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

That's not competition....

[mr_nazgul]

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....

My two cents...

[DaEmEoNd]

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.