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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."
s. We want to obviously take steps to make sure that doesn't happen.
Oh yeah? Then add more bandwidth. Problem solved. Delivering as advertised is not a value added service!
This is just the same excuse that other telcos are giving for overselling their bandwidth vs their customers needs. These telcos need to learn how to provide enough bandwidth for peak times if that is what they're selling. If someone were to pick up a telephone at peak times and get an all circuits are busy message regularly during peak hours than there would be hell to pay.
We need to stop letting them get away with selling service to us that they cannot provide. As consumers we need to look towards other providers and build a market for service providers that don't pull these kinds of games. We also need to make it clear to these companies that their selling us services they cannot deliver is not acceptable to us. The only way they will ever get that message is through their subscriber numbers. As long as the big telcos and ISPs have the bulk of the customers they will never see the light until an exodus towards alternatives starts.
The only way that an exodus towards alternatives will occur is if we the people move in that direction and help the smaller companies build themselves up by moving to them.
This is all about overselling which has to be done to a certain extent but when the peak times cannot regularly be met then it is too oversold. Unfortunately consumers these days are sheep and will stay with these companies because they are cheaper/easier to get service from.
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.
The main problem with the current state of ISP's is that they *claim* to sell unlimited / no contention internet access and have no intention of ever delivering. Instead they throttle, block, apply qos, or otherwise impose a hidden limit on the bandwidth you are allowed to use.
If you want to limit the used bandwidth, go ahead. Just spell out exactly what those limits are in a contract with your customers.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
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.
-Billco, Fnarg.com