Comcast's Xfinity-on-Xbox Plans Draw Net Neutrality Fire

Comcast is expected to launch its TV video-on-demand application for Xbox 360 soon. The app turns your Xbox 360 game system into an additional receiver for Xfinity video content that's streamed over the High Speed Internet portion of your Comcast "double play" service. Because the content is being delivered over Comcast's "private IP network and not the public internet," the cable-co won't "count" the streaming "against a customer's bandwidth cap" as it now does with users of other streaming services.

But some are already calling Comcast's actions a violation of the net neutrality laws.

"Comcast tries to justify preferred treatment for its own video on the Xbox 360 by claiming that the content is delivered over a private IP network rather than the public Internet," Free Press policy director Matt Wood said in a statement. "But not counting this video against a Comcast customer's monthly data limit gives the Comcast product an unfair advantage against other Internet video services. Unfortunately, such anti-competitive tricks may be allowed by loopholes in the FCC's Open Internet rules, proving once again that the FCC failed to deliver on the promise of real Net Neutrality."

Now, Xfinity TV customers who wish to use the Xbox service have to subscribe to both television and Internet data services. Comcast doesn't allow a customer to use DSL in conjunction with Comcast video services, as the data modem is used to identify that the customer is in the home.

"We are working on a solution that will enable customers to receive the content without an XFINITY Internet subscription, but can't comment on timing yet," Comcast added.

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