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Canadian Regulator CRTC Saves Independent ISPs
fmenard123 writes "The Canadian telecommunications regulator, the CRTC, has affirmed in a decision released on March 3rd 2008 that DSL wholesale and Cable Modem wholesale will continue (PDF) until such time as a meaningful competitive source of supply of wholesale facilities develops. Aside from preserving the status-quo, the CRTC has also determined that unaggregated ADSL access (DSL wholesale for competitors who self-supply their facilities into telephone company central offices) is an essential service given the lack of unbundling for sub-loops. The CRTC ordered phone companies to re-price unaggregated DSL wholesale at forward-looking costs plus a mark-up of no more than 15%, opening the door for a significant reduction in the rates ISPs pay to the telephone companies for access to DSL wholesale. This decision has interesting implications for the US, in which the FCC was not able to overcome the legal attacks against its Computer II regulatory framework. Perhaps ISPs in the US need to look north to try to make their case again."
Now if they'd just end the practice of simsubbing and preventing HBO from being broadcast in Canada. They'd be well on their way to gaining some respect.
Music to my ears.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080304.RCRTC04/TPStory/Business
I may be being a bit dense, but I have no idea what any of this means. Apparently it's a good thing? Can anyone translate from telecom industry jargon into English?
.pdf, at least not at this moment.
Also, the link isn't a
Like comcast, they are using network shaping but continue to go legally unchallenged . They've also overcharged for decrepit services each time I moved. I have spent many long hours just trying to get past the service people in India, back to a techie in my Central Office, down my block to properly provision the DSL lines cards.
Now, we will finally have a larger selection of ISPs to choose from, with much more competitive prices!
I should clarify. Bell Sympatico includes one of the larger ISPs which are the subject of the article. Many smaller ISPs--at least here in Montreal (which do not practice throttling) use Bell's Central Office and equipment to provide their service, at a cheaper price. If correctly understood, the new ruling would make it even more cheaper to provide these other services.
I'm currently in the position of having to switch from DSL to cable because of the shitty quality of the lines in this building (and since I'm in an apartment, I really can't do much about that) and the distance to the CO. Now, from my research, here in London, Ontario, we have two choices for cable internet: Rogers, and 3web. 3web has gotten some really bad reviews, and my research shows they're simply reselling Rogers service through a deal they have with them.
Now, if the CRTC really wanted to impress me, they would force Rogers to open their lines for cable internet. As it stands right now, AFAIK, we only have truly open wholesale for DSL access, and for those of us that can't get it at a reliable quality, it kinda sucks because our only real choice is the cable monopoly in the area, in this case Rogers.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Have any links to evidence of traffic shaping from Bell/Sympatico? I use them (And while yes I've had a few problems with them, and definitely don't like their pricing) I've never noticed any real problems with bittorrent or other commonly shaped protocols (Other than my latency skyrocketing while uploading faster than 40kb/s, even when I do ACK Prioritization on my OpenBSD Router)
Have you taken a look at TekSavvy? They're really cheap, good quality, high speed 5M DSL, with excellent customer service (almost every time I've called in, I've gotten an agent right away without any hold time). As I've mentioned below, I'm in the position of having to switch away from them for reasons beyond their or my control, but if you can get Bell at good quality where you are, I'd suggest taking a look.
No, I don't work for them or receive anything for this.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Mostly during the Superbowl, where we get [Global / CTV / whoever's] normal commercials instead of the ones that are actually, y'know, interesting.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
See http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sympat and search for throttling
It began in the last couple of months, so ignore threads older than say November 2007 or so.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19634497-Non-P2P-SSL-Protocols-now-being-throttled
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19856107-ThrottlingShaping-Supposedly-Non-Existant-On-Bells-Network
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19691840-Traffic-shaping-timeline-graph
This year a lot of companies set up a special HD channel to just air the Superbowl with American commercials. I have no idea how mad CTV/Global were. The best part is, it carried over into House. It was nice to see the show in proper 1080i with 448Kbps DD 5.1 for a change. You hear me Global!
That's something that really bothers me too. I wish they would just play the original CBS/NBC/ABC feed instead of playing the Canadian networks with their commercials.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Although they have to provide access to their infrastructure, Sympatico, Telus etc. are still the reseller of bandwidth to the small ISP. In my view, this is still anti-competitive in that the independent ISP continues to get raped by being forced to pay for bandwidth to the upstream big telco. The telco is essentially getting the bandwidth for free, while collecting revenue from the small ISP for the same commodity. It doesn't seem fair that the telco can be a wholesale bandwidth seller and at the same time compete directly with its wholesale customers by targeting last mile consumers.
If the CRTC really wanted to level the playing field, they would prevent the wholesalers like Bell Sympatico from selling directly to the consumer market. Then we'd see real competition and growth in the ISP industry.
I will second TekSavvy. I switched from Rogers to TekSavvy on 5 M DSL. Great service and great rates. The support and sales are friendly and knowledgeable and no hold time either. I've recommended them to many others.
Dude - www.canadianisp.com
I found my replacement for Bell there, 3Web (or CIA, same company) Cable (rogers reseller), 5Megs, 34$/m taxes incl...
Hope that helps!
I Like Pie...
Links:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpposted/archive/2007/11/05/bell-sympatico-admits-to-blocking-bandwidth-traffic.aspx
I know I'm being throttled because at one time, I would routinely get 200KB/s on torrents (I have a 5MB DSL line). Then suddenly, in the November 2007 timeframe, I was at 30KB/s during the daytime. I have experimented and found that right after midnight, it will increase to about 50KB/s, then to a higher speed at the top of the next hour (200 KB/s). But clearly, many customers are clueless about this and therefore not aware that they are not getting what they pay for. I encountered this pattern of decrepit service with non P2P traffic each time I moved. I was consistently getting 2M service when I was paying for 5MB. It took a lot of patience, blood, and hair-pulling before I got to a senior technician who corrected the situation. My three experiences convinced me that particular problem probably affected thousands of unsuspecting customers and was grounds for a class-action lawsuit.
I switched to them when Rogers started throttling all encrypted traffic (to throttle bittorrent believe it or not) and I've never looked back. They have great customer service and you aren't going to get better upload speeds (despite what Bell/Rogers advertise). If you go for their premium service rather than the unlimited you also get much lower latency. They take Bell to task whenever something needs to happen, e.g. something is wrong with your line, and are cheaper than the major ISPs to boot.
I personally know at least 6 people who have switched to TekSavvy from either Bell/Rogers in the last year, and haven't heard a bad thing from any of them.
The CRTC is why Canada has such a drastically higher number of users on broadband, as compared to the USA.
... and increases the number of high speed seeders on my favourite tv show torrents.
;)
It encourages tech growth, it helps job creation
Yes, what IS good for the economy can also be good for the people. It might also appear to be bad for the RIAA, or MPAA... but we all know they're still rolling in cash
Thanks for the link. And there's a whole crapload of stuff being deregulated by this decision, to see what will be phased out read the end of the decision.
There's a lot of technical stuff in there I don't understand, but I can't see how letting the market forces reign in Canada will result in anything other than the big players swallowing up the small ones. It's been happening with the cable industry here for years, and with the DSL market, too. That's what happens when the fibre-optic backbone is owned by one or two companies.
As much as I would have liked to see the Superbowl ads, having a regular feed during the rest of the year would confuse the targetted viewers of those ads.
Seeing ads of products I can't buy, or services for local areas would be pretty useless for both advertisers and viewers.
Live forever, or die trying.
I recently switched to TekSavvy from Bell Symaptico, and I've been very happy with the change. My reason for switching? Bell stealthily introduced bandwidth caps (30GB combined up/down per month in my case), and starting charging a hefty $1.50 per GB over the cap. They wouldn't charge more than $30 in overage fees in a month, but still... When I compared their service to what TekSavvy was offering, making the switch was a complete no-brainer. TekSavvy's non-unlimited service does have a transfer cap, but it's a generous 200GB per month combined up/down, and the fee per GB over cap is an entirely reasonable $0.25. Plus the basic 5M service is $15-20 cheaper per month than Bell! The difference in price, for what amounts to the same speed, is shocking to say the least.
I'd strongly recommend that you take some time and read the Broadband Reports forums on the various Canadian ISP's if you plan to make any ISP choices, rather than trust the sales pitches. It will take a little time, but you will very, very glad that you did. Pay special attention terms like throttling, hard caps, soft caps, bandwidth limits and penalties, the use of the phrase "up to" when quoting speeds, quality and location of technical support, cancellation fees, and customer satisfaction ranking. And make sure you look at ISP's like Teksavvy, the highest rated Canadian ISP, who charges about 55% what you quoted for the same real (as opposed to theoretical) speed.
this into English. It may make sense to the folks in the Great White North, but it's all Greek to me.
For example: How does one buy DSL wholesale? Do you buy it at Sam's Club or Costco?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I'll also recommend TekSavvy. Their service is cheap, fast, and good. You can also get a static IP for a couple of dollars per month, and they don't block or filter anything, to my knowledge. I've just moved into a new subdivision that doesn't have DSL support yet, so I'm stuck with Rogers (*spit*), but I'll be switching back to TekSavvy ASAP. Speaking of which, I called in early January to see if my area was supported. The woman said "Not according to our records, but I'll talk to my Bell rep to see if we can get an ETA and I'll call you back." She actually called me back about a week or two later. When she called me back, I was told that DSL would be available to me sometime in March and she would call me then to open an account for me. I haven't heard from her yet but I expect to, based on past experiences.
Ian
Bell might have told you to like your 302, but by damn, some of those things are still around and working 40 years later. The "fully electronic phone you own" was probably made in China by sweatshop workers and will last approximately 40 weeks before either the cheap plastic breaks or discolors, or the "no-Chinese-word-for-quality" electronic components inside go on the fritz.
Those of us old enough to actually remember the Bell monopoly aren't as gung-ho about deregulation as you youngsters.
Now get off my lawn!
Simsubbing, or simultaneous substitution, is a CRTC rule that permits local Canadian broadcasters to overlay their commercials over the American broadcast. Essentially the practice permits local broadcasters to mirror their commercials onto American stations when Canadian stations are airing the same programs at the same time as the American broadcast.
It is a controversial practice in Canada for reasons that I won't get into, but the practice is governed by strict rules on when and how a broadcaster may simsub in Canadian commercials.
Here is the Wikipedia article that goes into more detail:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_substitution
You waited ten minutes after two other people answered her question to throw in your "ever heard of Google" bit whilst also providing the answer? WTF?
I recently tried to ditch ROGERS which has sporadic outages and fluxuating bandwidth (which goes far beyond the traffic levels in the neighborhood)... For Teksavvy (29.95 for 768k up and 5mbps down consistent [Got it for my Grandmother and tested]) when I called and gave my Bell phone # they said I was "Locked Out" by Bell and she didn't seem surprised, I live in downtown Toronto.
"Locked out" WTF is that?! Of course calling Bell they gave me the run around I guess they don't need the 15-17$ a month they'd get from leasing out the lines (leaving the ISP with $13-15 for 5 mbps service)...
I don't know how this "Locked Out" works or whether it's legal but I'm paying rogers something like 9-15$ more a month for inferior service and support... Seeing as I'm from Canada I can say, MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL IS REQUIRED!
I mean at least I'm not in the states but that's small consolation when the isps form an oligopoly and deny me better cheaper service that they're legally required to provide.
Maybe 4 million subscribers to rogers and bell in Toronto x $15 a month = class action suit.
We can have Internet access that isn't filtered by Bell
Bell is throttling bit torrent traffic now and some encrypted traffic is getting
caught in the same "web" as well. Us Bell users have to switch to 3rd-party DSL
to avoid this throttling.
It's not like we aren't used to seeing U.S. advertising. Anything that isn't being simulcast on a Canadian network shows ads from the U.S.
Small ISPs are technically free to choose whatever bandwidth provider to the internet they want for ADSL at least. Teksavvy uses Peer1 or Cogent bandwidth, Sympatico/Bell only provides the connection from the home to the DSLAM. Thus, Sympatico's traffic shaping/throttling/outages/etc does not affect Teksavvy's operations.
Seconding this recommendation. On top of what you mentioned, I've never noticed any throttling of my torrents(uTorrent in Windows, Deluge in Linux), even though I run them unencrypted by default. So, they're obviously not being affected by the throttling Bell takes part in.
I can't imagine why they would want to encourage competition for ISP's up there. Just look at how great the lack of it works south of the border.
I mean...with my business class Comcast cable internet, I get nearly 128kbps upload speeds. That should be enough for anyone.
expandfairuse.org
Uhhhhh, you don't understand what is happening, do you? Here is what happens: You get two cable channels. Fox and FoxLite AKA Global. You watch Fox, you get Fox, you see everything somebody in Seattle, or Buffalo, or whatever the local Fox station is, would see. Then House comes on and the cable company terminates the Fox feed for an hour and shows Global on both channels. After House, or the Simpsons, or American Idol, or whatever, is over, it switches back to the horribly confusing ads, as you say...
It has its up sides though. Global doesn't cover 9/10 of the screen at all times with ads for their other shows.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
CANARIE
Of course, customer owned fiber networks aren't the only way. Having a neutral third party own and manage the dark fiber between colocation points and end-users (and likely the fiber uplinks too) would work. It'd be a nice bit of business for the power companies, for example. Let competing service providers plug their electronics into the fiber. Customer wants to switch providers? No problem, make the change at the colo and plug in a different box at his home.
Some cities, including the People's Republic of Ann Arbor, have upgraded their traffic light networks to fiber optics and put down extra conduit while they were at it. So, building a proper FTTH network wouldn't require (too much) tearing up of streets.
Fighting over last century's copper is a waste of time. Let's focus on making sure the fiber nets are set up correctly, and SOON!
All this shit is meaningless to me.
Last mile of copper? HA!
The last 4 miles of copper is mostly buried underground on a rotting wire.
The last HALF-MILE is above ground (if you can call it that) ever since a large tree brought down the hydro wires and the bell wire two years ago.
Within 2 hours the Hydro-Quebec guy came by, took a look and said the truck would be by in the morning to fix it. They did exactly that.
The Bell min-wage outsourcing company? They came by 3 days later, after I had gone out into the woods and repaired the damn copper wire myself. AND I actually used a phone in the woods to call 611 repair service. TWO YEARS AGO!
They never did any repairs. Two years later, the phone line is still lying on the ground, partly under water in a swamp, and with my electricians tape still on it. Somehow, I still manage to pull 35Kbs - a bit slower than I did TEN YEARS AGO!
Fuck Bell.
Need more info?
See The 1996 Bell Boutique bag
and Rural HI-Speed? A JOKE!
AND we now have a Rural Petition going....
Sign it! If you live in Quebec!
Nationalize BELL!
.
- aqk
F U
I've got my DSL line through a decent company (Teksavvy), but Bell still owns all the lines around here. Unfortunately, no matter who I sign up with, the service somewhat sucks as my line is past the distance-limit for a decent connection, and - despite being a major urban area - Bell isn't going to add a new node here anytime soon, and I have to live with the long-line to their central office.
Of course, the DSL company doesn't find this out until after the connection is first established, in which case that leaves me with about 500k/up and 1500k/down (instead of 800/5000 like I'm supposed to have). No matter who I go with, I'll still be screwed by Bell's shitty connection, as all DSL still uses their line system.
Not only that, but based on the distance of the run, there is a charge from Bell for the dry-loop (no phone) connection. Farther distance, more $$$, and shittier service. Personally, while it's nice that the gov't requires the big Telcos to lease out the lines (at a profit, still), it would be nicer still if they required them to actually supply decent service instead of just collecting their percentage. Bell does offer their own DSL service, but that's craptastic even beyond the line issues, so a 3rd-party is still the best choice, but in the end the limitation is still the Telco.
by private interests ever since conservate governments sold out all of our public assests at firesale prices in order to enrich the already affluent. What should happen is that all the current service to the curb providers should be mandated to fund and share in one modern network which should be built and serviced by the municipal or local governments - just like our roads. The current situation is pathetic and serves to prove those in power are completely corrupt and incompetent.
Wow. Looking at all the positive recommendations above, it looks like someone is really running his business well.
You can also try acanac ( http://acanac.ca/DSL.html ) They have 5mpbs ADSL for just 18$ incuding taxes and the adsl modem is free (45$ deposit required but they give it back to you when you ship back your modem). You also have 100gb of free online storage. You have to sign for a year but you have one month to cancel if you're not satisfied.
True, but seeing as I was in the market for a car, sometimes American ads would quote a price and I would jump out of my seat thinking "Damn, that's a wicked price, I better get on that!" Only to be sadly crushed when I realize that it was an American ad.
Live forever, or die trying.