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Bell Canada To Stop Internet Throttling
inject_hotmail.com writes "I just caught wind of a story over at the Huff. Bell Canada has written a letter to the CRTC indicating that it will end traffic shaping on March 1, 2012. Although Bell says that this is due to "increasing popularity of streamed video and other traffic" and 'P2P file-sharing, as a proportion of total traffic, has been diminishing,' it's far more likely that they are interested in higher revenue. In all likelihood, the change of heart is based on the fact that Bell has moved most of their customer base to, and offer no alternative to, low-usage-cap UBB packages, which would ultimately generate more income or deter full usage of their service (and thus require less infrastructure investment)."
Aborting throttling is definitely a good thing.
However the caps and overage fees are definitely an issue, and I can see this being part of a plan to get that bandwidth used up earlier, and collect the overage fees. Dirty, but we should know better than to assume they're doing something for the good of the customers.
I'm still dreaming of the day when the physical layer is run by an agency that has no relation to the provider, and the provider of your choice can hook up at the CO.
The current setup is too much of a conflict of interest, and they'll want low caps so people use their TV services and such. This should never be...
Sent from my PDP-11
Similar to cell plans with unlimited nights and weekends, usage-based-billed broadband also ought to be cheaper during periods of low demand when there's plenty of spare capacity. If I were on such a plan, I would stream movies less and download movies more, during the wee hours, to save money. The ISP would also save money by not having to add capacity just to prevent the network from getting congested a couple of hours each day.
Everybody wins with efficient pricing.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
finally got it through their heads to listen to the users and the common good?
No, they finally understood that at the rate current legislation is going around the world, there will be nothing worth downloading in a couple years anyway.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So, for what this means, here is some data on pricing and data caps:
Essential Plus - Speeds up to 2Mbps - $34 per month
2GB of bandwidth per month
= 2.27 hours of usage per month
Performance - Speeds up to 6 Mbps - $44 per month
25GB of bandwidth per month
= 9.5 hours of usage per month
Fibe 6 - Speeds up to 6 Mbps - $44 per month
25GB of bandwidth per month
= 9.5 hours of usage per month
Fibe 12 - Speeds up to 12 Mbps - $54 per month
50GB of bandwidth per month + $5 per 40GB
($1.50 per GB not prepaid)
= 9.5 hours of usage per month
Fibe 16 - Speeds up to 16Mbps - $64 per month
75GB of bandwidth per month
= 10.7 hours of usage per month
Fibe 25 - Speeds up to 25Mbps - $74 per month
125GB of bandwidth per month
= 11.4 hours of usage per month
Basically, Bell figures that you will use the full capacity of your connection about 10 hours a month or so.
1. Sell product with *unlimited bandwidth usage. *Restrictions may apply. ... repeat...
2. Implement traffic shaping because of overselling actual available bandwidth
3. Change everyone's plans to tiny, capped plans
4. Announce new *unlimited bandwidth usage plans and upsell existing customers. *Restrictions may apply.
Not even close. Did you happen to see this part of the article?
So basically, what Bell is saying is, "Now that we've got all our customers right where we want them, and we're squeezing every cent out of providing bandwidth, with customers paying more to get less, we would just as soon not have to worry about any government regulations."
It has nothing to do with any pro-consumer decision on Bell's part. It has nothing to do with Bell being concerned about their customers well-being. It has everything to do with what used to be a public utility turning customers upside-down and shaking every penny out of their pockets. Bell is going to continue to ignore you. They will continue to lower caps and raise prices. They'll continue to avoid spending money on improving infrastructure. They'll continue giving you the finger. But now that they're feeling their oats, they're going to give the government the finger too.
Traffic-shaping is a bad thing. Anything that is not providing neutral telecommunications services to customers is a bad thing. Bell doesn't have anything against filesharing, as long as you're ready to pay out the nose for every byte. They're still enforcing the government's rule, but they're making sure they're going to make big money in the process.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't know if Bell did this in response to competition, but they have lost me as a customer permanently over the issue. I switched to TekSavvy for internet a year ago will never use another another Bell service as long as live (using Wind for cell phone and dropped cable TV entirely).
http://teksavvy.com/en/res-internet.asp#cable
I've downloaded well over 1 TB this month (of Linux distros!) on the unlimited package with no throttling or caps so far.
Traffic-shaping is a bad thing.
Don't be an idiot. Traffic shaping is fundamentally necessary to manage a network whose capacity is less than demand (basically any public network). Abusive and discriminatory traffic shaping is a bad thing.
Not necessarily. Read the summary. All of Bell's customers are now on usage based billing. Here is a summary of a couple of the 'fib' plans (fibre optic network) so you can judge for yourself.
The fastest package is 25Gb/s at $75 per month ($35 for the first year, then it goes up), and has a 125 GB cap. Overage costs $1/GB unless you pay ahead of time for "insurance" at $5/40GB (and similarly 10/80GB and 15/120 GB bucks). Upload is 7 Mb/s.
Their 12Mb/s package is 12 Gb/s at $54 per month ($44/month for the first year), with a 50 GB cap. Overage is $1.50/GB up to $80 each month. Upload is 1Mb/s but if you pay $5 you can get 7 Mb/s. Same download "insurance" as all the other plans including the fastest package already mentioned.
So they are not altruistic. If you download a lot you pay for it. You can make up your own mind if they are reasonable or whether you think they are or aren't still repressing their customers. Personally the 12 Gb/s plan's 50GB cap is pretty bloody low if you ask me. Ridiculous really. But then again bell also has their own IPTV service and pay per view which competes with other services like Netflix. So go figure. The big three regional monopolies do the same thing (Bell, Telus, Rogers).
On the other hand, services like Netflix are far more limited in Canada, and really not of much value. This is mainly because of archaic 'culture protecting' laws (limit foreign networks and shows and enforce certain percentage of 'Canadian content' by hours of broadcast time) and laws allowing the three regional monopolies, Bell, Rogers, and Telus to buy sole distribution rights to foreign (mostly American) shows in Canada. These severely limit what people can download legally or without having technical ability above the average user. So Canadians have been hamstrung us in many other ways in terms of telecommunications and so the need for high caps is somewhat diminished.
And to rub salt into the wound, it is cold for long periods of the year so it isn't surprising that Canadians are near or are the top internet users in the world. So the telecom companies know they dig and still get money. And since the big three dominate so much, they can call the shots and walk over anyone they please will little push back from the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (many of whose board members either have worked previously for the big three, or where they often end up when they leave the CRTC).
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
That's why I'm on TekSavvy. They offer the same speeds at slightly lower prices but with a 300GB cap. They even have a 5M/unlimited plan.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
Here in the US I'd kill for 25 Mbps @ $75/month... I pay for 8 Mbps @ $75/month... x.X
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Bell is not going to do anything - ANYTHING - unless they believe they can squeeze every possible dime out of their customers. This is a company hellbent on profits at the cost of anything remotely approximating good business. Worse, they are a company that still thinks they have a monopoly and acts like it. And, worst of all, too many Canadians are willing to let them when there are many better options available. I'd go with Rogers (who I loathe) a million times over before going with Bell...
Believe me, the only reason they're doing this is they did the math and they believe they can screw their customers over better this way. I believe someone else in the thread supplied math that demonstrates this rather nicely...
Don't for a second think that Bell is doing something good - they are screwing customers every chance they can. They are the worst sort of the greed-corporations...
People keep saying this but its a bald faced lie.
For the price of two movie rentals at the video store you get access to a wide range of movies and TV shows, as long as you watch a minimum of two movies a month it basically pays for itself. Hell, I've been enjoying watching episodes of Farscape, Xena, Buffy, The Walking Dead, and re-watching the Star Trek movies again. Hell, they just got Bones the other week, I'd never seen it from the beginning so now I've got the chance to; I'm hoping they get NCIS and JAG, I'd never seen those from the beginning either. My young nieces and nephews have been having a blast watching the Land Before Time movies, Astroboy, Pingu, Thomas the Tank Engine, Curious George, The Pink Panther, etc...
Unless you're looking for the latest and greatest, which is usually reserved for the Cable/Satellite providers VOD channels for a premium fee, there is plenty of value on Netflix for the paltry 8.00 bucks a month that they charge.
So a lot of small ISP's buy bandwidth from Bell. And then they re-sell that bandwidth to users like you. Up until now, those users haven't been using too much bandwidth, because the "backbone" (from Bell) used traffic shaping to reduce their throughput.
Now that Bell has stopped shaping, what do you think will happen to those ISP's? Their customers will torrent away all their bandwidth, and the ISP's will either have to add their own shaping or add caps to their plans.
End result: Bell's customers (on capped plans already) see no big benefit. ISP customers get some short-term benefit until their ISP's adjust to the new system. ISP's suffer. Bell wins.
I personally hate it when Canadians talk about our "Miranda rights" or "District Attorneys", "The Constitution" instead of "The Charter", etc. Also good for Canadian artists & businesses that produce content & jobs. I'm getting on a tangent here... :)
We do not have "Miranda" rights, no, but we do have all of the rights that Americans would know as Miranda rights, as granted by other legislations. We do not have "District Attorneys", but we do have public prosecutors who serve exactly the same role. Those are merely a question of nomenclature. We *do*, however, have a constitution. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is section 1 of The Constitution Act, 1982. When somebody talks about the Constitution granting rights that are part of the Charter, they are absolutely correct, because the Charter is part of the Constitution.
Incidentally, we don't have "felonies" in Canada, either. We have "indictable offenses".
And no, Netflix' small library in Canada has nothing to do with CanCon. Netflix isn't a broadcaster, and isn't under those rules. It is indeed distribution rights that are the real issue.