<story><title>The new Comcast Xbox Xfinity app is the first nail in net neutrality’s coffin</title><url>http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/124041-the-new-comcast-xbox-xfinity-app-is-the-first-nail-in-net-neutralitys-coffin</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roboneal</author><text>Comcast claims that the app turns the XBox into essentially a set top box and that all data is streamed over Comcast&apos;s &quot;private&quot; network capacity and do not use any of the traditional public facing internet infrastructure.&lt;p&gt;Standard usage of &quot;On Demand&quot; programming from a DVR or other set top box do not count against the existing data cap quotas.&lt;p&gt;If this app essentially allows an XBox to plug into this private network capacity like any other set top box, I think this is an important distinction.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikeryan</author><text>Its true (full disclosure I used to work for Comcast - via an acquisition)&lt;p&gt;One of Comcast&apos;s biggest (and most hated) capex expenditures are the cable boxes. They hate with an unholy passion having to upgrade boxes.  In this context they&apos;re basically trying to get the users to upgrade their boxes on their own dime. When I put on my consultant hat and talk to analysts in this area we&apos;ve been talking more and more about how connected tv&apos;s and OTT Boxes can be beneficial to cable operators.  One of the downsides of cable cards is that you never got a guide with it. Combine a cable card and a Samsung Connected TV and you can really do both and get rid of the card all together.&lt;p&gt;Second they&apos;re quickly realizing that maintaining two on-demand infrastructures (Web and traditional VOD) the really sensible thing is to move as much as possible to delivering via your cable modem as opposed to the broadcast channels.&lt;p&gt;Of course as they do so they&apos;re going to have to do something about the bandwidth caps. Stories like this put Comcast in a strange position. They want to deliver more &quot;TV&quot; video content over their internet pipes but apparently can&apos;t do so and maintain a cap at the same time.</text></comment>
<story><title>The new Comcast Xbox Xfinity app is the first nail in net neutrality’s coffin</title><url>http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/124041-the-new-comcast-xbox-xfinity-app-is-the-first-nail-in-net-neutralitys-coffin</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roboneal</author><text>Comcast claims that the app turns the XBox into essentially a set top box and that all data is streamed over Comcast&apos;s &quot;private&quot; network capacity and do not use any of the traditional public facing internet infrastructure.&lt;p&gt;Standard usage of &quot;On Demand&quot; programming from a DVR or other set top box do not count against the existing data cap quotas.&lt;p&gt;If this app essentially allows an XBox to plug into this private network capacity like any other set top box, I think this is an important distinction.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nextstep</author><text>I think you are right, and when they frame this new service as &quot;turning your existing Xbox into a set top box&quot;, it sounds benign and rational.  But I&apos;m afraid of the dangerous precedent that this sets.&lt;p&gt;TV-style subscription-based services work with users as consumers: the pipes go one-way, because each subscriber is just a dumb set of eyes with a wallet.  But with the internet, and new disruptive content models, everyone is also a creator.  The real danger of losing net-neutrality is that individuals will become unable create new media for the internet.</text></comment>