Bell Canada Official Speaks Out On Throttling

westcoaster004 brings to our attention an interview with Mirko Bibic, head of regulatory affairs for Bell Canada, discussing the ISP's traffic-shaping practices. This follows news we discussed recently that a class action lawsuit was filed against Bell for their involvement in traffic shaping. Bibic reiterates that internet congestion is a real problem and claims that the throttling had nothing to do with Bell's new video service. CBC News quotes him saying: "If no measures were taken, then 700,000 customers would have been affected by congestions during peak periods. We want to obviously take steps to make sure that doesn't happen. So this network management is, as we've stated, one of the ways to address the issue of congestion during peak periods. At the end of the day, the wholesale ISPs are our customers and we generate revenue [from them], so we want to make sure we're serving them to the best of our ability as well."

Comments

a sort-of monopoly means they can be defeated

[flar2]

Bell started throttling my connection, so I switched to Teksavvy. Unfortunately Bell controls the wires so my connection is still being throttled. It's regrettable that Bell still gets some of my money, as Teksavvy has to buy its bandwidth from Bell, but they're getting less of it. As a bonus, the exact same internet service is cheaper from Teksavvy than from Bell. If enough people would switch, Bell might change its policy.

traffic shaping only in peak periods? yeah right.

[Chryana]

I am a customer of Sympatico Bell, and I can assure you that, unlike what the interviewee would make you believe, traffic is throttled all day, every day. I don't use bittorrent too often, but whenever I start a download, it goes from ~500 KiB/s to ~30 KiB/s within the span of two minutes. The speed stays the same overnight. Not exactly a peak period... Sad thing is, I'm using Cogeco for the summer, and they're even worst, uploads are pretty much completely blocked. :(

Either way you cut it: it stinks

[Some1too]

I think bell canada has really shot itself in the foot with this one. If they are complaining that their lines are saturated they should install more infrastructure. Someone else pointed out that Europe has many countries with a larger population that have moved towards net neutrality without any infrastructure or network congestion issues. Seeing as bell has started throttling the service to customers who have already paid for a certain amount of data, they are in fact not delivering on their promise of providing said data. I was happily surprised by the insightful remarks on the cbc interview with Mr Mirko Bibic from bell. The full article can be found here http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/05/30/tech-qandabibic.html. Most consumers seem to have seen through his marketing speak. With the lawsuit from the consumer rights group and the government motion to move towards net neutrality it`s starting to look like Bell`s excuse for throttling is going to be what galvanizes Canadians towards net neutrality.

Re:Either way you cut it: it stinks

[ratboy666]

Except that Bell ads claimed: "No slowdowns! It's not shared!" Indeed, there even was a TV ad where a beaver (the mascot) uses a megaphone to ask his neighbors to please stop internet use -- he is going to download a video. His buddy then tells him that it isn't needed -- they use Bell! (last seen 3 months ago).

At least the cable internet provider was never that stupid with marketing. It was always on a "best available" basis.

Off topic, but illustrative of what I think of Bell:

Now, the ONLY reason I use cable vs. Bell service is that Bell blocks port 25 -- both outbound and INBOUND. I tried it, and was lied to when I asked that exact question. They also will NOT unblock the inbound port for me, making the service useless. The only way to run a private mail service on the Bell network, using Bell services is... there isn't a way.

As a result of the direct lie, I was convinced to try the Bell service. I installed it, and... no email. After a few days I started investigating and discovered the port 25 inbound block. What a waste of time.

Rogers, on the other hand, doesn't block port 25 inbound (they now block outbound). However the Terms of Service explicitly state that I may not run servers. But... I have tried (and continue to try) to purchase business service from them. And they refuse to sell it to me (something about the service not being available in a residential area). I have informed them that I will continue to run these services, and will purchase the business service when they decide to make it available to me. At least Rogers doesn't bother me about it...

Caps? Yes Rogers has a cap. They even allow me to exceed the cap, and tell me how much it will cost. Bell? They have already directly lied to me.

After outright lies and misleading marketing we have lawsuits.

Economics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

People understand how to conserve resources when it directly affects their economic well-being. (Witness unsold SUVs stacking up at car dealerships.) If ISPs are running out of bandwidth, then they need to charge people in a way that more directly relates to their use.

Bill per GB, and set peak and non-peak rates. Be transparent about it though. People should be able to see how much they have used at any time, receive alerts when they cross some preprogrammed levels, and even choose to throttle themselves down when they cross a certain number of GB per month, or just during peak hours.

Make people responsible for their usage, and give them the tools to monitor/control it, and you'll find this problem will fix itself.

The ILECs spend money on improvements every day

[wonkavader]

We've seen this. Every single day, the ILECs pour a lot of money into improvements. The spend the money on

      1. Lobbyists
      2. Campaign contributions
      3. ... Ok, well isn't that ENOUGH!?!?
      4. Oh, ok, a few bucks now and then on basic improvements in areas where they can DEFINITELY get a profit on them in the short term.

Now, that all works very, VERY well to improve the company. The profit margins of the company, that is.

But the Incumbent local exchange carrier companies (the ILECs -- other wise known as TPC) in North America have spent so much money on discouraging competition through regulation that they have made their own business very expensive to run. They also have policies going back to the late 1800s of treating jobs as cogs in a machine with replaceable parts, so their labor relations are geared towards replaceability and strike-resilience. It's very inefficient.

And in a business where things can be automated up to wazoo, the ILECs are hamstrung by unions and their own evil need to have huge headcounts so that their lobbyists can pressure their unions to pressure the politicians to do as their lobbyists demand. Need for headcount reduces desire for automation.

You want more bandwidth? Push for campaign finance reform. Whenever you hear ANYTHING that a local ILEC wants from a politician, call your local reps and tell them you wont vote for them again if they vote for what the ILEC wants. Then, after any election, whether your anti-candidate wins or loses, call them and tell them that they didn't get YOUR vote because they voted with the ILEC.

Only by removing the best business model the ILECs have (preserving the status quo and gaming our democracy) will you get ILECs which listen to customers.

Bell absolutely should be allowed to throttle...

[dskoll]

... BUT, truth in advertising laws should kick in. They should only be allowed to advertise their DSL service at the lowest throttling speed. So if you buy service X that throttles protocol Y down to 20kb/s, then Bell should only be allowed to advertise that service as a 20kb/s service.

They should also not be allowed to throttle wholesale bandwith that other DSL providers buy unless those providers agree to the throttling (and advertising restrictions.)

bullshit - DSL does .. EXCEPT speakeasy

[ClioCJS]

Bullshit -- I've had 7 DSL ISPs for about 9 years, and have downloaded at full capacity (currently 3M, double a T1) nearly 100% of the time (back in the 0.75M and 1.5M days), often exceeding 250G in a month (in the 3M days). At no time has this ever cost me more than about $70 a month. I live in Northern Virginia.

One exception: Speakeasy, who lied to me during pre-sales chat, stating I could use 100% of my bandwidth 100% of the time, and that they don't regulate their connections at all -- ultimatley called me up and told me if I didn't download less than 100G a month, that they would terminate me.

They then had the gall to try to silence me with a threat of an early termination fee, and took many months to properly pay me back for the pre-paid month of service that I didn't get.

They are assholes. They should burn. But Patriot.Net? Capu.Net? Silcon.com? All great ISPs that let you do what you want.

Re:This is what happens...

[billcopc]

Then the problem is with the ISPs. I get a dedicated 100mbit line to my servers in the Netherlands for less than $200/mo. Dedicated... I can keep it tied at max capacity, both ways, 24/7 if I want. It's not just 100mb to the switch, where it gets squeezed into a micro-mini pipe to the world like they do here in America.

No, I routinely hit peak throughput when serving heavy loads to clients all around the globe. I don't just hit it once either, there were times when all four of my boxes saturated their lines - 400mbit out, just for cheap little me. Meanwhile, I've visited local datacenters that have less aggregate bandwidth across their 50-60 cages, than I have in a half-rack.

So then, if the Dutch can sell me such plentiful bandwidth so cheaply, why can't these two-faced half-bred North Americans do even better with their big bucks and big business ? We had 10mb cable a decade ago. Where my fiber ? Where's my fucking fiber to the downtown high-density tech-capital home ?

Idiots, there is no other explanation. Lazy lying idiots.