Bell Canada Ordered To Justify Traffic-Shaping Practices 140
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."
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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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.
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"
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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It's not even that.
He's saying "let's give the media companies an unlimited monopoly, enforcable forever, and then the market will sort it out."
He's a complete fucktard.
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It wasn't a personal reply.. I read it in a news story.
I haven't heard a word from him or anyone else directly about C-61.
As long as your in his riding.. Push for someone else to be nominated. Prenctice is too clueless to work as an MP.
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I actually just signed up with Rogers about 3 weeks ago and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Azureus notified me right away that they are suspected of throttling, and turned on encryption for me automatically.
That being said, I can't say I have a problem with Rogers' bandwidth at all. :)
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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I also switched to Teksavvy, great transfer rates and they are great people! But Ma Bell, that cheap mother, now throttles Teksavvy, and if I need to snarf the latest Blue-White Linux (love my Slackware!), between 8 pm and 2 am, I get downloads of about 30 kps, I might as well be using dialup! Hope the CRTC really wrings them out!
ttyl
Farrell
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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
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I find your ideas interesting and would like to subscribe to your assletter.
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I've not noticed any traffic shaping on Rogers, but they did do one thing that annoyed me.
I was surfing on Friday, when all of my pages started coming up with HTML-injected by Rogers warning me that I was at 75% of my capacity for the month (from the 23-22nd).
It pissed me off that they were injecting HTML into my web pages. You can opt out of it permanently with a single mouse click, but it's still annoying.
I apologize for being slightly-off topic, but it is at least related.
Re:Bell Canada is not the only one. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most people don't give their ISP their real email address, and don't use the one provided to them by their ISP.
You don't know most people, then. Seriously, outside of the "geek" subculture, the vast majority of people (in my admittedly totally anecdotal experience) seem to be completely unaware of stuff that is not set up for them by their ISP, or didn't care at the time. For example, I coach my daughter's soccer team, and I do most of my communication over email. There are twelve families on my list: fully ten of them use "sympatico.ca" or "rogers.com" email addresses.
I've explained to dozens of people why an I
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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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I received a notice from Rogers about paying extra for bandwidth usage above 60G. Since then, I've had monthly usage of 55-58G/month (was around 25-30G before I received the notice). If they're going to cap me, I'm going to make use of it.
Just my way of sticking it back at them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Wow! Thanks for the info! I'll be canceling my service with Bell very soon and signing up with Teksavvy. Just looking at the info for their highspeed internet is mind boggling. It completely illustrates how crooked those vampires at Bell are. Bell doesn't even offer unlimited bandwidth with any of their packages!
I'm having an epiphany! I've been fooled all these years! DAMN YOU!! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!! (I mean Bell)
Again, thanks for the info.
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I've been with TekSavvy for about 8 months now and I've never had better service and support. Any time I've had questions they're handled promptly and professionally and their phone support people actually know what they're talking about (what a concept).
Prior to joining TekSavvy I switched my cell phone to a new provider and two months a go I switched my land line to an IP phone. After having my land line, cell phone and internet with Bell they now have none of my business and I have an extra $40 a month
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Get your paws of my checkbook, you damn dirty ape!
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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.
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That's what has been happening. Bell has been bleeding customers to the competition (Teksavy, et all), and Bell is now deciding to throttle those guys (Bell owns the lines, etc. and they're required to lease them out at a fixed fee.), which is what is causing a major stink.
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!"
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You fail!
Chomping at the Bit [urbandictionary.com]
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.
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Here in the good ole US it is Bell/Att who tells the courts what to do, not the other way around.
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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".
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Huh? I clicked through to the link, but didn't read anything that would suggest the decision was political. What I read was that the Supreme Court wasn't convinced:
"BCE failed to adequately considered the effect on its bondholders of its sale"
As a Canadian if I'm irritated by anything it's that court time is being wasted on this sort of case. Bonds are risk-bearing instruments and if BCE bondholders are worried about losing money they should simply sell their bonds on the open market and invest elsewhere
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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.
What the hell? The Quebec Court of Appeals ruling was a major odd point, and was overturned for the exact reason that the considerations bondholders is not and should not a major concern for the board of directors. The QCA decision was the abnormal conclusion; not the others.
What "flies in the face of Canadian law and jurisprudence" is in fact the idea that debenture holders -- who pretty much by definition have no say in how the company is run -- should somehow be entitled to have a say in the way a compa
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Exactly.
There is no basis for calling this supreme court decision political.
The Quebec court of appeals ruling was out of line and did not make any sense.
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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
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Vote Bloc.
I'm a childhood friend of my own Bloc MP, and he tells me that many people outside of Québec would want them to run elsewhere in Canada, because they do such a good job...
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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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
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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,
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Also, your BS about "last mile problems" is completely wrong. There is no way the government will let people install two, three, four different cable connections to the same house. And in most cases, the ISPs have monopolies, or near monopolies anyway.
1. The government should have no say about what I do on my property as long as I don't pollute onto my neighbor's land (noise, chemicals, etc).
2. Monopolies are created by government regulations. In an open market free of most regulations, competition can co
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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?
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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
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You don't actually need the 10x redundancy. If the easements rights are offered to all comers (with a few restrictions to to keep your neighbor from starting a fake ISP to justify digging up your lawn), the threat of competition should be enough for the companies to hover around market prices.
The key is to lower barriers-to-entry for new companies to jump in and take advantage of monopolies' tendency toward inefficient pricing. But the idea is to do it with as little government regulation and spending as
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He still wouldn't have it. He cannot have 10x the redundant infrastructure even if the government allowed it.
Whether government regulation, or market conditions, or corporate monopoly power, or whatnot, if there is an infringment on my freedom, my only question is "how can I remove it".
Since we won't really have companies stringing extra wires, I'd rather the government require utilities to share then have a theoretica
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The problem is that Bell isn't throttling the 'last mile'. Most of those third-parties that have access to the 'last mile' haven't installed their own equipment, and haven't provided their own bandwidth. They're doing nothing more than reselling Bell's DSL.
The original plan for opening up 3rd party competition was that small ISPs would piggyback on Bell's hardware infrastructure (DSLAMs, uplink) and then install their own equipment, so that only the 'last mile' was shared. What instead happened was that com
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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.
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2. Monopolies are created by government regulations. In an open market free of most regulations, competition can come and go as the market allows for it.
You are an idiot, please go back to Econ 101 and reread the part about the difference between a free market and a fair market. Additionally, reading up on the history of laissez-faire economics, and how companies act when they are allowed manipulate market forces for their own gain (AT&T + Standard Oil are good starts) would be helpful.
Thanks!
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There appears to be a big difference between what is, versus what you think ought to be.
The nature of the business suggests that telco is a natural monopoly with room for very few providers. Given the high cost of entry, I would say that the free market has already spoken and is content to let
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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.
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We have open competition and it was working as intended. Bell started pulling crap, and they started bleeding customers to the competition (Teksavy, et all). Then Bell started throttling the competition's connections (they lease the lines from bell, who is required to lease them at a fixed fee), which is what fired all this up.
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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
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So what your supposed to try out all the local internet services for a few months each and test each thoroughly (avoiding any long term contracts in the process). Given the shady nature of packet shaping thats the only real way to figure out what the service is going to actually be like.
And once you spend 6 months and god knows how much time, money and energy to choose the "best" internet provider in your area they are free to simply change the deal on you whenever they want, adding shaping or downlaod cap
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Not everyone lives in a place with a choice for ISPs.
Should they move, too, just because an ISP is shitty?
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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Latency issues are more noticeable in something like instant messaging and interactive activities where data flow is largely bi-directional.
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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One thing I don't understand is why modern routers have such gigantic packet queues.
The internet is not meant to be a reliable medium. Packets are supposed to be dropped when corrupted or when things are too congested. But many routers seem to go through heroics to drop as few packets as possible, and as a side effect they send latency through the roof.
Uploading at the maximum rate from my home broadband connection sends the connection's latency skyrocketing from the normal 10ms to about 300ms. If I do seve
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But it would be even cheaper and simpler to drop excess packets on the floor than to buffer them, so you'd think the the effect of cheap and simple hardware would be to have smaller queues.
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
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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.
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.
Re:That's not competition.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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We should *all* do that. ...but you first.
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Keep in mind that the Teksavvy shaping is being done by Bell, which is what all this is about.
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Now if I can just get cheaper and better phone provider....
Can you try Vonage or one of the other IP-based phones now that you have a stable internet connection?
I did it years ago here in the US and I will never pay AT&T another cent as long as I live.
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This is why I even bother to keep a land line, instead of only using a cell.
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)
Re: (Score:2)
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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Yes I have noticed this as well. They will go to great lengths to get you out of your old contract and into a new one that is more expensive. I think at one point they actually said I couldn't keep my current deal, that I could only choose one of their newer packages.
I actually have a pretty good plan right now through Bell Mobility, though it is of no fault of their own. I belong to a larger union, and there is a union plan that they probably negotiated which is quite good. If you belong to a large company
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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.
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Offering dry DSL must be very new then. I was told by a bell representative that the DO NOT offer it (nor is it advertised anywhere as an alternative, most people wouldn't know what such a thing is nor that it is an option) in the last 6 months.
I had just discovered that my current provider Cogeco changed my EULA (which is was at the time only posted on some obscure buried website, which they give you the link to when you go over the Cap). I had just bought a new computer with some serious HD capacity, so I
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I can confirm that Bell does offer dry loop DSL. I was mostly signed up for it about 2 months ago. Then a check of the lines showed that I couldn't get their highest speed. Something weird in my apartment building where the highest speed was available only up to the 5th floor and no higher. So I ended the whole thing there and stayed with Rogers. I was in a Bell World store if that makes any difference.
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Yeah, also I guess I was reading it as the reason they had for not releasing it was due to "current" competition (aka Rogers).
I agree that not limiting independents by shaping their traffic would create "future" competition, but I think Bell would have to really have a pair of balls to use that as their rational to the CRTC!
I mean are they actually saying that "yes we maintain our competitive edge by degrading service we sell to our competitors!"
I mean wow. Big brass ones.
If that is the case, now that I thi
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How long have you had it for? Recently or quite a while? Did you ask for it specifically?
Dry Loop DSL (Score:1, Informative)
I've had dry loop DSL from Bell for a few years. No surcharge and it works great... after it's set up, that is. If there are any problems getting it working, then it's a nightmare. Their call center script-monkeys will insist that you call from the house (to jump through their "how many lights do you see" hoops). I use a third-party VoIP provider (unlimitel.ca - most excellent) so it's always an argument with Bell: "You must call us from the house where the Internet isn't working" - "I can't call from t
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.
And not to interfere with other isp traffic (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't use bell but I am still bandwidth shaped. I am on a 300Gbyte per month 7MBS package from a competitor that lease bell line and since three month my torrent have drop from average of 500kbyte to 25. Yes 25 !! What right bell have to throttle providers line that pay them for a block of bandwidth ?
Still my internet service is way better and way cheaper than what bell has to offer me.
If your are in Canada you can look at one of the following isp for a better price:
vif.com
velcom.ca
www.cooptel.qc.ca
They a
any of you canadians want to have some *real* fun? (Score:2)
My two cents... (Score:3, Interesting)
Vote with your wallet. I just ditched DSL and Bell (Score:2)
Bell crossed the line, throttling my third party ISP. I canceled my DSL and told them why, and then switched to cable (Speed is now MUCH faster).
I canceled my Bell land line and told their call center droid why about 5 times.
I am now Bell free, and my internet speed is 4 times faster (was peak 1.6Mbps, now peak 7.0Mbps).
Send the message with your wallet.
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).