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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.
Oh Canada, our home and native land! When Isp's start throttlin' thee bandwidth, we open up a can!
Sadly, I'm not Canadian. Why the heck are the Canadians doing the sensible thing? This is going to ruin a whole bunch of Canadian jokes that could have been posted here. Oh well
I for one Welcome our angry Canadian Overlords.
I mean it is in the way that. Limiting access at this level is akin to harming your competition. Not that it wasn't in the Comcast situation, but this is so blatant.
once more into the breach
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.
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.
===> An eye for an eye makes everyone blind - MG
.."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.
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.
In Europe the BT is shaped too. My ISP - ownership of the largest multinational ISP outside the US - Liberty Global - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Global, is shaping the TB traffic during the peak hours, giving just 1000KBytes/s for the torrents, when pure ftp and http downloads get to the full 2400KBytes/s. I suspect that they apply the same policy to all of their customers/isp's.
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.
I have nothing compelling to say
>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.
Shapers operate on a white list. Any traffic not recognised is throttled by default.
"The avalanche has already started. It's too late for the pebbles to vote." - Kosh
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 )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
by Chris Haddock, their only decent show, I think the Canadian ISPs are doing the citizens a favor by limiting access to the subpar programing that comes out of the CBC. Americanized shows such as 'The Border' or 'MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives' are shows that really make me proud to be a Canadian. *coughs*.
The only way for this problem to go away is to come up with technologies and approaches that reduce barriers to entry for being an ISP, or surrogate thereof. If competition was allowed to emerge, or if people figured out how to build their own peer/grid networks (in metro areas), then consumers could make another choice when they're fed up with the draconian practices of the Big Boys(tm). The ONLY reason that ISPs can pull this stuff now is that they have a captive audience.
The current method of getting bits over a pipe seems so archaic (although I'm probably jaded by too much Star Trek). If enough people get (a) fed up, and (b) innovative, solutions could emerge.
If enough people don't care and just want to be spoon-fed their Internets by "the man", well, then we've lost the battle anyhow. Sadly I suspect that is the case.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
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.
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
While Comcast hogged most of the publicity in the past regarding throttled P2P traffic, almost all Canadian ISPs limit P2P traffic in one way or another.
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.
You know, if more stuff like this happens, I could see a provincial (or even the federal) government start their own crown-company ISP. I mean, there is a large tradition in Canada of creating companies to serve the public instead of regulating private ones, just look at Hydro-Québec, Bell Canada (back in the day), the SAQ and the SAAQ, public health, Petro-Canada, etc.
There have been a number of posts that have mentioned using encryption to get around the problem of ISPs that throttle bittorrent traffic, but no one has posted a HOWTO for the less enlightened on how to actually enable encryption in a bittorrent client. For those interested, here you go: follow this link for details on how to enable encryption in Azureus, BitComet, and uTorent.
As has been mentioned, this may or may not improve the download speeds that you experience. But it's worth a try.
There are plans in the works for developing new protocols that are even better at bypassing existing throttling techniques.
Yeah, but even if they stop throttling, it doesn't change the fact that Bell's "last kilometer" of infrastructure is sometimes more like the "last 6-7 kilometers" (hey, it's a Canadian article, what's with this "mile" stuff).
At that distance, there's a pretty heft attenuation of the DSL signal. Bell feels no obligation to fix or upgrade this, so customers who are subscribing to a 5000/1000 down/up package actually end up with less than half that.
The throttling issue is just one of many related to the leasing of Bell lines, as the actual quality of said lines sucks in many instances, Bell doesn't care (even with their own customers, let alone others), and there aren't really other local alternatives (cable=Rogers, which is worse).