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CRTC Rules Bell Can Squeeze Downloads
pparsons writes "Bell Canada Inc. will not have to suspend its practice of 'shaping' traffic on the Internet after a group of companies that resell access to Bell's network complained their customers were also being negatively affected. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission today released a decision that denied the Canadian Association of Internet Providers' request that Bell be ordered to cease its application of the practice to its wholesale customers."
breachofcontract
Traffic shaping is a common word in the IT world.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
This is what happens when you create a regulatory body by appointing former industry insiders and lobbyists. You get a body that exists to protect big telecom from the consumer. The CRTC only is able to prosper because the average Canadian has no idea just how much worse they make their life. I've had enough I say we move to get rid of them once and for all.
It's their hubs/backbones, as well as the fact that they do not guarantee certain speeds. Also, the traffic getting shaped is almost always pirating of some form (and yes, it has happened to me and it was while downloading fansubs, which are technically illegal). What right does the government have to tell a company what to do with it's own property?
"They also complain it violates the philosophical principle of Net neutrality, which argues that Internet service providers should not play a roll ..."
And we complain about the /. editors!
Like a bunch of middlemen whining because they want Bell to stop doing what it's been doing just because it hurts their already shoddy business model. Unless, of course, these are last-mile providers who extend the Bell network into areas it doesn't already service.
While I don't think that they should be traffic-shaping anyway, the fact is that they are, and asking them to stop doing it just for these companies is unreasonable. What they should be asking for is Bell to cease this practice altogether.
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
I'm in a strangely unique environment; Bell Canada doesn't have a DSLAM at my local CO, yet a CLEC (actually an ILEC from a few miles away that bought an ISP a few years ago) decided that it was worthwhile installing one. Bell won't put one in because they think that WiMax is the "right" solution for Rural broadband. Feh.
I have far, far better internet than I ever did in the city, which I was buying resold Bell DSL from the same ISP. And this is with the exact same hardware at my end.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
What good is a regulatory body if they don't actually regulate the actions that need regulating?
Disgusting.
And they want MORE power to regulate the internet in Canada? I don't think so. I would hope the conservatives in power, who are usually the type to want to deregulate industry, eliminate the (now proven) useless CRTC bureaucracy, but clearly that sort of action is only meant for banks and big polluters. I mean, heaven help us if we look at things from the consumers point of view for once.
after a group of companies that resell access to Bell's network complained their customers were also being negatively affected
That's a misleading statement. Bell resells access to its DSLAM- the "last mile" of copper to users. Generally Bell does not provide a backbone internet connection to independent ISPs. Bell is, in essence, altering the traffic of users and ISPs because Bell is the middle-man, and they want to reduce the differentiation between their internet service (Sympatico) and competitors. As I understand it, Bell has not produced any evidence as to what it costs to have traffic crossing their DSLAM.
An example of how this works (at least how I understand it) is via the company Teksavvy. Teksavvy buys bandwidth from ISP backbones, and resells it to consumers. In order to get a DSL line to the consumer, Teksavvy has to go through Bell because Bell has a de facto monopoly on the installation and maintenance of copper lines. Bell connects the copper line at the user's residence to a Bell DSLAM, which in turn is a network switch that connects to Teksavvy's network (and then on to the backbone). Bell manipulates the traffic crossing their DSLAM from consumers to Teksavvy.
..will we get a good internet service provider in Ontario/Canada, I have my choice between bell or rogers, or someone else who is supplied by bell or rogers. Also because my neighbourhood phone lines are old and crappy, I have my choice between rogers and rogers... if only there were a second cable provider. The good ol' CRTC loves keeping Canadian's choice to a minimum. (insert 85% Canadian content here)
ISP's have two options as their networks become more and more utilized:
1) Expand the network capacity by laying new line, enabling higher throughput of the entire system. This method will incur great cost, but will not create new customers, nor lose customers, nor will it increase profits over current offerings.
2) Throttle network usage to fit current utilization into current infrastructure in a more manageable fashion. This method will incur significantly lower costs than option 1 (lawsuits included), but will not create new customers, nor lose customers (as we are the only provider available to them), nor will it increase profits over current offerings.
What say ye, shareholders?
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Is class-action lawsuit. Its been done before, and it will be done again. Lets put these teleco's in their place.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Now I can sleep well at night, knowing the unique environment you are in.
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
The ruling here was simply that Bell Canada isn't doing anything different for their resellers' customers than what they're doing for their own customers. Basically, the question before the CRTC was, is Bell hindering their resellers' customers in an unfair way? And the answer was, no, they treat their own customers the same way.
As to whether "traffic shaping" should be occurring at all, whether with respect to their own customers or their reseller's customers, that is still to be discussed in a separate hearing that starts next July.
To summarize: this really has nothing to do with "traffic shaping". That hearing is yet to come.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Starting some sort of grassroots "look what the CRTC does to you" campaign on the internet listing everything from degrading HD picture quality and sound in the name of "protecting Canadian advertisers" to allowing the "system access fee" on cellphones to exist. Right now if you ask the average Canadian what the CRTC is and what it does, they don't know. When you tell them what they do- they get angry. Inform everyone and we can maybe make a change
internet is not your local ma&pa shop or small business.
...
internet affects A LOT of things. leave aside entertainment, a lot of services that are serving vital functions of the society ranging from companies serving in security areas to health industry, even many local and national government organizations run a lot of services for performing the daily tasks they are responsible with.
no, internet, no part of it can be anyone's backyard, anyone's 'own property'. its VERY vital and VERY public, VERY STRATEGICAL to be allowed to.
think of the land ownership concept. are landowners allowed to do anything on their property, because they bought them or leased them ? what if i wanted to fill all the land i own with dung ? or what if i decided to feed wild wolves in it ? or god forbid, what if i decided to declare my own little kingdom's independency ?
seems far fetched ? it isnt. until 150 years ago or so, there werent laws that are preventing individuals or companies from buying land larger than a certain size.
if you let an individual buy enough land, that land would eventually have the capability to sustain itself in regard to all needs and services, from mining to agriculture, and therefore could easily be independent of the nation it was in. think - everyting belonging to one man or company in an area the size of california. or scotland. or ireland
so to prevent this, laws were made. in modern countries, you cant buy more than a certain defined area of land.
internet is no different than land. noone has the right to close a portion and do whatever they please on it.
Read radical news here
The topic is misleading; the decision made was that Bell was not unfairly discriminating aganist wholesale providers (like Teksavvy) versus their own customers. The CRTC has not yet reached a decision about the whole issue of traffic shaping in general (though they did find that Bell had enough justification to implement it against their wholesalers so as not to discriminate against direct customers). Michael Geist explains it better.
thats not traffic shaping, thats violating the contract.
Read radical news here
The CRTC has other problems too, they try and shape programming, and control how much "foreign" content is shown. Really, in a world where we need to be a lot closer to each other and have a wider perspective, they are trying to enforce quite the opposite. Perhaps cornering a means of obtaining "foreign" content such as Bittorrent is an issue very close to their heart for that reason.
Twinstiq, game news
So basically what happens is:
Bell's solution: Our customers are leaving to 3rd-parties because they're tired of getting screwed by our messed-up policies and cruddy service. But wait, we control a small part of the lines that 90% of the competition uses. So, in order to not lose customers, as opposed to fixing the issues, we'll just give everyone the same problem and to make their customers' connections suck too.
Sorry, but the "we're screwing everyone equally" answer doesn't add up.
It's plainly anti-competitive, all you have to ask is:
If Bell didn't have the ability to interfere with 3rd-party connections, would this issue exist, and would the other ISP's gain customers. If the issue wouldn't exist, or the other ISP's would gain customers, then Bell is abusing their control of the lines and monopoly therein.
Why does the government regulate the business of a utility? In principle you could say that if the utility tried to shaft its customers, they would switch to the competition. In practice, there are three main issues.
Of course, the ISP & the backbone has to prioritize traffic when they are using much of the bandwidth of a pipe. And then traffic shaping might even make customers happy (prioritizing VoIP over eDonkey makes sense, right?) But whatever they do, they should do it in the open.
in modern countries, you cant buy more than a certain defined area of land.
Have you any citations from North America?
Tomato/MLPPP http://fixppp.org/index.php?p=documentation Tomato/MLPPP is a fork of the popular Tomato firmware (http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato) for consumer broadband routers. The primary goal is to enable users to bond multiple DSL connections using MultiLink PPP (MLPPP), and/or to circumvent Bell Canada's DPI-based throttling by using MLPPP on a single DSL line.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world > > Those who understand binary and those who don't
That is in no way misleading. Companies buy access from Bell and resell it to individual customers. Bell is tampering with that access and it negatively affects the resellers' customers. All of that is fact.
If the situation you describe is true, that makes it even worse because it is not Bell's bandwidth that Bell is throttling. They are throttling the bandwidth of someone else's network and doing it under false pretenses.
I don't know anything about Canadian government. If you testify to this CRTC regulator and lie, does that constitute perjury? If so, someone should make some noise about that.
I guess this just proves that these are the most dangerous words in the English language: "Hi, I'm from the government. I'm here to help."
NOOOOO!
It's as if a million Canadian voices shouted out in pain as their lives were snuffed by the big corporate greedheads!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
...without actually reading the contracts. No doubt there is some sort of service level agreement in place, but I remember seeing agreements for these sort of things (well, sort of--commercial internet connectivity and colocation agreements) make statements about uptime--you get reimbursed if there are 'x' minutes of outage. However if there are any throughput or bandwidth statements they are quite a lot of weasel statements about numbers indicating maximums, not typical, etc. If your speed slows to dial-up it may not count as an outage against the SLA clauses.
This is also NOT an "anti-net-neutrality" court ruling. Bell was practicing traffic shaping on its own Sympatico ISP service even before it started doing the same for its "wholesale" customers, and for a time it was actually giving PREFERENTIAL treatment to its own competitors over the same infrastructure!
Net-neutrality is treating all traffic from all sources the same. Bell is apparently doing this right now--throttling all traffic in the same manner. Had there been evidence that Bell was using traffic shaping to give its own services superior performance to those ISPs who resell services over the very same infrastructure then Bell would rightfully be in great big trouble--especially since in many markets the only way ISPs can provide DSL service is to use Bell's lines for "last mile" connectivity.
At this level, under this situation, it is not appropriate for the government to interfere. Rather, the CRTC should be fostering competition at the infrastructure level. There have been first steps made at the wireless level in terms of securing access to existing cellular infrastructure as well as holding public RF auctions.
It is challenging to provide a choice when dealing with who owns the buried cable, so we have to make sure there is fair access to those lines. I don't see Bell doing anything unfair here. Stupid and anti-consumer, perhaps, but not anti-competitive. Bell's internet service is already notoriously inferior to all other major ISPs by reputation. If service continues to deteriorate because Bell elects to shape traffic over investing in its infrastructure then there is basis for another complaint to CRTC (since Bell is a monopoly for many markets insofar as telephone line connectivity--still an essential service). However this particular case is not the place to look at the traffic shaping issue.
In the history of its existence, the CRTC has never once missed an opportunity to prove it's composed of a bunch of fat-assed, conscienceless douchebags who unfailingly screw the Canadian citizens they're supposed to protect. I'd say I wished the whole crooked, honourless pack of pricks would die of cancer, but there's some things not even a disease should have to do.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Anyone that has studied physics would know that this practice doesn't work now, and never will ever. It follows the same reason that slowing traffic down when there is a blocked lane makes traffic worse.
To help out your "low latency" or rather, higher priority traffic, you would actually want to speed everything else up.
You can readily see this effect when you pour a glass of your favorite beverage out of a full bottle (clear plastic, for this example). Notice that when the bottleneck is full the flow backs up, and the out poured volume decreases to less than if you regulated a steady pour that didn't max out the bottleneck. However if you squeeze the bottle at the point the bottleneck is full, and force the liquid out at a higher rate; you overcome the limiting factor of the "bottleneck."
I think the ISP's are actually going about improving net congestion in the opposite way they should be. Don't slow everything down, speed everything up.
Which has more of a negative impact on the network traffic, 1 person downloading a 50gb blu-ray rip at 20mbps, or 1 person downloading a 50gb blu-ray rip that has been slowed from 20mbps down to 2-4mpbs?
Seems to me if the ISP's keep downgrading "power users" speeds, it will keep getting worse because it will mean they are downloading (and thus using up bandwidth) for much longer periods of time.
I'd be out of a job.
The full decision
In case anyone wanted to read through it. I didn't see a link from TFA.
If you want to shape your traffic, fine, but that's an inferior service and should be priced differently than a wide open service. If the CRTC wants to be fair about it, they ought to make sure it is fair for all parties.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Prince Edward Island, a province of Canada, has limitations on the area of land owned modulo activities carried out on that land (farming, leasing, e.g.).
Apparently so. But PEI != the rest of the world. Ted Turner owns nearly two million acres.
This is the Canadian regulatory body that is apparently mandated to providing Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, Shaw Cable, Quebecor, and Telus with their regional monopolies. It would be nice to see how often "representatives" of these companies take the CRTC commissioners, directors, and chair "out to lunch".
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Cell phone companies in Canada are required to have what's called a "materially adverse" clause in their contracts. This basically gives you the right to cancel your contract if they make any changes to it which are "materially adverse", usually things like adding fees or increasing the price of a service you're receiving. But you have to be fast, most of the time you have only 14 days to cancel after the change was made (which means if you don't notice the change until the next bill comes in you're hooped).
If you notice it in time and want out just call their customer service line, ask them if the changes affect you and, if so, read them the materially adverse clause and tell them you want out. When the front line CSR tells you you'll have to pay a fee just escalate the call to his supervisor.
'Course the grass isn't always greener on the other side, especially in the telecom industry.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
All is not lost, it appears the CRTC wants to hold hearings into throttling next year. So the whole internet throttling debate is just getting started in Canada. From the CBC:
There's nothing wrong with "shaping" downloads. That's what all ISPs do; I've got 6 Mbps downstream, for instance, and the reason I'm not getting more is that my ISP is "shaping" my transfer rates. I could immediately get 16 or 25 if I wanted to, just through the click of a button - no physical lines would have to be upgraded anywhere.
There's nothing wrong with this.
What there is something wrong with is false advertising. My ISP said I'd get 6 Mbps downstream when I signed the contract; I do. They said I'd get unlimited access; I do. If my ISP started limiting how much I can download, and/or meddle with my line's parameters if I went over a certain limit, that would NOT be OK, for the simple reason that this is contrary to what I was promised (and what's in my contract).
In other words: all's fair if you predeclare. But ISPs, like everyone else, cannot just go and arbitrarily change contracts just because they changed their mind. That, quite frankly, is illegal.
We switched all our services from Telus to another ISP, using Telus's lines. Our switch date came along, and then our Internet connection went dead. Neither new modem or old modem worked for anything. All it could do was Ping Telus servers. It took a month and a half of us badgering both tech support lines in order to make it right. As far as I'm concerned Telus has a policy to make it as difficult as possible to switch to another provider. Now that I've switched I'm never going back.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the bill of rights entitle every Canadian to freedom of speech? And what Bell is doing is limiting peoples access to communication resources, therefor limiting peoples freedom of speech. Man, the CRTC is so bias, and utterly useless! They have never seemed to care...
I am ashamed of my country. With the conservatives re-elected, things can only get worse.
This is also the case in BC and I suspect holds true through-out TELUS-land, however you do need to pay an additional fee for Dry/Dark DSL compared to DSL provided over an active line.
"In response to the government's policy direction, we have launched a new market-oriented approach to telecom regulation. We are giving priority to market forces, and we will intervene only when market failure makes it necessary."
- Konrad von Finckenstein, head of the CRTC, June 17, 2008 speech in Toronto
Translation: companies - do whatever the hell you want. And customers - fuck you.
Sign me up on the "Abolish CRTC" campaign.
Well if it is good enough for the CRTC then its good enough for me! :)
In all seriousness though, thanks for the post, as title and blurb were very misleading and everyone seemed to buy that and just go with it.
It will be interesting to see what happens in July.
Thought I imagine a funny response from the decision as in "we are dismissing the allegations as it was discovered you treat your own customers just as horribly. You are fair in that you treat everyone equally horribly." lol.
I really hope the CRTC renders a fair decision (one way or the other). Personally Bell really irks me.
Someone previous mentioned that the CRTC was made up of industry and lobbies, and thus would always rule with the telcos. I hope this isn't the case. The fact is those people are the most knowledgeable in the field, so it makes sense to have them make these decisions, it is a balance. I only hope they are not being influenced by their past connections or bias.
If CRTC does decide against Bell I hope they will take it one step further and make the same decision against Rogers Communication (Cable Monopoly). I think we need some real telecommunication reform in Canada, and this might be a first (small) step. We should be world leaders and innovators in telecommunication, but due to how we are organized I feel we are stagnant and restrictive (protectionist due to duopoly).
Like others have mentioned, this issue is more complicated than being "pro-skub" or "anti-skub." Traffic Shaping is a very important part of managing and providing quality internet access. A majority of web traffic now is P2P. I guess you can let this destroy the quality and even functionality of services like online gaming, VOIP, steaming video, etc... Also you can be like some ISPs and try blocking 100% of it and enjoy a free day off to testify before the FCC...
The reality is that traffic shaping is a very very important tool in the ISP's toolbox, but there are no guidelines on how to use it, so everyone is figuring it out for themselves. It would be helpful for regulators to define the boundaries of what is okay, and ISPs will figure the rest out eventually.
How does turning on torrent encryption affect this?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
How come we don't have this problem in the UK? Serious question.
Hey! If it weren't for their Canadian content regulations, we never would have seen The Great White North!
And our freedom of speech is limited compared to our US cousins.
You haven't been to the States recently, I take it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I can monopoloze a service, contract with you to provide said service wholesale, then right in the middle of the contract completely change the terms and that's okay in Canada???!!!
Of course, I did get slapped. I was told that the next time I pull this shit, I have to give you 30 days notice that I'm changing the terms of the contract in mid stream.
I guess this means that contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on in Canada!
When I first saw the title I assumed it was an article about the 6545 (or maybe even its younger upstart brother, the 6845). :(
Then I just felt old
I may be paranoid but I think the real reason for this technology is to "shape" VOIP and related services to thwart the competition. I don't think this is about limiting download volumes at all. Most of us don't use even close to what the lines can carry and who cares if the download speeds are "lumpy".
However, consider that if we have a high speed line then all telecommunication services including what is now done on phone lines and our television services can run over the same link instead of three separate lines each being billed by possibly separate organizations.
No longer will we need cable TV or satellite TV service siting right beside an old POTS (plain old telephone service) line sitting right beside a hopefully brand spanking new fiber optic cable.
Without shaping the ISP and others can run whatever communications services they wish over a fast smooth high speed link. As I see it, this is a preemptive strike. Better to get the "shaping" technology into place before the masses figure out how badly they get screwed. If the carrier can make the communications link "lumpy" then VOIP services and Television services might not run so smoothly unless offered by guess who is "shaping" the line.
We can already use say an Asterisk server to provide PBX services but this is only if we can be sure the time delay between packet transmission is small and predictable. Think of how much competition this technology can create for the phone company! http://www.asterisk.org/
Another thing to consider is the profit margins on cell phone services. Once we have the digital link in place then we can run these services over wifi if we wish. Many libraries, some coffee shops and even city hall in some locations offer wifi for free. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotspot_(Wi-Fi) Again "shaping" can be used to detune the system. Its probably a stop gap attempt but I'm paranoid enough to expect them to try it.
Newsflash:
Within the next few weeks, Bell will ask the CRTC to allow it to have any other company to use it's facilities throughout it's territory (which never has been the whole Canada).
In essence, Bell will wholesell it's facilities to any Dick, Tom and Harry that wants to provide any service Bell currently offers, including ADSL.
The rationale is "why bother with collecting from a zillion private accounts, when you can sell wholesale service to, say, 50 retailers who then will be stuck with collecting those zillion consumer accounts and doing the customer service?". Much better to deal with 50 wholesalers than a zillion consumers... And at least, this way, it can keep a piece of the action; when it'll lose a consumer, it'll still get the wholesale fee...
(This information comes directly from a small telecom CEO who won't need anymore to install his own equipment in Bell's COs to offer good service).