Bell Canada Ordered To Justify Traffic-Shaping Practices

somecanuckchick writes "The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has ordered Bell Canada to justify its traffic-shaping practices. The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission on Thursday told the company it has until June 23 to make public data that was marked confidential in a May 29 filing. Bell had said it needed to keep quiet the information, which details the level of internet traffic and possible congestion on its network, for competitive reasons."

Comments

No doubt...

[Bullfish]

it is competitive pressure they fear, as they are shaping traffic while they have opened an on-line video store to help provide the bandwidth. The fact that Bell has increased the services they offer while trying not to spend money expanding their server to server infrastructure would probably give competitors a leg up in knowing how close they really are to capacity. Knowing that, they could use it as an edge. That said, selling high speed as high speed to customers while throttling their speed and hoping they don't notice is still bait and switch.

I`ve said it before.

[Some1too]

I think bell really shot themselves in the foot with their argument that their lines are overwhelmed by traffic from torrents or 'heavy users'. This has really turned up the passion with the general public at large. Michael Geist www.michaelgeist.ca has an extremly infomative series of articles titled "a week in the life of the new canadian dmca" where he uses an every day normal family to explain what would and would no longer be acceptable if this law passes.

His facebook privacy group has swelled to over 65 000 individuals since it's creation. This included with the efforts of other canadian organizations (www.copyrightforcanadians.ca) has really brought this issue to the forefront of canadian politics. Net neutrality wasn`t even a whisper a few months ago, now it`s being talked about around the water cooler at work. So let me be one of the first to say it: Thank you Bell Canada. Thank you for being that large corporation which believes it has a right to do whatever it wants to it`s customers. You`ve helped out net neutrality in Canada more than you could of imagined.

I can`t wait to see just how clogged their resources are. I hope someone is able to cut through the legalese to give us a nice idea of how their equipment and service is really running.

Re:Bell Canada is not the only one.

[Jonny_eh]

I left Rogers due to their traffic shaping. It seems to affect some people in some locations, and not others.

I switched to Tek Savvy, and they were amazing, until Bell started to throttle them. I hope Bell gets set straight. What they did was plain anti-competitive.

Re:Bandwidth versus latency...

[ratboy666]

Wha, wha, wha, WHAT?

1 - "Geeks" do work around "latency" issues -- I have been doing so since the dialup era. I run my own DNS server for this reason, and use nscd on local machines. I use SquidProxy.

2 - I don't work around traffic shaping. But a packet is just a packet. What the fuck does the ISP think it is doing when (re)prioritizing my packets? I guess I simply don't deserve ANY priority, right?

3 - You didn't address your argument for keeping shaping private. Explain WHY it should be private. I will gladly add quality of service requests to my packets -- IF THE SHAPING POLICY IS NOT PRIVATE.

4 - "A few geeks demanding maximum bandwidth". Sure, why not? What does Bell DSL advertise?

Let me give you a hint:

http://www.bellvideostore.ca/help/

This is Bells "download video" service.

"Technical Specifications:
720x480 maximum resolution, 30 fps, 1,500-2,200 kbps average bit rate. These videos will play on all 4th and higher generation Archos portable media players. THESE VIDEOS WILL NOT PLAY ON MOST PORTABLE VIDEO PLAYERS AND ARE NOT IPOD COMPATIBLE."

http://www.bell.ca/support/PrsCSrvGnl_mover_offers.page?region=ON&language=en&EXT=PDL2_SA_MOVE_2008Q2_AR_EN_ON_Google_bell%20dsl&s_kwcid=bell%20dsl|1920763120

"If you're moving, now's the perfect time to move up and into a Bell Better HomeTM: ...
        * The most powerful Internet"

Of course Bell (the ISP) offers a music store in addition to the video store:

http://musicstore.sympatico.msn.ca/help_en/index.html

Conflict of interest? No, they really need to shape traffic to keep up with that audio and video goodness.

Let's see how Bell advertises the service for new buyers (note the lack of fine print):

http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpInt_NewAccess.page?userType=NEW

"Total Internet Performance
Download high quality music files, stream video,or play games.

Best price
in a bundle$42.95/mo.
Bonus: Get 2 months free

Regular price: $47.95/mo. *"

(editors comment - the * footnote is NOT on this page, I have no idea what it means)

And my personal favorite:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ArpmbnxIQIQ

This ad aired until fairly recently.

So this ISP does bandwidth shaping -- why? Aren't they selling Total Internet Performance, the Bell Better Home (tm), Audio downloads and Video (even streaming) at near HD quality?

A FEW GEEKS DEMANDING MAXIMUM BANDWIDTH??? Hell, I would like to see the beavers deliver a fraction of the promises. And let's not get into "never shared, never slow" crap they advertised.

Re:Laughable.

[Locklin]

Actually, they do offer dry loop DSL with sympatico. You just have to ask for it, and it's free (most of the resellers have to charge ~$10 for it).

Additionally, there is no reason for Bell to throttle reseller's connections (beyond anti-competitive reasons). It should be up to the reseller to manage their own network. That is the basis of the current CTRC complaint.

I agree with the rest of your comment though. Bell should be allowed to provide either the ISP/phone connections, or media content, not both.

Re:Bell Canada is not the only one.

[p0tat03]

I wrote a letter to my MP a while back, telling him that his party's technology policies have been sorely disappointing, and that unless they shape up, they cannot expect my vote in the future. I got a nice reply back from my MP, being quite ambivalent (it's ok, he used to be the Minister of Fisheries, I don't expect him to be totally on the up and up about tech).

The surprising thing is, I got a nice letter from Jim Prentice on Friday, apparently my letter was forwarded to him. In it he extolled the virtues of competition, and his confidence that the free market will give Canadian consumers high-quality services at competitive prices.

Apparently Mr. Prentice hasn't paid a phone or internet bill for quite some time, or he'd know about the sad state of affairs the free market has brought us.

Re:Bell Canada is not the only one.

[gmack]

Jim Prentice is clueless about how free markets operate and really need dump him from cabinet.

His response to the bill C-61 was pretty much word for word the same. "The free markets will decide if DRM gets used or not"

Dry Loop DSL

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had dry loop DSL from Bell for a few years. No surcharge and it works great... after it's set up, that is. If there are any problems getting it working, then it's a nightmare. Their call center script-monkeys will insist that you call from the house (to jump through their "how many lights do you see" hoops). I use a third-party VoIP provider (unlimitel.ca - most excellent) so it's always an argument with Bell: "You must call us from the house where the Internet isn't working" - "I can't call from the house because the Internet isn't working". Eventually, I'm forced to lie to them about where I'm calling from, which involves writing down the model and serial #s from the modem cuz they'll ask for them.

Re:That's not competition....

[mr_nazgul]

I could... But if the power goes out, do I still have a line in case of emergency with VOIP? When I call 911, do they know where you are? I've read about VOIP not working well with 911.

This is why I even bother to keep a land line, instead of only using a cell.

Re:Bell Canada is not the only one.

[why-is-it]

His response to the bill C-61 was pretty much word for word the same. "The free markets will decide if DRM gets used or not"

Given the strong penalties for subverting DRM that Bill C-61 provides, I would say that DRM is a certainty. It's not a free market if the media cartels dictate the rules...

Of course, Prentice also claims that Bill C-61 provides the strongest and most balanced copyright in the world. I am not sure how you can have both of those things at the same time.

And don't even get me started on how legislation written by foreign media cartels qualifies as a "Made in Canada" solution...

Re:"Competetive Reasons" eh?

[nightfire-unique]

Switch to teksavvy.com. I did so after Bell started crippling bittorrent (about 3 months ago). While they have also started tampering with teksavvy's users' traffic (surely illegal; we'll see), at least the spare change at teksavvy is going to something useful: they're leading a charge for Net Neutrality, and supporting them is my way of fighting back.

Aside from that, their customer service, performance, competence and business processes are second to none.

Bell management, if you're reading this: go to hell. Seriously. I was your dedicated customer for seven years, and this outrage has prompted me to terminate my business relationship with you (phone, cell, and Internet). It will be a very long time before you profit from me again.