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Bell Canada Launches Its Own Online Video Store
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."
How can we prove a provider is shaping our traffic?
they will probably allege the slow download is because of net traffic, spam, etc.
transparent bridges for traffic shaping are very hard to detect
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
And they have a form for feedback? Brace for obvious shit storm...
Just switch to TekSavvy. They're an ISP that believes in network neutrality, they've even organized a rally on parliament hill for next week. Prices beat Bell too.
If you want to attend the rally, see http://www.netneutralityrally.ca/ .
A good connection to the Internet and a way to connect to your subscribers.
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.
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.
TekSavvy does use Bell's last-mile network and as a result has been throttled recently, the CRTC (government is regulator) is investigating and may rule the practice illegal. That's also what has lead TekSavvy to organize the rally for network neutrality.
As for their US equivalent, you may want to see my above post: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=561862&cid=23514422 . Basically they're considering expanding to the US, let them know you want it.
Test if your ISP is throttling - That link should help some of it at least.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I see a two issues with Bell Canada. First, this so-called Traffic Shaping is really a way to artificially screw up what would otherwise be a nicely working system. Who are they to dictate what traffic gets priority? Secondly, on the issue of using DRM, I think Steve Jobs put it nicely in his open paper about DRM-less music being sold on iTunes. Turns out that all this hoopla about piracy that caused the invention of DRM is over-exaggerated and some big businesses are agreeing with him. After all, if piracy were as large a problem as many would like us to believe, then how come iTunes is making Apple boatloads of money? I think Bell Canada would be wise to stop the traffic shaping and do something to support Linux and Mac. Otherwise they are really limiting themselves to that portion of the market that doesn't care about P2P and doesn't use Macs or Linux. Just my two cents on the whole matter.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
75% percent of the portable media player market is Apple's iPod. 75%. Any online store that prevents their target demographic from transferring their videos and music to the overwhelming media player of choice is choosing failure as a business plan. Bell has chosen failure. Microsoft's business plans are not in the best interest's of consumers or even business partners. Surely the latest MSN license server fiasco and the Play For Sure Zune betrayal are painfully evident lessons in who not to partner with when setting up a media distribution shop.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
On top of this, it is possible if you've made Bell-Sympatico's blacklist and have had your service cut off, (bandwidth abusers), you may currently be denied the ability to sign up with a third party provider such as TekSavvy.
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. It covers portions of the Acceptible Use Policy employed by Bell-Sympatico, including a letter of abuse, and some other outrageous information.
There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
Oh no, this is great. You can remove windows drm with ease, just run drmbg then FairUse4Wm, and the drm is history.
Why they would use it when its so trivial to reverse is a puzzler to be sure.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Strange Brew and Canadian Bacon.
Let me see if I understand this right... they're getting ready to open up their own video store, at the same time they are starting to deliberately degrade the performance of other content providers their customers are using which are using P2P to distribute?
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."
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I am with a small DSL player like Teksavvy. These smaller players are great. They offer lower rates and MUCH BETTER customer service. I have no idea why anyone stays with Bell for DSL.
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.
It all makes sense now. Bell Canada is the Company that orchestrated Salem-style witch hunts against mom & pop brick & mortar satellite TV shops prior to launching their ExpressVu service. Even before they managed to lobby a dictatorship-style law forbidding foreign satellite service, they were orchestrating raids against their future competitors. The bandwidth throttling is just a modern day version of their Monopoly status abuse.
Cancel your DSL and move to Cable.
Teksavvy doesn't provide internet over cable. Rogers and Shaw have a tighter grip on their network than Bell has on the phone lines.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The problem with DRM on FOSS is that it's too hard to make it work in the slightest. With Linux you could easily write a video driver and a sound driver that just dumps everything to disk, thereby automatically bypassing the DRM. They could probably do some trickery by ensuring that you are only running specific drivers, but that will only go so far. The open source nature of Linux allows you to do whatever you want with the system. Thereby making DRM impossible. An actual open source library that would decrypt the DRM content would be even worse, because you could just recompile it to drop the decrypted info to the disk. No messing with drivers required.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.