discriminatory Internet practices by throttling p2p traffic. The company then took the FCC to court over the decision, challenging its legal grounds and saying that it was done without the requisite notice and was unenforceable. It further argued that the FCC was actually in violation of “basic rules of fair notice” since the ‘object’ of its investigation (interfering with peer-to-peer traffic on the network) falls outside the commission’s regulations.

While FCC did have open-access guidelines, it lacked enforceable rules. However, aware of the problems this may cause in the future the FCC is working on solving the issue by including these rules in its proposed network-neutrality principles.

Last month Comcast agreed to pay $16 million damage compensation to its customers who had their bandwidth throttled.