Canadian ISPs Limiting Access To CBC Shows

An anonymous reader sends word that, even as ISP interference with BitTorrent traffic is easing in the US, the issue is heating up in Canada. Major Canadian ISPs are limiting access to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's shows, made available online using BitTorrent. This issue has burst onto the scene due to smaller ISPs, such as Teksavvy, blowing the whistle on the fact that Bell was expanding its traffic-shaping policies to smaller ISPs that rent Bell's network. These events have sparked a formal complaint by the National Union of Public and General Employees, which represents more than 340,000 workers across Canada, to the regulatory body, CRTC, and calls for change in Parliament.

I forsee the CRTC's response...

The CRTC's response will probably be similar to the one I received when I tried to file complaint against the grossly incompetent & abusive TELUS: "The CRTC does not regulate the business practices for Internet Service Providers." The CRTC is absolutely steadfast in their position.

The only body willing to oversee Internet issues is the CCTS or "Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services." This entity is completely funded by the telecom industry. If you need help, they're utterly useless and will basically tell you to take a hike.

Re:I forsee the CRTC's response...

I doubt it will be that easy for the CRTC this time. Wholesale [bcenexxia.com] GAS service is covered by a CRTC tariff, tariff 5410 [www.bce.ca]. Nowhere in that tariff does Nexxia have the right to throttle traffic. Nexxia is claiming it is under Section 8 - Restriction on use of service of the general tariff that covers abuse of the phone system causing disruptions in service (specifically section 8.3, check your white pages, "Customers are prohibited from using Bell Canada services or permitting them to be used so as to prevent a fair and proportionate use by others."). That rule is clearly intended to cover only landlines, and even if it did cover anything else, other traffic has been working fine on most all access points where the throttling is occurring, negating the use of this rule.

Can't wait to see what the lawyers do about this...

Re:I forsee the CRTC's response...

I received the exact same response when Rogers tried to screw me over. I receive my phone service from Sprint Canada and my DSL from Storm Internet, a Bell wholesaler. When Rogers bought Sprint, they switched me to Rogers Digital Home Phone, and they assured me that my DSL would not be affected. They lied and my DSL stopped working, so I asked to be reverted to analogue phone service. They flat out refused, saying all they can do for me is switch me to Rogers Highspeed. I argued with them over the phone and by email for over a week, and they kept saying that I can no longer have DSL in my apartment. I complained to the CRTC and got the "we don't regulate ISPs" BS response. I considered complaining to the CCTS, but look at the process involved: ccts-cprst.ca [ccts-cprst.ca]. It can take 60 days for anything to happen!
I ended up getting my DSL restored by converting to dryloop DSL.

That was a month ago. Now this week my connection started getting throttled. It's ridiculous and you can't win. If you choose Rogers, you get screwed. Use Bell's service, you get screwed. Switch to a small local ISP, and Bell still manages to find a way to screw you.

Just an expansion of an existing program

It's not just CBC news, but all bit-torrent that's been throttled by all the Large ISPs in Canada for a while now. The CRTC/Gov forced them to open up access so that smaller ISPs could resell bandwidth. Now, those same ISPs which charge less $$ than the big players, have had their bit-torrent throttled.

Note: this only affects ISPs which resell bandwidth. Those with their own equipment can still circumvent this.

Parent incorrect

>Note: this only affects ISPs which resell bandwidth. Those with their own equipment can still circumvent this.

Bell is throttling the connection path to the DSLAM. Unless your ISP has a connection directly to your house, you are still affected. Next time read the facts first.

Mod parent up

The parent is correct. These people are not resellers of bandwidth, they are wholesalers. They have their own infrastructure, except they have to lease the last mile from Bell.

Re:Just an expansion of an existing program

Note: this only affects ISPs which resell bandwidth. Those with their own equipment can still circumvent this.

That's not exactly correct. CRTC forced Bell to open up access to the last mile. Some ISPs (like Teksavvy) have their own network equipments and bandwidth not from Bell, they only rent the last mile from Bell. Bell is actually messing with the data in the last mile.

relevant bit

.."Experts also say there is plenty of capacity left on the networks -- a fact Bell admits to -- so the traffic-shaping is being done merely to interfere with internet applications the companies see as threats to their own businesses."..and there's the rub. There needs to be a clear business separation between bandwith providers and content providers, then there won't be as much inclination for the bandwith providers to engage in net data bits manipulation mischief.

Defeating traffic shaping, at least poltically.

I was discussing strategies to overcome ISP traffic shaping with a colleague, at least politically or on a public relations level, and it occurred to me that one way to give ISPs a black eye over the issue would be to obfuscate otherwise legitimate traffic as file sharing traffic, such as peer to peer gaming. When such legitimate traffic gets snared in the traffic shaping net, we could point out that it's the evil ISPs that are blocking grandma's card game with her friends.

Someone with greater expertise in this matter could point out the flaws in my brilliant plan.

Re:

You'd have to convince game makers and other legitimate coders to purposely make a program they know wont work in many places. While i'm sure alot of coders are strongly for net-neutrality I think you would be hard pressed to find one that would break thei

They're our shows anyway

Pardon me. But Canadian taxes pay for the bloody CBC and all their programming. Therefore in the broad sense the bloody shows belong to Canadian tax payers. I mean, I don't particularly take pride in claiming ownership of DNTO or Little Mosque on the Prarie... But still.

Re:They're our shows anyway

The CBC actually has a mandate to deliver the shows in the most relevant way for the public to get them. It's the same way a lot of their content is offered on podcast [www.cbc.ca]. It's the way that people want to listen to the radio, so they get it that way. In the same way, people want to be able to download TV shows using bittorrent, so they are trying to see how well it works. Limiting access to the CBC distributed shows is probably illegal in qutie a few ways.

Censorship? How?

How is throttling bandwidth remotely considered censorship? If you still get your data, it wasn't censored. Sure it might be breach of contract, and down right irritating, but its not censorship since no information was actually detained in the process.

( of course there is still the problem that a private company cant censor if you go by its true definition, but i wont start that debate up )

Re:Censorship? How?

And again, as before, I answer:

You want to watch a live 1 mbit video feed. Your access is 5 mbits, but the throttle makes the maximum usable speed 300kbits.

The live video feed is effectively censored, since you can't watch it, even though you have a fast enough connection.

The same way your mail would be "censored" if the post office screwed a 1/8" slot over your mailbox. Anything bigger than that (newspapers) won't go in the box. And no, removing the slot is not possible. And the mailman isn't allowed to open the box to put in the mail. And you aren't allowed to buy a bigger slot, but you are welcome to buy a box the size of your garage if you'd like, but the 1/8" slot will still be installed.

About Time This Came Out. . .

While Comcast hogged most of the publicity in the past regarding throttled P2P traffic, almost all Canadian ISPs [azureuswiki.com] limit P2P traffic in one way or another.

Re:About Time This Came Out. . .

that is far from "almost all". competition is generally alive and well, as the CLECs are required to lease out lines.

http://canadianisp.com/ [canadianisp.com] has a rather extensive listing of the little guys.

To quote the article:

Bell spokesman Jason Laszlo on Friday reiterated the company's position --that it was shaping traffic in order to prevent a small portion of bandwidth hogs from slowing speeds down for all customers.

He said there has been no backlash from customers, despite the incidents of the past week.

I call bullshit. I used to work for Sympatico's technical support so I KNOW. If a customer complained about traffic shaping, no matter how savvy they are and how much evidence they presented, we would have just told them bit torrent is not supported. Regardless of the fact that the problem has nothing to do with bit torrent, that's where the blame would go. If we escalated something like this we would get written up for it. There is no backlash because management ensures they won't hear any backlash.

Re:This is bigger than comcast

It seems rather convenient that Bell, who own a shit load of TV stations across the country, happen to be messing with CBC, their competition...

I can only speak for my ISP in Canada (Shaw). They throttle Bit Torrent on the default ports it would appear, but not on any other ports. (This is based on my own informal speed tests.)

Nice to see people standing up, but the fact remains that nothing will happen. The CRTC won't do a damn thing. They are the lapdogs of the industry and no more than whores.

Re:This is bigger than comcast

re: "I can only speak for my ISP in Canada (Shaw). They throttle Bit Torrent on the default ports it would appear, but not on any other ports."

I'm with Rogers since they took over @Home's market when it went bust. The throttling is ridiculous but only on the upstream, which now varies between 1-10KBytes/sec. All ports are affected and encryption doesn't help. It did for a short time, but they caught on and started throttling all encrypted traffic which caused work-at-home business users on VPN's to go ballistic.

Re:

Actually, I'm with Rogers as well, and where I am (downtown Toronto) I've noticed no problem with encrypted traffic. So it seems that the degree to which they throttle traffic varies from region to region.

Re:

I'm wondering if it's a regional thing. I've heard folk on Shaw say they're screwed whatever they do. Others there's no problem, even on the default port.

Upstream throttling is murder if you're on any ratio sites. Yet another reason ratio sites suck. (Thou

Re:

I can only speak for my ISP in Canada (Shaw). They throttle Bit Torrent on the default ports it would appear, but not on any other ports. (This is based on my own informal speed tests.)

Actually, no. Shaw uses Ellacoya units [www.shaw.ca](warning, PDF) which perform deep

Re:

Shapers operate on a white list. Any traffic not recognised is throttled by default.

Re:Ever since they cancelled 'Intelligence'..

At least they make an effort, CTV doesn't (Corner Gas excepted). However, I wouldn't mind CSI: Winnipeg. I want to see David Caruso's sunglasses FROZEN TO HIS FACE!

Re:Gotta change the system

Actually in this case you're a bit behind, Canada does have a system for letting small independent ISPs setup with low cost exactly so there is competition in the marketplace. The big players are required to wholesale their last mile at government regulated prices. There are independent ISPs that oppose traffic shaping, TekSavvy is one of them, the problem here is that the big players are throttling in the last mile so that independent ISPs have throttling like it or not. TekSavvy plans to fight this one to the end, but right now they're throttled by Bell. What Bell is doing is likely illegal, but they don't give a crap, TekSavvy has been stealing Bell's customers since Bell started throttling their own customers. Bell didn't like that so they decided they would take TekSavvy's competitive advantage away.