said by curiousgeorge :

I am wondering if Bell explained to you why they are doing this?

said by GoogleFreak :

What's the point of having unlimited with throttling there is no way you'll go over 200 gigs.

said by gi1010 :

Pay $4/month for TekSavvy static IP, and use it to download from TekSavvy usenet cap at 1Mbps ... For sure you can easily pass the 200GB/month with 1Mbps download cap.

If you want more then subscribe to the premium newsgroup provider then you can download at your max download speed 5Mbps... and it can be easily pass 700GB/month.

said by Guspaz :

Word has it NNTP is throttled too.

said by Guspaz :

Word has it NNTP is throttled too.

said by gi1010 :

Not sure about third party ISP... I used Newsgroup everyday with Bell Sympatico and never been throttled...

May be they used other P2P apps while downloading from newsgroup at the same time, that trigger the full throttle.

To Whom It May Concern,

Over the weekend it came to light that Bell Canada has seen fit to begin unilaterally throttling the data transiting their wholesale Bell Nexxia network. They have effectively dictated the service that all third party ISP's may offer to their customers. Worst of all, they did so without notifying their wholesale partners.

I am an employee of Primus Canada, and my DSL service was installed by Primus Canada. My contract and all communications happens with Primus Canada. And yet Primus is finding that my internet traffic is throttled even before it reaches the Primus network!

This is affecting more than just the minority of heavy downloading users. I use my internet connection primarily for VoIP telephone service, and find my call quality has deteriorated drastically since Bell began throttling wholesale Nexxia traffic. It's bad enough that my VoIP phone is now basically unusable. This leaves me with no way of calling my own mother, unless I want to spend exorbitant amounts of money on mobile long distance charges. Or get Bell Home Phone.

Bell will of course argue that the traffic they are throttling is 'illegitimate.' But the technology they are using to distinguish what traffic to throttle has no way of knowing what is legitimate traffic. CBC has just recently started releasing CBC shows to Canadians using the BitTorrent system, which is throttled by Bell. I use a screen saver called 'Electric Sheep' that uses the BitTorrent system to communicate with other users of the Electric Sheep screen saver in order to perform calculations (similar to the SETI@Home system).

I regularly download copies of Linux and BSD and updates to my existing Linux and BSD systems using BitTorrent. Dozens of applications use BitTorrent to distribute updates, because it reduces the burden on the application developer immensely, while making the download arrive faster for their users.

All of this completely legitimate traffic is being caught by the Bell traffic shaper. They are interfering with my legitimate traffic, and no amount of protestation on their part will change that fact.

It's worth noting that Bell still gets money each month for the DSL service I purchased from Primus. I'm even in a position to know that it's more than half the money I pay to Primus, even though Primus is the one that actually bears the burden and expense for any downloading or uploading I may actually do. Bell merely routes the traffic around their own network.

This is a blatantly anti-competitive move by Bell Canada. Their own service is terrible, and they have been losing customers to companies like TekSavvy, Primus, and Electronic Box. Rather than compete with these companies on service, quality, or any other quality that customers might appreciate, Bell has decided it's easier to just force everyone else to offer the same poor service Bell does!

Please see to it that this issue gets prompt attention.

Sincerely,
Me