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Canadian ISP Ordered to Prove Traffic-Shaping is Needed

Posted by timothy on from the offer-good-only-in-canada dept.

Sepiraph writes "In a letter sent to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers and Bell Canada on May 15, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have ordered Bell Canada to provide tangible evidence that its broadband networks are congested to justify the company's Internet traffic-shaping policies. This is a response after Bell planned to tackle the issue of traffic shaping, also called throttling, on the company's broadband networks. It would be interesting to see Bell's response, as well as to see some real-world actual numbers and compare them to a previous study."

15 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Hurray! by coren2000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hurray! Finally my government makes itself useful. Finally they protect my rights.

    1. Re:Hurray! by ark1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Even if Bell can not prove at the moment the network usage is saturated all they have to do is wait and do not invest a penny in new infrastructure. Eventually the network will be saturated and Bell will win. They can even help themselves by selling a server or two to speed up the process.

    2. Re:Hurray! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except if Bell can be shown to be falling down with respect to deploying the _necessary_ infrastructure to support telecommunications, they might be penalized in subsidies or something.

      They've been granted a (partial) monopoly in order to ensure the infrastructure gets built. If they say it's not big enough, then they're likely to look silly and be told to build more.

    3. Re:Hurray! by Phisbut · · Score: 5, Informative

      What? I hate ISP traffic shaping as much as anybody, but if you agreed to the contract, you agreed that you didn't care if they shaped your bandwidth. If you didn't like the product they were selling, why did you buy it? Nobody likes traffic shaping, and if people would stop being idiots and start refusing to agree to these contracts, one of the big ISPs would start offering non-shaped bandwidth.

      Ok, I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that you have no idea what you are talking about, and no idea what this whole matter is about. Here's what happened:

      People who didn't want Bell's throttling read Bell's contract and decided they didn't want it. Instead, they went and got their internet service from a competitor. Unfortunately, since Bell owns the wires, every competitor in the DSL business has to rent bandwidth wholesale from Bell. At first, Bell didn't throttle the wholesale bandwidth, and the competitors could then offer contracts that had no throttling to their customers. Then, without notice, Bell throttles the wholesalers. So even though people read the contracts and refused to agree with throttling, they still get fucked by Bell even though they get their service from a competitor. Reference here.

      This "I don't like this, but I'll just buy it now and sue later" bullshit is out of control Don't people take any responsibility for their actions any more?

      Repeat after me: People read their contracts, refused the throttling, went with a provider that didn't throttle, and got fucked anyway. Please... stop talking out of your ass now.

      --
      After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
      - The Tao of Programming
  2. A fortuitious happenstance by Cathoderoytube · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wow this is actually good news. The people at Bell Canada are scumbags. At my previous job we had the unfortunate misfortune to have Bell Canada as our ISP. They started slowing down our connection speed which in turn slowed everything in the entire studio down (since we were saving files to a server across town). It used to only take a few seconds to save the files, then it turned into 10 minutes. Bell insisted there was absolutely nothing wrong with the connection. Just doing my job was turned into an ordeal because bell feels the need to tamper with their connections. I hope Bell gets crucified. That would be absolutely wonderful

    --
    I have nothing compelling to say
    1. Re:A fortuitious happenstance by n+dot+l · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bell insisted there was absolutely nothing wrong with the connection. Heh. I know people that have bribed Rogers managers to get their connection fixed. No joke. A friend of mine, who grew up in the USSR, has a saying for this sort of thing; it's something to the effect of, "Each day a little of the old country follows me across the sea."

      I hope Bell gets crucified. Me too. In fact, I've got a big, old, rusty, railroad spike I'm going to save for just such an occasion.
  3. Hey what about common decency by slysithesuperspy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One thing that confuses the US net neutrality debate is that the ISPs have got massive subsidies in return for apparently better services, which have not occurred. If everyone bit the bullet and accepted they are not going to get them then everything could move on. They have wronged by handing out monopolies and they have wronged by subsidising them. Another wrong isn't going to fix the system. Just allow proper competition. (Yea sorry I didn't get to read this article but i want to go to bed now :) ) Anyway, there was blatantly no net neutrality in the first place.

  4. How convenient by Chonnawonga · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think this is a pretty clear effort by the federal government to try to put the matter to bed by giving the big, monopolistic corporation the chance to "prove" that this is "necessary", which they will then accept without question. I've said it before: net neutrality is going nowhere in Canada without a change of government. But that's just my $0.02 CAD.

  5. Wrong evidence to ask by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would rather have the CRTC ask Bell Canada to provide tangible evidence that the laws of arthmetic failed when they computed the bandwidth available to each customer.

  6. Ridiculous Euphimism by Izabael_DaJinn · · Score: 5, Funny
    Traffic shaping? That implies it does something artistic or useful to the traffic.

    Throttling conjures up a more accurate image. (I think of Homer throttling Bart.)

    And if they insist on shaping my traffic, I hope they can shape it into things I'm comfortable with like hearts, moons, and stars.

    --
    Careful What You Wish For....
  7. There actions are would still not be justified by Cyko_01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    they made promises they can't live up to and now they are handling it by censoring the internet. I don't care if it is "necessary", they screwed up and it should be handled in a responsible way - by upgrading the network

  8. It's a trap!!!111one by eagl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is funny. If they can "prove" that traffic shaping is necessary, they have essentially proven that they are unable to provide the services they are charging people for. No matter what their proof looks like, they're hosed. Either they will be forced to quit traffic shaping and admit they don't need to do it, or they'll be open to class action lawsuits for failing to provide contracted services.

    I don't feel too sorry for them... The telcos tear up the street every couple of years and I still don't have fiber to my house. To hell with them. The concept of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders has gone way too far, and it's time that service companies get a little legal protection when they choose to provide their customers with their contracted service instead of making an extra penny for their shareholders. Just look at the yahoo debacle... The company leadership might actually end up IN JAIL for trying to do the "right thing" for the company and their customers, because a couple shareholders are pissed they couldn't make a fast buck by selling out to Microsoft. That is a complete perversion of the concept of fiduciary responsibility, and our legal system ought to provide for companies that actually attempt to stay in business and fulfill their contracts with their customers.

  9. Really, really bad idea for Bell. by gnutoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They won't win by sitting on their hands and had better get moving. They tried that back in US back in the 80s and lost big time. It has taken ATT the last 20 years to lie cheat and steal their way back to government protected monopoly status and they are about to lose it all again. Your government is not the only one feeling redfaced about the pathetic network capacity they got in return for $200 billion and a lot of promisses. The next monopoly break up is not going to leave pieces large enough to grasp - it's going to be spectrum liberation, and that will be the end of all traditional broadcast and telcos. The more they piss their customers off, the sooner customers will realize what a fraud traditional telco is.

  10. ISP's need to put up the S and P. by joocemann · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Selling a specific accessible 'bandwidth' of internet access and then throttling it is not a fair business practice. Even if the terms of service include an allowance for such throttling, the provider should clearly and explicitly make sure the buyer understands such controls. Otherwise, you have buyers like myself who pay for 6mbit wondering why we are not getting 6mbit 24/7, 365. Thats what I bought, just as it was advertised. 6mbit internet access. It didn't read an ad saying 'sometimes 6mbit, mostly 3, and if you use it a lot, then almost none'. For an ISP to advertise a product one way, then provide the product differently is disingenuous and debateably illegal.

  11. The only equitable answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No matter how rich you are, you only get about 80 years on this planet. So jail time is the only equitable solution: it is equally bad for rich and poor alike.

    So you need in a corporation, the CEO and the Board put on selection for jail time for malfeasance of the corporation. Then the people in the chain of command down to the one that did the deed needs to be up for jail time. And if someone is fingered for having told the noob to do this, they get put toward it too. If the CEO/Board can show that they were being deliberately misled despite their best efforts, then their jail time is commuted down to the person they have as the one doing the flim-flam (if the court and/or jury buys it).

    And employment of people jailed should be followed at each level. So if your grunt can't get employed after a jail term, neither can the CEO.

    Fines should come from these people and no bonuses should be allowed for those the court deem responsible for those fines.