Dr Basil Ganglia
@bell.ca
| reply to Kardinal
Re: How "traffic shaping" will negatively impact neuroscience:
I'd like to hear that explanation too. You're skeptical because I used a pseudo in a hostile message-board environment such as this seems to be? Why would I give my real name to a bunch of strangers?
Some of you seem to get me - some don't. Depends heavily on the ability to set aside groundless suspicion, I suppose. The fact that torrenting enables the ability to select/deselect individual files, while FTP and PPTP forces either bulk up or bulk down (unless you feel like picking through 1000s of pieces to get the ones you need for ? analysis) means that torrents are much more useful. I am rarely *physically* at work, so portable (USB?!) drives are useless to me.
"theninjasqua", above, seems to have the right idea though.
Also, if SETI doesn't have a T1, why should I?! Wow!
Also - thanks Bylo. Clinical MRIs are sort of a different matter (from experimental data / fMRI) and I don't know *what* portion of your family member's body was scanned, but chances are you got the 'end user' version of the pic, and not all the raw data. That said, MEG data is usually bigger.
That's all! Geez! |
|
Dr BG
@bell.ca
| reply to Dr Basil Ganglia
I should also point out that it was some folks from the European neuro-research community that turned me on to the idea at a conference a few years ago.
It seemed weird to me at the time too, but it's proven invaluable over the last couple of years. |
|
Bell_Abused
join:2006-10-07
 ·Bell Sympatico
| reply to Dr Basil Ganglia
For a fact I know many people are starting to enjoy video-conferences with doctors, sharing of scans, going through cardiac rehab, stroke rehab and much much more. All within remote area's of Quebec and Ontario which don't have access to specialists or the nurses and doctors running the health rehab programs.
I hope to hell they don't affect patients, people, families and doctors in that manner.
if they are then I suggest you contact a bell VP and start dialog. this would throw back a lot of programs being offered to these remote area's and more programs to come. |
|
bylo
Premium
join:2004-05-04
Waterloo, ON
1 edit | said by Bell_Abused  :many people are starting to enjoy video-conferences with doctors, sharing of scans, going through cardiac rehab, stroke rehab and much much more. All within remote area's of Quebec and Ontario which don't have access to specialists or the nurses and doctors running the health rehab programs. I hope to hell they don't affect patients, people, families and doctors in that manner. Good point. In fact both the federal and provincial governments have spent $100s of millions to bring broadband to the more remote parts of the country, not only to help with the medical applications you listed, but also to help with education (think schools and libraries), agriculture and other areas. Most, if not all, of that broadband uses telco infrastructure including DSL and WiFi. Imagine if one of the (inadvertent) consequences of Bell's super-secret traffic shaping strategy were to affect any of that? I wouldn't want to be on Bell's end of the lawsuits or the negative PR.
But yeah, the Bell apologists can slough this off because it it's just BT. (Although some have reported impact on other applications.) And we all know that BT is used only by pirates. I wonder what their PR mouthpieces will have to say when there's a documented case of physical injury or death. (Knowing Bell they'll probably go to Taser's PR and legal team for advice.) |
|
TwentyMBPS
join:2005-11-04
Toronto, ON
| reply to Dr Basil Ganglia
Send an e-mail to donat.brunette@bell.ca and explain to the management team what you are doing. They will most probably remove all shaping on your account. If they don't, then it confirms the fact that they are useless and greedy as a whole, its not management in particular, its the system which management has developed which keeps them from understanding human beings and the importance of customer service. |
|
theninjasqua
join:2007-09-26
Oakville, ON | Can the system though selectively leave accounts alone? Deadpool has stated that the system does not throttle specific accounts only, it has a blanket effect. I wonder if could work the other way around.
--
-theninjasquad |
|
sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
Host:
Rogers
Bell Canada
| reply to Dr Basil Ganglia
My first reaction to this is that this reliance on the internet for this purpose is outside the scope of residential internet.
That said, it appears that Nexxia are throttling business coneections too ... so there's a valid gripe if that's the case. |
|
bylo
Premium
join:2004-05-04
Waterloo, ON
| So, for example, a physician who gets called at home at night for a consult may or may not be able to download a patient's X-rays, CRT or MRI images based on whether or not he has residential or business DSL service and/or whether or not he's already hit some secret bandwidth cap for that month and/or whether or not some Bell box has decided to "shape" or throttle his traffic using whatever secret criteria some techie has chosen to program into it.
That should make for some rather interesting obfuscationcomments by the spin doctorBell VP who gets interviewed by the media after the patient dies. NOT! |
|
sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed
Host:
Rogers
Bell Canada
1 edit | The problem is we're treating the internet as a "near perfect service" with very high levels of reliability, which it certainly isn't. It relies on goodwill, and lots of frail connections.
Also, we're treating it as an essential service which it isn't.
Residential services were simply not designed with the level of reliability to reliably sustain these kinds of uses.
It is a convenience that a doctor can read a scan at home ... In the past he'd have to come into the hospital. I'd point to the doctor and hospital for reliance on the use of a fragile medium rather than blame the ISP. This is one of the same arguments I have against VoIP. |
|
Dr BG
@bell.ca
| said by sbrook :The problem is we're treating the internet as a "near perfect service" with very high levels of reliability, which it certainly isn't. It relies on goodwill, and lots of frail connections. Also, we're treating it as an essential service which it isn't. You seem to have a long-standing philosophical complaint that's not totally cogent to this issue in particular.
I'm not really treating it as anything other than a basket of services that has gotten suddenly lighter. Quite apart from the fact that the speeds I am promised are no longer the speeds I am getting - in my last five years of Bell residential, I have had those 'very high levels of reliability' and 'near perfect service' you mention. And I paid for them.
From my end-user point of view, if those levels of service are *deliberately* downgraded by the provider, then I reserve the right to take a walk - w/o regards to whether I treated my connection as a frivolous puff, business tool, research method, or luxury item. |
|
ddrmanxbxfr
join:2007-05-10
Quebec | reply to bylo
This is not real that only pirates use it.Some use it to share open sources files like linux iso.. |
|
sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed
Host:
Rogers
Bell Canada
| reply to Dr BG
said by Dr BG :said by sbrook :The problem is we're treating the internet as a "near perfect service" with very high levels of reliability, which it certainly isn't. It relies on goodwill, and lots of frail connections. Also, we're treating it as an essential service which it isn't. You seem to have a long-standing philosophical complaint that's not totally cogent to this issue in particular. It's not a philosophical complaint ... it's a very real and tangible complaint.
The internet is one giant mass of fragile agreements between providers, and customers at all levels, and a giant mass of fragile hardwire interconnections. Any one failure and the whole mess falls apart for somebody.
Knowing that should make people realize that it's not appropriate to *rely* on the internet for life saving / business critical communications. In all cases it should be a matter of having a backup plan.
I'm not really treating it as anything other than a basket of services that has gotten suddenly lighter. Quite apart from the fact that the speeds I am promised are no longer the speeds I am getting - in my last five years of Bell residential, I have had those 'very high levels of reliability' and 'near perfect service' you mention. And I paid for them.
From my end-user point of view, if those levels of service are *deliberately* downgraded by the provider, then I reserve the right to take a walk - w/o regards to whether I treated my connection as a frivolous puff, business tool, research method, or luxury item.
I don't deny that it's a package that got lighter ... but it's their network and their right to do so. That's why packages with service level guarantees exist. It was never considered that residential internet be anything more than casual use which would be relied on to pass any critical information.
You didn't pay for that high level of reliability ... you paid for a connection and as it worked out you had a near perfect service. There's no guarantee that would continue forever. |
|
theninjasqua
join:2007-09-26
Oakville, ON | Even if he went to a business account, we don't even know at the moment if they are traffic shaping those accounts as well.
--
-theninjasquad |
|
Dr BG
@bell.ca
| reply to sbrook
said by sbrook :You didn't pay for that high level of reliability ... you paid for a connection and as it worked out you had a near perfect service. There's no guarantee that would continue forever. I paid according to the specifics of my contract, which is an implied guarantee that those levels of service would continue - not forever - but until the end of that contract. It's not my problem if they overpromised. Specific speeds are invoked in writing, but are now unattainable through a deliberate action on the part of the provider. I'm not saying something here that hasn't been better said elsewhere - but I think of it as a digression that I won't entertain any longer. |
|
sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed
Host:
Rogers
Bell Canada
| Dr BG
Would you buy a piece of equipment for your lab without checking the terms and conditions?
Your "contract" is still subject to Bell's terms of service. And if you read that document you'd see that Bell is perfectly within their rights to vary nearly anything about that service. There is no such thing as an implied guarantee. Granted, there's fitness for purpose consumer regulation, but what is the purpose of a residential internet connection? |
|
bylo
Premium
join:2004-05-04
Waterloo, ON
| reply to Dr Basil Ganglia
BitTorrent Throttling Affects Scientific Development quote:
It's not just porn addicts who are hurt by traffic-shaping
04:16PM Friday Nov 23 2007 by KathrynV
When Canadian ISP Bell Sympatico admitted to BitTorrent throttling, their defense for the action was that it was in the best interest of their customers. That’s always been arguable but a reader in our forums provides a detailed description of just how the company’s traffic-shaping practices have affected him. He explains that, as a neurocognitive researcher who sometimes works from home, he regularly uses torrenting to send large image files (such as MRI scans) back and forth with co-workers. It’s a practice that facilitates academic and scientific research and a practice which has been stopped since Bell Sympatico increased their throttling (despite the fact that he’s got an “unlimited” account)...
|
|
Chemist guy
@videotron.ca
| reply to sbrook
said by sbrook :Dr BG Would you buy a piece of equipment for your lab without checking the terms and conditions? I have yet to see a piece of lab equipment that gives 5 different policies and says:
-you can only do one analysis in 5 hours or else.
-More than 3 analysis will get you an abuse letter and your rate of titrant reduced to 5ml or less per hour for 30-days
-or states that if you use it for what its intended to be used for will get your titrant reduced to 0.5ml per second.
Bad.. VERY bad comprison, bad analogy. bad period.
You seem to be playing devils advocate, but in this scenario its a totaly bad analogy.
How about this scenario:
You had a stroke in a remote area while on vacation. Ah well you will die, bell doesn't allow us to send scans over 30kB/s. Sorry, thanks for chosing bell, is there anything else I can help you with today? Can I sell you health insurance? |
|
bylo
Premium
join:2004-05-04
Waterloo, ON
|  said by Chemist guy :
You had a stroke in a remote area while on vacation. Ah well you will die, bell doesn't allow us to send scans over 30kB/s. Sorry, thanks for chosing bell, is there anything else I can help you with today? Can I sell you health insurance? ROTFLMAO  |
|
Dr BG
@bell.ca
| reply to Dr Basil Ganglia
Well done, chemist.
Just got off Skype (which barely works now, thanks) with a fellow at Max Planck in Germany - says that when all the UofT whitecoats had this problem with Rogers, they switched to Bell to 'simplify their lives and information exchange at the same time'.
Ho ho. |
|
Lorne
Premium
join:2002-02-10
Fort Worth, TX
| reply to Dr Basil Ganglia
I think I'm more annoyed about that AT&T Piracy filter that is about to be turned on.
»AT&T Piracy Filters Tread Dangerous Ground
Traffic Shaping P2P traffic is one thing, but now our data streams will go through "security checkpoints".
Just give me a pipe and go away. |
|
