Bell Canada Throttles Wholesalers Without Notice

knorthern knight writes "The Canadian family-run ISP Teksavvy (which is popular among Canadian P2P users precisely because it does not throttle P2P) has started noticing that Bell Canada is throttling traffic before it reaches wholesale partners. According to Teksavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault, Bell has implemented 'load balancing' to 'manage bandwidth demand' during peak congestion times — but apparently didn't feel the need to inform partner ISPs or customers. The result is a bevy of annoyed customers and carriers across the great white north."

Just before everyone gets excited....

[kaos07]

This isn't specifically throttling p2p traffic. It's using a proxy load balancing system to spread the load during peak hours which may lead to congestion. ISP's all over the world do it, in Australia the 2nd and 3rd biggest ISP's - Optus and TPG both implement transparent proxies for load balancing.

Obviously doing it before the traffic reaches wholesalers is a tad unethical, and I'm not condoning it, but the issue shouldn't be confused with specifically targeting p2p traffic.

However in this case...

[Digestromath]

In the case of a highway. A retailing company is leasing 2 roads, that go from A to B, from a wholesaler. One would imagine it would then sustain the approriate traffic a 2 lane road would during all times of the day. In fact the retailer makes this a selling point.

However in this case, the road doesn't terminate at B, it goes on to C (and so forth). The wholesaler also controls the flow of traffic from B to C (even if the distance is arbitrary or non-existant). Thus the wholesaler in this case is forcing the retailers two roadways to merge in one single lane during peak times.

This isn't about the end users clogging up the highways. This is about the unscrupulous merge sign put up during 'peak' times. The idea is the retailer leased two roadways, and they damn well want to use them. If there are too many cars creating a traffic jam, its up to the retailer to decide who gets to use the carpool lane etc.

The answer is always the same

[javilon]

Encrypt all traffic. Kill deep packet inspection. What business do they have with the contents of your communications?

Re:What I do not understand...

[jamesh]

It depends how the reselling is implemented. An ISP in Australia could be an AAPT, Optus, or Telstra reseller, which means the wholesaler manages just about everything and the reseller puts their logo on the service and (maybe) handles first line support, and possible does some value adding or something.

Alternatively, the ISP may buy bandwidth from their upstream wholesaler, and manage their own DSLAM's, authentication, etc.

As you say, too many unanswered questions to form an informed opinion. That doesn't seem to stop anyone around these parts though :)

Contact your ISP

[earthforce_1]

And let them know you notice, and request that they complain to Bell. I wonder if it is even legal, since they have already paid for the bandwidth.

Re:However in this case...

[n3tcat]

Go nort^H^H^H^Hsou^H^H^H^H^H^H Get clue. > There is no clue here.

The problem is overselling

[elrous0]

The problem isn't a company that wants to harass P2P users here (though that could potentially be a problem with many ISP's in the future, particularly Comcast and other ISP's who could be bought off with Hollywood cash), the problem are companies like Bell, AT&T, etc. who have oversold bandwidth while not building up their infrastructure to match. In other words, they've sat on their asses and not build up their networks and backbones the way they should have been doing, all while continuing to promise "unlimited" bandwidth--and now they're mouths are writing checks their asses can't cash.

Re:Really?

[electrictroy]

All my other utilities have tired/metered service - electricity, water, even the phone (10 cents per call). Why should the internet utility be the sole exception? I suggest the following solution:

- $15 a month for economy service (~50 gigs limit)
- $30 a month for standard service (~200 gigs limit)
- $45 a month for premium service (~500 gigs limit)
- $100 a month for unlimited

That's a similar structure to how electricity, water, and phone utilities are priced for consumers (albeit with differing dollar amounts). And yes I think that's entirely fair. The more you download, the more you should pay, because you are hogging more bandwidth than I am.

And the internet utility can take the extra dollars and use them to buy new servers and lay additional cable to support their high-demand customers, rather than block access to P2P or Itunes.com.

The Censorship Tag

[kellyb9]

Mod me offtopic if you want, I think its funny that every article that comes across has the "censorship" tag. This, again, really isn't censorship. They're not censoring anything from you. They are not saying you can't look at something. They are just prioritizing their traffic. Again, not saying they are right in doing so, but its not censorship.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

The more you download, the more you should pay, because you are hogging more bandwidth than I am.

LOL "hogging". If you aren't using the bandwidth, it shouldn't matter if I use it, no?

Tell you what: instead of insulting everyone else, tell the ISP to switch to those terms. The ISP will laugh in your face, since they're making plenty of money as it is, and stand to make far more extorting millionaires like google and amazon and itunes than they'd be able to get out of the end users using your silly plan.

All they have to do is continue to refuse to spend money to upgrade their service, and they can continue to extort more money for less work and/or capital outlay. Capitalism at its finest!

Re:It's not necessarily that easy

[Endlisnis]

Your argument makes sense for some ISPs, but not for this specific situation:
1) Teksavvy supplies it's own bandwidth, and only leases the 'last-mile' connection from Bell Canada.
2) Teksavvy does oversell, but currently keeps up with it's traffic even at peak times.
3) Bell is throttling P2P on Teksavvy's last-mile, even though it has little impact on their ability to provide service to it's own customers.
4) The type of throttling they are doing is interfearing with QoS systems in routers that ensure VoIP works. It is causing reduced quality in VoIP services.
5) Selectively throttling specific protocols is a slippery slope. What's to say that they don't decide that VoIP is the next service that gets eliminated because it competes with their local phone service?

This is a blatant attempt by Bell to remove a competitive advantage from competing ISPs.

Re:Unfortunatly Encryption dosnt work

[Hatta]

You can (and should) sue.

Re:Bell Canada Monopoly/CRTC - Avenues of Recourse

[Endlisnis]

I complained to the CRTC this morning about shaping the traffic they wholesale resell. I agree that Bell should be able to throttle their own customers as much as they like. But the whole point of forcing them to resell their network access was to create competition -- to give us our choice about what ISP offers which features that we like. But now they are throttling their competition. We don't have a choice. Everyone touched by this should be complaining to the CRTC about this.

Re:The Censorship Tag

[Anonymous Coward]

>They are just prioritizing their traffic. Again, not saying they are right in doing so, but its not censorship.

And if you're trying to view a 1 mbits live video stream over your (now) 300 kbits link? That's not censorship? No, that's just "prioritizing traffic".