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Bell Canada Launches Its Own Online Video Store
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri May 23, 2008 12:00 AM
from the pay-no-attention-to-the-isp-behind-the-curtain dept.
from the pay-no-attention-to-the-isp-behind-the-curtain dept.
rsax writes "Bell Canada recently announced that it is launching a downloadable video store just as it is caught up in a government inquiry into its traffic-shaping practices. Some consider this a conflict of interest since several content providers were in the process of distributing TV shows using P2P technology before the Bell throttling issue started getting media coverage. Bell's FAQ states that it is not available for Mac users right now (and not Linux either of course) because they are using Windows Media DRM. They do, however, invite feedback on their site."
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Bell Canada Throttles Wholesalers Without Notice 239 comments
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."
[+]
Technology: Bell Canada Official Speaks Out On Throttling 207 comments
westcoaster004 brings to our attention an interview with Mirko Bibic, head of regulatory affairs for Bell Canada, discussing the ISP's traffic-shaping practices. This follows news we discussed recently that a class action lawsuit was filed against Bell for their involvement in traffic shaping. Bibic reiterates that internet congestion is a real problem and claims that the throttling had nothing to do with Bell's new video service. CBC News quotes him saying:
"If no measures were taken, then 700,000 customers would have been affected by congestions during peak periods. We want to obviously take steps to make sure that doesn't happen. So this network management is, as we've stated, one of the ways to address the issue of congestion during peak periods. At the end of the day, the wholesale ISPs are our customers and we generate revenue [from them], so we want to make sure we're serving them to the best of our ability as well."
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can traffic shaping be proved in court? (Score:5, Interesting)
they will probably allege the slow download is because of net traffic, spam, etc.
transparent bridges for traffic shaping are very hard to detect
Re:can traffic shaping be proved in court? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Use this: (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:can traffic shaping be proved in court? (Score:5, Informative)
http://luxik.cdi.cz/~devik/qos/htb/ [luxik.cdi.cz]
Parent
Re:can traffic shaping be proved in court? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:can traffic shaping be proved in court? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Conflict of interest... (Score:5, Funny)
It's clear why they shape P2P traffic: (Score:3, Insightful)
*collective duuuuuuuhhhhh*
Two issues with Bell Canada (Score:3, Interesting)
A Future Dismal Failure... (Score:5, Insightful)
They only carry 2 movies though, (Score:5, Funny)
this can't be legal? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's gotta be covered under some anticompetitive law somewhere? "We're going to start selling you a product, while at the same time sabotaging our competition's product, to make sure you buy ours instead."
And the puzzle is solved... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let's start our own... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to attend the rally, see http://www.netneutralityrally.ca/ [netneutralityrally.ca] .
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But if I remember correctly, Comcast or some other big ISP was enforcing their throttling on smaller ISP's traffic because they were the ones ultimately carrying it; the smaller ISPs were just detailers for the big one.
Do we have the problem here? Also, is there an equivalent of TekSavvy in the US?
Re:Let's start our own... (Score:5, Informative)
As for their US equivalent, you may want to see my above post: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=561862&cid=23514422 [slashdot.org] . Basically they're considering expanding to the US, let them know you want it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That takes care of the competition.
See Ottawa Gal's article on the present situation as she has researched it at Bell in this article [p2pnet.net]. It covers portions of the Acceptible Use Policy employed by Bell-Sympatico, including a letter of abuse, and some other outrageous information.
One real recourse against Bell. (Score:5, Informative)
Teksavvy is in the lead for customer service and standing up to Bell, but it does little good, unless they win, because all DSL sucks now that Bell is throttling the last mile for everyone. (BT runs at about 20kB/s during waking hours, but full bandwidth is there for web and presumably Bells competing services).
I seriously doubt this throttling on the last mile of the competition is necessary, but once Bell throttled it's own customers (more likely to contain back end internet bandwidth than last mile bandwidth) it was losing them to the competition, so they throttled the competition.
The particularly heinous parts of this, is that the small DSL player pay $20/month to Bell for the last mile connnection, a last mile monopoly of twisted pair that was largely granted by Canadian citizens.
Bell is largely attempting to eliminate the competition.Users seemingly have little recourse, but we have one.
Bell is pervasive, you might not even be able to complain about DSL if they aren't your provider, but Bells pervasiveness is their weakness as well as strength.
Cancel your DSL and move to Cable. Tell your provider why. This will deny bell revenues and may give small players ammunition in their legal action against Bell. True the Cable side of the duopoly are no angels either but the throttling is no near as restrictive, and it cuts off any revenue to Bell.
Cancel any Bell long distance plans.
Cancel you landline and switch to Voip.
Cancel your Bell ExpressVu Satellite TV.
Cancel you Bell cell phone (or any provider reseslling the service).
Basically become Bell free, on every cancellation tell them why.
I have started the transition. In a month I will be entirely Bell free! I will no longer feel dirty know my money is funding these monopolistic pigs with hideous service.
Parent
Cable? Are you nuts?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Teksavvy doesn't provide internet over cable. Rogers and Shaw have a tighter grip on their network than Bell has on the phone lines.
Parent
Re:Let's start our own... (Score:4, Informative)
The reason why so many smaller ISPs are in trouble is that they could not invest in their own DSLAMS as Bell has been quick build new cabinets, which are not required to be unbundled.
The exchange connects to cabinets which connects to people's houses. However the law only forces the exchanges to be unbundled (what a nice loophole). Also cabinets will reach much fewer people then exchanges.
On the other hand, a link between a cabinet and an exchange can be fiber, while between the cabinet and the customers can still be copper, reducing the reliance on copper.
Unfortunately, fiber can't carry a DSL signal.
Also here in Montreal, the only viable broadband alternative is Videotron (owned by Quebecor) which is the only major Canadian ISP not to fight requests for subscriber's information.
Videotron even stated publicly that they would comply with any request for subscriber info.
You could also ditch Bell and go with a different ISP, at least with that Bell would get less money from you.
I've already canceled 1 phone line and 1 adsl service with a different ISP. Once my Bell ExpressVu contract runs out, that too will go.
Parent
Re:Bell "Support" for Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
The content providers ARE their customers where this service is concerned, we the consuming audience are the product BEll Canada they are selling to the provider.
Parent
drmbg for the win (Score:5, Informative)
Why they would use it when its so trivial to reverse is a puzzler to be sure.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Put it on iTunes or wind up like all the "Plays For Sure" suckers did. Is there a supportable, platform agnostic DRM available for the movie industry?
No there isn't, because FOSS OS users don't want DRM to begin with - which is a noble cause but, of course, also prohibits them from playing nice with The Man until the revolution finally comes. Which is most likely a very negligible loss, but you really shouldn't whine about not being able to watch DRM'd movies on Linux, because it's a feature, not a bug.
Re:Silly DRM trix are for kids (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent