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Bell Canada Ordered To Justify Traffic-Shaping Practices
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Jun 23, 2008 09:54 AM
from the nice-shape-ya-got-there dept.
from the nice-shape-ya-got-there dept.
somecanuckchick writes "The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has ordered Bell Canada to justify its traffic-shaping practices. The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission on Thursday told the company it has until June 23 to make public data that was marked confidential in a May 29 filing. Bell had said it needed to keep quiet the information, which details the level of internet traffic and possible congestion on its network, for competitive reasons."
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Bell's Own Data Exposes P2P As a Red Herring 261 comments
dougplanet writes with news from the Canadian-throttling front: "As ordered by the CRTC, Bell has released (some) of its data on how torrents and P2P in general are affecting its network. Even though there's not much data to go on, it's pretty clear that P2P isn't the crushing concern. Over the two-month period prior to their throttling, they had congestion on a whopping 2.6 and 5.2 per cent of their network links. They don't even explain whether this is a range of sustained congestion, or peaks amongst valleys."
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Bell Canada is not the only one. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bell Canada is not the only one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Will Rogers be next? Cogeco?
Probably not, Bell Canada took the particularly egregious step of throttling not only their own customers, but everyone else's customers as well. It's one thing to ask people who have signed contracts with you to grab their ankles, but going after other companies' customers to make sure that your competitors' service sucks as bad as yours does... well, I suppose I could just say that this is the future of capitalism, as much as the free marketeers insist it won't be.
I'm sure that one of them will post saying how it's the government's fault for "letting this happen" and that if there weren't any rules or anything to even bother to pretend to look like someone is in charge, this wouldn't have happened because Bell Canada only did this to "stick it to the man" and not for any personal gain.
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Re: (Score:2)
Free Market(TM) forces will compel governments to regulate various abusive monopolies. Nothing to worry about.
Re:Bell Canada is not the only one. (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote a letter to my MP a while back, telling him that his party's technology policies have been sorely disappointing, and that unless they shape up, they cannot expect my vote in the future. I got a nice reply back from my MP, being quite ambivalent (it's ok, he used to be the Minister of Fisheries, I don't expect him to be totally on the up and up about tech).
The surprising thing is, I got a nice letter from Jim Prentice on Friday, apparently my letter was forwarded to him. In it he extolled the virtues of competition, and his confidence that the free market will give Canadian consumers high-quality services at competitive prices.
Apparently Mr. Prentice hasn't paid a phone or internet bill for quite some time, or he'd know about the sad state of affairs the free market has brought us.
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Re:Bell Canada is not the only one. (Score:5, Informative)
Jim Prentice is clueless about how free markets operate and really need dump him from cabinet.
His response to the bill C-61 was pretty much word for word the same. "The free markets will decide if DRM gets used or not"
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Re:Bell Canada is not the only one. (Score:4, Informative)
Given the strong penalties for subverting DRM that Bill C-61 provides, I would say that DRM is a certainty. It's not a free market if the media cartels dictate the rules...
Of course, Prentice also claims that Bill C-61 provides the strongest and most balanced copyright in the world. I am not sure how you can have both of those things at the same time.
And don't even get me started on how legislation written by foreign media cartels qualifies as a "Made in Canada" solution...
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Re:Bell Canada is not the only one. (Score:4, Informative)
I left Rogers due to their traffic shaping. It seems to affect some people in some locations, and not others.
I switched to Tek Savvy, and they were amazing, until Bell started to throttle them. I hope Bell gets set straight. What they did was plain anti-competitive.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't Rogers do nasty things with encrypted traffic? (Whether it be BitTorrent, VPN, SSL, what-have-you)
I seem to recall there was a small uproar over a bunch of people who couldn't access their email via secured POP and some VPN issues with Rogers... or has that been re
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bell Canada is not the only one. (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Competetive Reasons" eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing that means "if our customers find out the crap we're pulling then they'll go to the competition".
Either that or that competitors will realise exactly how much it's possible to dupe their customers into acxcepting as "just the way it is" before anyone gets upset.
Re:"Competetive Reasons" eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering one of their supposed traffic shaping methods is deep packet inspection, the 'competitive reason' would be they'd be sued till their arms and legs were bloody stumps and they were just rolling around on the street while angry former customers beat them with shovels. Thus allowing the likes of Rogers to get the upper hand.
-Also on an unrelated note, I just received my internet bill, and I got hit with an extra $25 for 'bandwidth usage'. Thanks Bell
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Re:"Competetive Reasons" eh? (Score:5, Informative)
Switch to teksavvy.com [teksavvy.com]. I did so after Bell started crippling bittorrent (about 3 months ago). While they have also started tampering with teksavvy's users' traffic (surely illegal; we'll see), at least the spare change at teksavvy is going to something useful: they're leading a charge for Net Neutrality, and supporting them is my way of fighting back.
Aside from that, their customer service, performance, competence and business processes are second to none.
Bell management, if you're reading this: go to hell. Seriously. I was your dedicated customer for seven years, and this outrage has prompted me to terminate my business relationship with you (phone, cell, and Internet). It will be a very long time before you profit from me again.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, for competitors in the DSL consumer service, Bell often offers the 'last leg' of DSL connections, but doesn't actually provide the backbone bandwidth. They nevertheless are throttling customers of competitors for bandwidth that Bell isn't even paying for.
Competitive reasons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the implication here that, if they disclose how they are shaping their traffic, competitors will somehow seize that information and offer better service as a result? I don't think Bell Canada's customers are just chomping at the bit to get more traffic shaping on their lines, and I don't think they'd be any happier about it with a competitor, even if the prices were lower.
About the only logical application I can see of "competitive reasons" would be, "Oh no! Now our customers know we actually *were* screwing them hard, and now they're leaving for our competitors in droves!"
Do not cry "victory" yet. (Score:3, Insightful)
The Bell Telephone Company of Canada is a very liberal (meaning "associated with the liberal party of Canada", who is not currently in power, but has managed to thoroughly infiltrate and subvert the federal State apparatus, up to and including the Supreme Court of Canada) company.
As such, it just has won a case before the Supreme Court of Canada [wikipedia.org], despite that Bell's case flies in the fact of Canadian law and jurisprudence.
The CRTC board is also throroughly liberal.
So it will not be suprising that the CRTC will eventually rules in favour of Bell, and it will probably because it will face pressure from liberals.
Re: (Score:2)
Here in the good ole US it is Bell/Att who tells the courts what to do, not the other way around.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To be fair though the takeover deal WAS approved by the shareholders. The lower court decision blocking the sale was brought forward by bond/debt holders who argued that the sale would have a negative effect on their holdings.
The supreme court found that while it was likely that these groups would be adversely affected there was no precedent to block the sale.
Essentially saying, "If you're not a shareholder, tough luck".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please remove your tinfoil hat - there is no conspiracy here.
It is the nature of regulated monopolies to try and co-opt their regulatory agency. From their perspective, it would be bad business (and bad for shareholders) not to. There is simply too much at stake.
Corporations also bribe^H^H^H^H^Hdonate money to politi
Bandwidth versus latency... (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost everyone I know that isn't a geek cares about one thing when it comes to the Internet: speed. But the non-geeks don't understand that speed is not about how fast things download always, but sometimes about how fast things appear. It's the bandwidth versus latency issue.
I've come to discover in my 21 years of being "online" that even with geeks, low latency is more important than high speed most of the time. I ran a large multinode BBS, and the most important reason for having a faster modem was not to download files quicker. It was so that the site would appear quicker: the message forums, the BBS doors (online games), the chat area, etc.
Today, when I see people complain about the speed of their Internet, it's always a latency issue. Maybe some spyware swapped DNS servers, maybe they're using an antiquated dial-up; whatever the case, latency is more important to the vast majority of users than bandwidth. This is why traffic shaping is so important, and also why keeping it private is also important. The moment that the few geeks who demand maximum bandwidth find a way around traffic shaping, those who demand low latency will suffer. For the huge majority of Internet users, if their downloads are 200kbps or 2000kbps, they don't care. While they're downloading, they're surfing, and they want that web site to pop up on the screen instantly or quicker.
We have to look at the real problem here: the lack of competition. Even if there are two or three competitors in a market, there is still room for more. When you realize that the lack fo competition is due to the stifling of local, state and Federal government regulations, you'll find the true culprit for what ails you: too many regulations preventing competition from bringing to the market what you want at a price you're willing to pay. Get rid of government strangeholds and the Internet will blossom further. This article tells me things will get worse as those who promise to protect you will only find new ways to collect their paychecks in the form of political contributions.
Re:Bandwidth versus latency... (Score:5, Insightful)
"hey, if you want to download from bit torrent at more than 2k/sec, pay us more money."
or
"We want you to use our search engine, not google, so we're going to make your ping to google's site 100 times longer than normal. See how slow google is? Must be their fault. Use our fast service.
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Re: (Score:2)
No, that's not a problem at all, if open competition is allowed in that market. In many cases, if not most cases, competition is prevented due to local, state and Federal regulations and restrictions. It isn't the last mile problem, it's the subsidization problem.
If someone tells me "You'll get 200mb/s on our connection*," I'll read the terms of service. It'll usually tell the whole story. If someone tells me I get free nights and weekends to make calls, I'll read the terms of service. If someone tells
Re: (Score:2)
The big problem people have with it isn't that it is a mis-print in the contract, but the fact that it is wholesale advertising fraud. If you go take out a magazine ad and say "Our refrigerators are 10$ each, all day saturday at bob's homewares." And then,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Monopolies, the "natural monopolies" can also be necessary. What if your city has a new company that also wants to do waste management. Are you going to let them dig another sewer system under your city? What if power companies didn't have to share power lines, want 4 or 5 different power poles on each corner?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF are you talking about? You want 10x redundant infrastructure so you can get access from 10 internet access suppliers? That is *nuts*.
Government mandated last-mile access for 3rd party ISPs is vitally needed everywhere. This is *exactly* what is happening in Bell's case - 3rd parties have access to the last-mile. Then their customers are throttled as well as Bell's. This is the problem. If Bell only throttled their own customers, CRTC wouldn't even get involved.
The shit is flying because of government *m
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the third party is paying for bandwidth on Bells network (other than the last mile) shouldn't they receive that bandwidth without any filtering by Bell?
If they are selling X bandwidth and they throttling it back that would seem to be a breach of contract with the third party ISPs.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
dada21: Which local, state, and federal regulations, specifically, are regstricting competition?
I know capitalists love the free market, and thus blame everything on government, but without citing anything, i'm not sure that i believe you.
Additionally, in Canada there are provinces, not states.
But please, enlighten us about these regulations.
Re: (Score:2)
But when the terms say "subject to change at our whim, without even notifying you", as 99% of ISP contracts do, it's a guessing game as to which are crap, and which do what they advertise. It's one thing choosing one ISP over another, quite another to switch to a new provider once you already have a connection (for me at least - it would mean a new cable coming into my house, and a new hole in the wall)
For those who can't read between the lines about this lazy and irresponsible Anonymous Coward, let me brea
Re:Bandwidth versus latency... (Score:5, Informative)
Wha, wha, wha, WHAT?
1 - "Geeks" do work around "latency" issues -- I have been doing so since the dialup era. I run my own DNS server for this reason, and use nscd on local machines. I use SquidProxy.
2 - I don't work around traffic shaping. But a packet is just a packet. What the fuck does the ISP think it is doing when (re)prioritizing my packets? I guess I simply don't deserve ANY priority, right?
3 - You didn't address your argument for keeping shaping private. Explain WHY it should be private. I will gladly add quality of service requests to my packets -- IF THE SHAPING POLICY IS NOT PRIVATE.
4 - "A few geeks demanding maximum bandwidth". Sure, why not? What does Bell DSL advertise?
Let me give you a hint:
http://www.bellvideostore.ca/help/ [bellvideostore.ca]
This is Bells "download video" service.
"Technical Specifications:
720x480 maximum resolution, 30 fps, 1,500-2,200 kbps average bit rate. These videos will play on all 4th and higher generation Archos portable media players. THESE VIDEOS WILL NOT PLAY ON MOST PORTABLE VIDEO PLAYERS AND ARE NOT IPOD COMPATIBLE."
http://www.bell.ca/support/PrsCSrvGnl_mover_offers.page?region=ON&language=en&EXT=PDL2_SA_MOVE_2008Q2_AR_EN_ON_Google_bell%20dsl&s_kwcid=bell%20dsl [www.bell.ca]|1920763120
"If you're moving, now's the perfect time to move up and into a Bell Better HomeTM: ...
* The most powerful Internet"
Of course Bell (the ISP) offers a music store in addition to the video store:
http://musicstore.sympatico.msn.ca/help_en/index.html [sympatico.msn.ca]
Conflict of interest? No, they really need to shape traffic to keep up with that audio and video goodness.
Let's see how Bell advertises the service for new buyers (note the lack of fine print):
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpInt_NewAccess.page?userType=NEW [www.bell.ca]
"Total Internet Performance
Download high quality music files, stream video,or play games.
Best price
in a bundle$42.95/mo.
Bonus: Get 2 months free
Regular price: $47.95/mo. *"
(editors comment - the * footnote is NOT on this page, I have no idea what it means)
And my personal favorite:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ArpmbnxIQIQ [youtube.com]
This ad aired until fairly recently.
So this ISP does bandwidth shaping -- why? Aren't they selling Total Internet Performance, the Bell Better Home (tm), Audio downloads and Video (even streaming) at near HD quality?
A FEW GEEKS DEMANDING MAXIMUM BANDWIDTH??? Hell, I would like to see the beavers deliver a fraction of the promises. And let's not get into "never shared, never slow" crap they advertised.
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Re:Bandwidth versus latency... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is also *VERY* common for people do to the following,
1. start bittorent of something
2. notice latency goes through the roof and bandwidth to drop to nothing
or
1. start uploading some large file
2. notice they can't use the Intertubes anymore as latency is superhigh, bandwidth at 5% what it should be
Then they scream at the ISP for throttling them. The ISP says they do not throttle. Who is right? In many cases, it is the ISP. Customers max out their upload bandwidth then the ACK packets for TCP connections are stuck. This causes TCP to slow down to a crawl. You can easily reduce your 2M/400k connection down to 50k/400k or even worse.
Or people scream about latency when DNS servers are slow.
Cable tends to be less of a problem in this respect than DSL. But both can be hammered by user's lack of understanding of this stuff.
Now, in Bell's case, this is not the issue as they are throttling 3rd party providers over their own lines.
What? Are you on crack or something? Government mandated line sharing is exactly what is needed for competition to occur! If that did not happen, you would have exactly a choice between 2 broadband providers,
1. Bell
2. Cable company
Because of *government mandated* rules, Bell had to sell last mile access at same price as they would sell themselves. This is what allowed competition to flourish.
Government mandated line sharing, government mandated rules regarding net neutrality is exactly what is needed.
The rules make sure that competition has a chance.
A lot of government regulations are vitally needed for Internet and other areas,
1. to address net neutrality
2. to address access to last mile
3. environmental rules for developments of any kind
4. guess what would happen if there was no airline regulations for maintenance of their planes? or enforced rules of the road?
If there are no rules, you'd get tiered internet with pocket spying without ability to get a better provider than the 2 you can get locally.
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Are there any examples of competition solving this (Score:3, Insightful)
sort of problem?
Because I see a couple of problems with competition:
1) Competition, to function properly, requires that consumers be basically pretty well informed. If I start talking to say, my mother or my girlfriend's parents about shaping and throttling and ping times, well, I might as well just be making up words that as far as they knew, I just made up. Competition falls apart with uninformed consumers.
2) "The market for lemons" argument. There's a wikipedia for it, or just google for it, but basicall
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry but this is just a farce, there is NO gaurantee what-so-ever, that 'competition' will even appear. The barriers to entry are quite large enough now and that's why we don't see that many competitors. This market fundemntalist idea that 'things will just happen' is quite alarming, try to make a competitor to intel for instance 'just out of the blue', the experience needed and infrastructure takes a lot of capital and energy.
It's not a farce. In my own town, there were 3 attempts to provide local, w
No doubt... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No doubt... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are exactly right, and I've written about this problem in North America before. We, as consumers, have reason to believe that truth in advertising is how things are supposed to be. If the cable/telco companies had to include the warnings that drug manufacturers do, the fine print on a broadband contract would grow by several pages. Then we'd invoke clear/simple advertising laws.
The only reason that they can claim competitive reasons for not revealing information is because they are at capacity. They are selling consumers contracts that they can't possibly provide service on.
To my knowledge, not one ISP has physically demonstrated the need for shaping, nor shown in actual use how it works for them. File sharers do not use all the bandwidth they purchased and even if they did, they paid for it.
I don't know how many more court cases it will take, but someone needs to hold their feet to the fire about what they sell, and what they provide, and the dichotomy that creates. Bait and switch laws, lemon laws, and the ideology behind them should apply here. Either you are selling 3Mbit/s or you are selling a Maximum of 3Mbit/s with the following 4 pages of restrictions on protocols, application usage, time of day/week restrictions, and outright bans on some protocols/applications.
The courts need to clear that up.
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That's not competition.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sigh.
Bell knows that if people see what it is doing, with no valid reasons, that they will go to the competition. I used to be with Bell with internet, but went to another ISP after their "unlimited" placed a cap on my download limit.
Unfortunately, all the ISP now in my area have caps now, but at least you can choose what you need from mine. I can pay for fast speed with a low cap, or a high cap based on my needs. Bell never gave that choice. It was "Next month, you are going the have a limit, and we will charge you for every gig you go over. Plus you will be penalized if you cancel any contracts."
When they told me they would charge me for a canceling my Internet contract, I told them if they try, I would cancel my phone as well. They waived the fee.
Vote with your wallet! Truer words were never spoken or typed.
Now if I can just get cheaper and better phone provider....
Re:That's not competition.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, now tell me of an ISP that doesn't either packet-shape, throttle or anything else for a cheap connection, that is fast. Oh and it needs to be in rural areas where right now only AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner are now. If you find one, then I will switch. Until then, the ISPs have a virtual monopoly where I live.
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Re:That's not competition.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Bell doesn't want anyone to know just how much money they've been siphoning off that should have been spent on infrastructure upgrades to avoid the current congestion in the first place.
Justification? (Score:2, Insightful)
I`ve said it before. (Score:5, Informative)
His facebook privacy group has swelled to over 65 000 individuals since it's creation. This included with the efforts of other canadian organizations (www.copyrightforcanadians.ca) has really brought this issue to the forefront of canadian politics. Net neutrality wasn`t even a whisper a few months ago, now it`s being talked about around the water cooler at work. So let me be one of the first to say it: Thank you Bell Canada. Thank you for being that large corporation which believes it has a right to do whatever it wants to it`s customers. You`ve helped out net neutrality in Canada more than you could of imagined.
I can`t wait to see just how clogged their resources are. I hope someone is able to cut through the legalese to give us a nice idea of how their equipment and service is really running.
Aahhhhhhhh... that's better! Thanks! (Score:3, Funny)
Laughable. (Score:5, Insightful)
The excuse to not release it for "competitive" reasons is laughable.
A) The ONLY competition that exists is the OTHER mega telecommunications conglomerate Rogers Communictions/Shaw/Cogeco/Etc... Who also use the exact same practices.
B) ALL the other independent ISPs it was pointed out sometime ago, use either Bell's or Rogers's lines, and thus are traffic shaping also if they know it or not.
C) The only reason they don't want to release is this isn't mainstream news yet. Your average Joe doesn't know what the heck traffic shaping is. However when journalists start looking it up to report on it, thats a lot more negative press, and frankly people are getting pretty sick and tired of the communication duopoly. They might also remind people about reports of bandwidth capping, or that how they hardly ever really provide the speed that they advertise. They lie, cheat, steal, annoy, mismanage, and impose fictional means and limited options to ensure profit. Heck you ever wonder why Bell Canada doesn't offer Dry DSL? Gee could it be because they are a PHONE company, and you don't need a active phone line to use it. Its all about selling packages, and convergence. I think it is time Canada took a SERIOUS look at our telecommunications situation, and what is being done around the world. If we want to be competitive into the future, leaving it in the hands of these asshats probably isn't a very good idea.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, they do offer dry loop DSL with sympatico. You just have to ask for it, and it's free (most of the resellers have to charge ~$10 for it).
Additionally, there is no reason for Bell to throttle reseller's connections (beyond anti-competitive reasons). It should be up to the reseller to manage their own network. That is the basis of the current CTRC complaint.
I agree with the rest of your comment though. Bell should be allowed to provide either the ISP/phone connections, or media content, not both.
Way to go CRTC! (Score:4, Insightful)
While I am at it, a hearty "Here Here!" to the CRTC who are doing their job as oversight of the industry. I only hope they follow through with Rogers Communications as well, and when it is all out in the open they actual make some sort of decision with teeth.
Quit pissing about. The #1 question is are these companies working in Canadians best interest? If the answer is no, then something MUST be done about it.
For all your radical capitalists out there that will immediately point out that these are publicly traded companies, and that they ultimately report to the shareholders. I will preemptively smash your argument saying in this case their is a 3 way conflict in that 1) the infrastructure is subsidized by tax dollars, 2) is a government regulated industry, and 3) today telecommunication s are vital and important role of any country's security and growth.
Law should be to disclose (Score:5, Insightful)
So let's end this confidentiality and pass legislation to force all Canadian isp's to provide the full set of specs. It seems to me that just like buying other equipment or services. The specifications should be displayed and cannot be misrepresented. Just like buying a TV or other elctronic device I want to see the specs so I may make an informed choice. There is no myterious technology here. It is just like any other consumer device.
I want Full Disclosure. I want to see exactly what my purchase is capable of and what I will recieve right on the label, so to speak. I want it just like any other product legislation in Canada. Why are only the internet providers allowed to pull this type of scam? Car company's are not allowed to misrepresent the engine displacement, nor can stereo amplifier companies misrepresent peak or continuous power output or even try to confuse the consumer. They must state what they are selling truthfully and according to standard measurement methods. If they tried to pull this type of scam, they would be paying huge fines.
The consumers should at least have the information available and choose to read it or not. Just like other product labelling in this country. If people don't want to think or let their friend pick for them, then fine, But get it out there for all to see.
My two cents... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:excuse me? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Free Market" argument doesn't apply here. Bell has been subsidized by the government for the better part of a century, and given guaranteed monopolies in various areas (not to mention the fact that their lines are on public land). Bell does not operate in a free market, and never has.
On top of that, the "Free Market" doesn't work when the consumer is lied to and deliberately misled (there is nothing about traffic shaping in Bell's TOS, or in their contracts with the resellers).
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