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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."
Traffic shaping is a common word in the IT world.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
I would think it would be. If you're selling something to someone, and you change what you're selling them, then you've just broken your contract.
It doesn't surprise me at all that Bell would do such a thing, though. I've got a Bell cellphone w/3 year contract. They've added charges left, right and center since I've got it. So I'm tied in, but they're not. I'm going to bitch like hell about this month's bill, though, as the extra charges alone are almost twice what my original contract was for.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
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.
Mine too, used to be around $35-40 a month, and last couple months it has climbed over $60
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()?
It's recognized by even the most free market-fanatic economists that the government has a responsibility to break up monopolies.
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.
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.
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
1. These guys are independent ISPs. They lease last-mile lines from Bell (Bell owns all the phone infrastructure.) to provide DSL and other services.
2. Bell started shaping their own customers months ago, and they started hemorrhaging customers to the smaller ISPs (A free market working properly) who didn't shape traffic.
3. Bell decided to start shaping the traffic from those smaller ISPs.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Complain that they are making a "material change" and they'll have to let you out.
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.
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.
They don't seem to have a problem doing that, either. They (and Telus) changed the rules for text messages back in August when they started charging 15 cents for every message received unless you went on a plan.
Telus also informed us back in August that their new billing policy was to charge for the following month's Internet service in advance, effective immediately. So our bill for that month was double. Nice little cash-grab for them.
My response was to investigate other providers. We informed them a couple of weeks later that our new policy was to cancel our service with them.
I don't care why you're posting AC
> Of course not, but this isn't competition. Bell -owns- this infrastructure, and they
> shape all traffic going through their lines.
But, they don't. That infrastructure was built with significant tax dollars. In exchange for the build-out money, the government retained certain rights. Which is why there was a CRTC hearing at all.
> Somehow, I fail to see how any of that smacks of wanting to reduce competition.
Well, you've stated that you believe that the company owning the last mile (and not the company leasing access to it) should be the one deciding how it's used.
So, what's your proposed solution? That each ISP run their own last mile? Then, should the taxpayers also help each ISP run the last mile to their house? Or should Bell have to give back the money they got from us? If they have to give it back, at what interest rate should we have loaned it to them? And how do we handle 50 competing companies all running wire-willy nilly? What if some of those companies go bankrupt? Who handles the line maintenance? It's redundant, so Bell won't do it. Will the taxpayers pay for removal?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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
I hate to be the guy that nitpicks over something trivial, but phone systems are designed to give constant bandwidth to a phone call, so the quality can neither improve nor degrade... That's why you occasionally get "The network is busy, please try again later" messages when you try to make a call... the phone system can't establish a circuit for you.
But to comment on "Do they also listen to my phone calls", I'd have to say "yes and no". Phone companies monitor their networks, and may monitor calls carried on their network - it is their network, after all, and you give up your right to privacy (at least privacy from the phone company) if you use their network for a phone call.
I hate to side with telecoms on anything, but in this case I think I need to - as long as people sign up to use a service on company X's network, company X can do whatever they want with the packets that find their way on to the network (provided that no false advertisements, misrepresentations, or contract breaches occur).
In the case of Bell Canada, I think the most-likely-to-succeed attack vector would be "the service agreement as signed implied impartial packet routing and transmission, but they're not doing that", not "OH NOES THEY'RE IN UR PACKETS LOOKIN AT UR PRON".
OK.
I don't want to deal with Bell. Roger's terms-of-service are unacceptable. I'm a TekSavvy customer.
Find me the regulations that will even _let_ TekSavvy run a copper pair to my house for any amount of money. They can't, Bell owns the right-of-way for phone lines, and Roger's for cable lines.
They should do what they did to electricity and gas. If Bell wants to own the _wires_, they have to split off the company that provides _services_ over them. Or vice-versa; just have a company whose job is to maintain the wires to connect customers and providers.
how about !neutrality
No, it's recognized that they need to break up monopolies abusing their powers to prevent competition from being established or surviving. Monopolies that exist because no other competitors are willing or able, absent market manipulation by the company with the monopoly, to enter the market are okay.
These are rare, however, they exist.
The full decision
In case anyone wanted to read through it. I didn't see a link from TFA.
Phone companies monitor their networks, and may monitor calls carried on their network - it is their network
They may incidentally monitor phone calls as a part of normal operations (the lineman plugs into your pair while troubleshooting a problem somewhere) but they don't have the right to just monitor your line for the hell of it.
and you give up your right to privacy (at least privacy from the phone company)
Says who?
I hate to side with telecoms on anything, but in this case I think I need to - as long as people sign up to use a service on company X's network, company X can do whatever they want with the packets that find their way on to the network
I disagree. We've given the telecom industry billions of dollars in tax breaks and preferential treatment (codified monopolies, rights of way, etc) to assist them in building their networks. We have the right to have some say in how they manage those networks. If they want a true free market system then let's bring it on -- I'd love to be able to negotiate with the telephone company for royalties on that pole they put on my property.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
since legally there is no expectation or indication of privacy from the network owner, and that legally they can do pretty much whatever they want to the packets on their network (assuming no breach of contract or misrepresentation of services has occurred).
Since you appear to know the law, it would be helpful if you gave a reference to any evidence you have to this statement. In Canada our privacy laws have always been rather strict (as compared to the US for example). I personally doubt that phone companies can listen to phone calls or Internet sessions at their whim. However if you provide some evidence to this it may change my perceptions (and I'm talking about actual laws or legal precedents and not just possibly illegal EULAs or inadvertent listening do to maintenance work).
"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.
Before the American civil war every company had to get a license from the government simply to exist, and then it was only for a specific limited length of time and for a single purpose: like building a bridge or canel, etc. Companies have more power today than they ever have. Thinking that the government does not have a responsibility to break up monopolies is a crazy, anarchistic idea.
If you are in Ontario (I haven't research other jurisdictions) you are free of any contract you may have had with Telus.
Changing the prices definitely constitutes a material change.
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_02c30_e.htm
Except, in this case, these aren't all resellers. Many of the companies complaining lease last-mile (backhaul) bandwidth, and have their own pipe to the 'net.
These companies are not reselling Bell services, they are supposed to be getting 5Mbit/sec per customer of BACKHAUL (from the phone jack to their routers) bandwidth. Again, they supply their own pipe to the 'net.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Employers may monitor employees' phone calls [privacyrights.org] and location [privacyrights.org] (using cell towers or GPS).
I'm talking about telcos here and not employee/employer relationships.
Cell phone companies are required by the FCC to have the ability to track your location to within 100 meters for the purposes of 911 calls.
Not really relevant to what I was asking.
Telephone company employees may listen to your conversations when it is necessary to provide you with service, to inspect the telephone system, to monitor the quality of telephone service or to protect against service theft or harassment.
That's what I already presumed and stated in my earlier comment; as I've stated I was more interested in knowing whether the telco had unlimited access and liability to listen in whenever they wanted (as was your original statement of facts).
Note that the above paragraph gives telephone companies free license to listen to phone conversations
That's your interpretation. As I've stated I was looking for specific laws or precedent and not legally dubious loop-holes.
Unfortunately all of your examples and references refer to the USA; I was specifically talking about and mentioned Canada and it's much stricter privacy laws. I will give you kudos for going out of the way to do some research however. It does appear to me that your initial statements are actually just dubious assumptions.
Best regards,
UTW