Slashdot Mirror
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."
That's hiding the made up bull that they pull. They would rather do this and save their investments in more infrastructure but still get more users and lines leased.
Sigh.
Bell knows that if people see what it is doing, with no valid reasons, that they will go to the competition. I used to be with Bell with internet, but went to another ISP after their "unlimited" placed a cap on my download limit.
Unfortunately, all the ISP now in my area have caps now, but at least you can choose what you need from mine. I can pay for fast speed with a low cap, or a high cap based on my needs. Bell never gave that choice. It was "Next month, you are going the have a limit, and we will charge you for every gig you go over. Plus you will be penalized if you cancel any contracts."
When they told me they would charge me for a canceling my Internet contract, I told them if they try, I would cancel my phone as well. They waived the fee.
Vote with your wallet! Truer words were never spoken or typed.
Now if I can just get cheaper and better phone provider....
Good.. Bad.. I'm the guy with the gun.
I actually just signed up with Rogers about 3 weeks ago and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Azureus notified me right away that they are suspected of throttling, and turned on encryption for me automatically.
That being said, I can't say I have a problem with Rogers' bandwidth at all. :)
Doesn't Rogers do nasty things with encrypted traffic? (Whether it be BitTorrent, VPN, SSL, what-have-you)
I seem to recall there was a small uproar over a bunch of people who couldn't access their email via secured POP and some VPN issues with Rogers... or has that been resolved?
Bell most surely has suspiciously strong ties with big L Liberals.
To be fair though the takeover deal WAS approved by the shareholders. The lower court decision blocking the sale was brought forward by bond/debt holders who argued that the sale would have a negative effect on their holdings.
The supreme court found that while it was likely that these groups would be adversely affected there was no precedent to block the sale.
Essentially saying, "If you're not a shareholder, tough luck".
Incidentally, for competitors in the DSL consumer service, Bell often offers the 'last leg' of DSL connections, but doesn't actually provide the backbone bandwidth. They nevertheless are throttling customers of competitors for bandwidth that Bell isn't even paying for.
dada21: Which local, state, and federal regulations, specifically, are regstricting competition?
I know capitalists love the free market, and thus blame everything on government, but without citing anything, i'm not sure that i believe you.
Additionally, in Canada there are provinces, not states.
But please, enlighten us about these regulations.
My biggest problem with traffic shaping is this. Imagine if they tried to do this with our voice lines based on the content of your conversation. Customer1 is talking about a new song on the radio with customer2 and bell's traffic shaping is listening in. Customer2: Have you heard that new song on the radio by Metallica? Customer2: No I don't think so... Customer1: (starts singing the first verse to the new song.) Bells traffic shaping detects metallica's lyrics being sung in the conversation and immediately flags conversation and intervenes because of the content. Customer2: Oh yeah I've heard that one!!(starts to sing the 2nd verse to the song) Bell's traffic shaping software now is starting to throttle the conversation and diverts part of the bandwidth(analog or digital information)to other customers because of the content. Customer1: Hey I can hardly hear you! Your cutting in and out! customer2 barely hears customer1 and starts singing louder. Bells software adjusts Customer2: Say "static" prayers little one Dont "static" get, my son To include "static"one Customer1: Hey your cutting in and out! Customer2: Huh? (yells out)Can you hear me now!!! My whole point is this, be it either by analog or digital, bell has no right to listen in to the conversations I may be having. If I'm having a verbal conversation with someone and they want to listen into conversation they need a warrant, otherwise they are invading my privacy. Same goes for information that I send and receive over the internet.
The begining of the end...
I don't use bell but I am still bandwidth shaped. I am on a 300Gbyte per month 7MBS package from a competitor that lease bell line and since three month my torrent have drop from average of 500kbyte to 25. Yes 25 !! What right bell have to throttle providers line that pay them for a block of bandwidth ?
Still my internet service is way better and way cheaper than what bell has to offer me.
If your are in Canada you can look at one of the following isp for a better price:
vif.com
velcom.ca
www.cooptel.qc.ca
They are all better than the thief from BCE corp !
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.