shawnb
join:2008-03-28
| CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue
Hello,
My name is Shawn Benjamin and I'm a producer with the CBC.
I'm looking to speak to anyone who uses large amounts of bandwidth and has been frustrated by either Bell or Rogers because of caps and limits. Ideally were would like to hear from people considering or have who already have switched to a third party ISP.
You can call me at 416 205 6301 (ask for shawn benjamin)
or e-mail me shawn_benjamin@cbc.ca
best
sb |
|
iconfat
join:2005-04-06
Toronto
| Thanks for the press exposure Shawn. Although I'm not a heavy bandwidth user I encourage you not to slant this issue as affecting only large bandwidth users.
It affects us all as we during peek times (when the throttling occurs) are limited speedwise for the bandwidth we paid for.
We are not Bells customers and we should not been affected by decisions Bell makes. Our ISP has rightfully paid for this bandwidth and should be allowed to do with it as it pleases. |
|
Sukunai
@bell.ca
| reply to shawnb
I think the most angry will be the ones not necessarily using high bandwidth, but using the same processes, and yet still getting affected.
I have heard that people are having adverse effects on their internet phones for example.
Bell is spinning this as being the fault of illegal torrent downloaders being the main problem. That is rapidly being proven false in many cases. |
|
jfmezei
Premium
join:2007-01-03
Beaconsfield, QC
 ·ELECTRONICBOX
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to shawnb
I am in montreal, so I don't know if you can interview me.
But remember that 3rd party ISPs
** DO NOT RESELL BELL SERVICES ***
---
They buy raw data transfer between end users and the ISP's routers. That service is offered by Bell and is not related to the internet. And that service is regulated by the CRTC.
Once the data gets to the ISP, it is then routed to the internet using that ISP's own connections to the internet, its own mail servers, DNS servers etc.
This allows each ISP to set its internet policies totally independantly from other ISPs and in no way related to what Sympatico decides to do.
(Until now since Bell is now imposing Sympatico policies on competitors to Sympatico). |
|
iconfat
join:2005-04-06
Toronto
| said by jfmezei  :I am in montreal, so I don't know if you can interview me. But remember that 3rd party ISPs
** DO NOT RESELL BELL SERVICES ***
---
They buy raw data transfer between end users and the ISP's routers. That service is offered by Bell and is not related to the internet. And that service is regulated by the CRTC. Once the data gets to the ISP, it is then routed to the internet using that ISP's own connections to the internet, its own mail servers, DNS servers etc. This allows each ISP to set its internet policies totally independantly from other ISPs and in no way related to what Sympatico decides to do. (Until now since Bell is now imposing Sympatico policies on competitors to Sympatico). EXACTLY!! KUDOS! |
|
chrish
join:2007-02-19
Ottawa, ON
·Velcom
| reply to shawnb
My email to shawn:
Shawn,
I am a user using a wholeseller by the name of Velcom as my current ISP, I am not currently being affected by bells new 'load-balancing' process, but I will be greatly affected within weeks, and this concerns me.
I was previously a customer of rogers communications, however I left them shortly after they began limiting their connections in the same manner that bell is doing. Before that I was a bell customer, and the reason I had gone with rogers was because at the time rogers did not have the same horrible caps in place that bell had.
Fast forward a year, bell has been losing a lot of business due to customers becoming informed of the situation and the fact that alternatives were available, and now all of a sudden bell feels they need to protect their network from the wholesellers customers whom are apparently putting great demand on the network.
I signed up with Velcom on February 2nd of 2007, and not once have I had an issue with the bell network, speeds are consistently at my maximum of roughly 5Mbps. Not once have I experienced a slowdown due to network over usage as stated by bell in the community that I live in.
I must admit that seeing that I live in the highly populated student neighborhood of Sandy Hill near Ottawa University, I would assume the highest downloading by students is occurring in my area, not anywhere else in Ottawa.
Now the main thing to keep in mind is that wholesellers pay bell only for transport from the customers' home to bells central point, and at that point everything is handed over to the wholeseller. Then the wholeseller is the one that has to pay other networks so the information can get to the place on the internet that it is destined for. This is where we feel bell is breaching its limits.
If my access was consistently slow, I would see bell has a valid point, but since I always get full available speeds, I know for sure that the lines from my home to bells central point are not the issue. This along with the fact that bell is already limiting its own customers, means that there is plenty of available network speeds available.
If bell obviously has the capacity available, moreso since it limits its own customers, and then it states it must limit the bandwidth of wholesellers because the capacity is limited -- there is seriously something wrong here.
I personally see this as bell losing customers, and making moves to level the playing field with the competition. Bandwidth is cheaper than it was years ago, bell is limiting its network to a crawl, and with this latest move will be able to take out the competition dsl services by forcing unusable service onto the wholesellers customers.
Not only is bell affecting peer to peer downloads, but their technology for slowing the peer to peer downloads is affecting many other aspects of internet usage. Their techniques seem to control any data that they cannot identify, so if you are working with any secure data, then that data is slowed to a crawl. Telecommuters attempting to work after 5pm will be affected, anyone trying to use a pc remotely will find that such a task is impossible. Want to keep your data secure? You will deal with slow speeds. This is what the users of bell, and now the wholesellers customers are looking forward to.
Bell has a legitimate case to do this with their own customers, they can cancel accounts, and they can charge extra money. But what gives bell the right to control my internet connection, when I do not pay my monthly bill to bell. I seem to recall my payment showing on my statement as going to velcom communications.
I have a full time job with company that uses high speed networks to make our online applications available to our clients, and companies like bell controlling the free flowing access to the internet concerns me greatly, both on a personal level and professional level.
I would recommend you reach out to the wholesellers such as teksavvy, or my company velcom and get a better understanding of this issue. I am not a large downloader, but I am already being affected. I guess you could say I'm a very dissatisfied non-customer of bells.
I am not affiliated with any wholeseller, I am simply a very concerned customer.
I have setup a facebook group should you wish to visit and view the comments of the others whom share my views:
»www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9···5&ref=mf
Thanks for your time,
Chris |
|
Name
@teksavvy.com
| reply to jfmezei
JFM, send him an email to make sure he gets that bit.
The media hasn't picked up on the critical point that the effects of BellNexxia's actions are to prevent competitors to Sympatico from offering substantively better service than what Sympatico chooses to offer.
The whole P2P issue is really secondary to the fact that what Bell is doing is quantitatively different from ordinary P2P filtering as implemented by ISPs such as Sympatico and Rogers. By filtering their backhaul network, BellNexxia is restricting competition by denying third party DSL ISPs the option to provide unfiltered service. |
|
Trisomy21
join:2006-04-27
Kingston, ON | reply to shawnb
If anything those that are with 3rd party providers, like TSI, have more reason to be upset. We're paying to for something different, to avoid Bell. And of course Bell interferes and shoves their horrible service down our throats still. |
|
LiQuiD
BSD geek
Premium
join:2002-08-08
Anjou, QC
| reply to chrish
My guess is, everyone who's replied here would be well advised to email the OP directly, in the event he is not going to look here again any time soon. I for one am forwarding him the exact same email that I sent yesterday to the G&M writer. He seemed to expand a little on the bandwidth caps to include the throttling, albeit in no great detail.
I believe that the single most influential point we have is how their bandwidth shaping affects more than just P2P. People who have made up their minds on bandwidth hogs are unlikely to change their minds easily, but no one can argue the fact that in throttling encrypted data, bell is in no uncertain way impacting the way many many canadians can access the internet. With all the concerns of identity theft, and phishing scams, a reasonable protection is to ensure data transmitted is encrypted. Essentially, Bell is discouraging this - whether intentional or not.
--
Windows is the virus. Linux is the vaccine, FreeBSD is the CURE |
|
Trisomy21
join:2006-04-27
Kingston, ON | ^^ Already done.
Just make sure you explain things simply, use analogies. |
|
Trisomy21
join:2006-04-27
Kingston, ON
| Oh got a reply.
quote:
Thanks for the note
You've given me an idea - can you put your feelings on this topic into a short video and post it to you tube or better yet use a service like »www.yousendit.com/
We would then put it into our piece as is.
Let me know if you can do this
Best,
Shawn Benjamin
|
|
Jabus
join:2002-11-24
Mississauga, ON | reply to shawnb
I like the idea he's going for. |
|
Arbalister
join:2007-11-24
St Catharines, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| Just sent him this:
Good Morning,
I saw your post on the Teksavvy DSLReports forum and I wanted to touch base with you one a couple of points. Please don't limit your story to users of "large amounts of bandwidth" because that's a false impression that *Bell* wants to give. While Sympatico is capable of detecting people that use large amounts of bandwidth, and taking actions like capping or throttling *those* users, this is *not* the issue with this new move. The current issue is that they have instituted throttling across the board. Everyone. Every single user, including people that are not buying service from Bell. They are throttling now at the access server level. In other words, they're causing the hardware that the end users connect to, regardless of whose end users those are, to throttle all p2p traffic through that access server, between 5pm and 2am. I run an independant ISP in St. Catharines. We're pretty small compared to someone like Execulink or Teksavvy, both of whom I use as 3rd party DSL suppliers...I buy and resell *their* services. I've used Teksavvy for my higher demand customers because they offer a premium service that has lower latency, much, much cheaper bandwidth, and no throttling. As of this move by Bell, Teksavvy is technically violating our agreement - I signed up for unthrottled bandwidth from them. Now, I would never try to hold TSI to that, in this case, because I've had to deal with Bell's anticompetitive tactics towards independant ISPs for the last 12 years. I know it's Bell, not TSI. Its not the first time Bell's played us dirty. An example - during the roll-out of DSL service, they actually filed documentation with the CRTC stating that the wholesale price of DSL for 3rd party ISPs would have to be at least $250 per end user...while they were retailing it themselves for $25. More recently, they've tried to get the CRTC to approve them dropping Unbundled Local Loop service ("Dry Loops") because they have no use for anyone other then independant ISPs that sell them to customers that want to stop paying Bell for phone service. We can use them to provide DSL service, even though they aren't "active" phone lines. Once the customer has DSL on a Dry Loop, they can set up VoIP service for the phone.
This change by Bell doesn't just affect large users. It affects smaller independant ISP's like Merge Internet - me. It affects every single DSL user that decides to download your networks "Next Great Prime Minister" - to the tune that I've heard people are finding it's going to take them 11 hours to download it. It affects people who decide to drop Bell over the issue - there's a report in the Teksavvy forum about someone that called to cancel, was asked why, said it was over throttling, and the Bell rep told him, "its going to happen to everyone soon!" They're using this as a customer retention tool..."sure, we're throtting, but good luck finding an alternative, because we're buggering up everyone else too."
Thanks for looking into this issue. Perhaps this time Bell's gone to far.
Chris Hanlon,
Manager,
Merge Internet
350 Ontario St. Unit 9
St Catharines ON L2R 5L8 |
|
chrish
join:2007-02-19
Ottawa, ON
·Velcom
| I got a reply:
Thanks for your help, we are getting a lot or response. I have passed your name to our reporter please don't be offended if he does not call you to be interviewed as we have only 120 seconds to fill tonight. But your opinions are helping shape our story.
best,
sb |
|
Flannel
join:2007-11-28 | reply to shawnb
Michael Geist would be a good candidate, he's pretty well the expert in the Canadian field. |
|
chrish
join:2007-02-19
Ottawa, ON | I think they are focusing on the user side of things here, which is good - showing the actual effects on wholesellers customer base. |
|
LiQuiD
BSD geek
Premium
join:2002-08-08
Anjou, QC | reply to chrish
**Sigh**
Sounds canned, I got the exact same response. Hopefully they will at least read them all before completing their piece. |
|
chrish
join:2007-02-19
Ottawa, ON | I'm ok with a canned response, the more we can help the media understand the underlaying issues, the more likly the story will show the true nature of what bell is doing. |
|
LiQuiD
BSD geek
Premium
join:2002-08-08
Anjou, QC
| For the record, I suppose, My email to Shawn...
Hi Shawn,
My name is ..., I'm a sysadmin as both a hobby, and for work. I am unavailable for an interview as I am in Montreal, unfortunately, but I feel compelled to share with you some information about what's gone on, so that people, and hopefully Bell Canada, can understand how far reaching this decision has been.
I for one, do not use P2P. On a *busy* month, there will be 15-20 GB of data flowing through my internet connection. That is hardly a power user - as I don't have the time to sit at my PC all day and download stuff, even if I wanted to. Nonetheless, although I am not a "target" client by any means - I will be impacted by this bandwidth shaping.
Allow me to give you more detail on what's gone on: Because the physical copper between the homes, and the actual internet service providers (3rd Party ISP's, moving forward) belongs to Bell, ISP's have to lease the right to have their data travel along these lines. They pay handsomely for this, and worth noting, strictly speaking this isn't even internet yet. They are not "piggybacking" on Bell's purchased bandwidth. Once a client's data reaches the ISP, that is when they have their own internet connections that bring the client to the internet - for which they pay the bandwidth costs. The segment known in the industry as "last mile" which I described above - from the client's home to the client's ISP, is what is being slowed. This is completely unacceptable, as it removes the ability for a household to choose an ISP that does not do this - Bell in one fell swoop, has made it the decision of all ISP's.
I'll move on now to focus on the actual bandwidth shaping. It's intent is to foul the users of P2P. I may not be a P2P users - truth be told, I'm not even a big fan of it - but there have been more and more legitimately good uses for it, and this must not be ignored. If bell are having issues with bandwidth, normally, what you do is purchase more bandwidth, so as to increase the aggregate bandwidth available. If they MUST throttle, at least ensure that it focuses only on P2P, and why decrease it by 90% ? This is akin to them wanting to wipe it out completely. My concern however is beyond just the P2P - as it's just the tip of the iceberg. Users discovered in the past that they can overcome the throttling by encrypting their P2P transmissions. Bell's response is to completely throttle all encrypted data, which is reprehensible. As a result, anyone who wants to connect to work via a VPN (you may be doing this already, no doubt many employees of small, and mainly large businesses do this) has their connection slowed to a crawl, to speeds just barely faster than what was available in the days of dialup. Furthermore, if someone should choose to connect and use email encrypted, a wise choice to ensure only the sender and recipient can ever read the email, this too has been slowed. I ask, what is the point that they market an internet connection that is capable of up to 6 (or now even 16) Mbit/second, when the only thing they can do that fast is load a web page. There is so much more to the internet than merely that.
I thank you for taking the time to read this email, and I hope that this provides some insight to the depths of what bell's decision is. Now has never been a better time to bring to the forefront the discussion on Net-Neutrality. Public awareness is the only way to ensure that our political representatives make this a significant part of their agendas. Again, I am not available for interview, but you can feel free to snip parts of this email as part of your report for CBC.
--
Windows is the virus. Linux is the vaccine, FreeBSD is the CURE |
|
milnoc
join:2001-03-05
H2Z
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to shawnb
This is what I've just sent.
Hello Mr. Benjamin,
I'm in an interesting situation here. I'm currently working at launching Canada's first national public access television channel to be called "The Canadian Public", a specialty channel where Canadian citizens and organizations from across the country and around the world can submit their own full length television shows for national broadcast.
My business plan is unique in that I'll intentionally distribute the channel's programming for free using every means at my disposal. Not only will the service be provided free of charge on digital cable and satellite to anyone who wants it, I also intend to distribute as much of the programming as possible on the Internet via BitTorrent. So when Bell started crippling all encrypted and large volume traffic travelling through their communications lines, I was immediately affected long before my channel will even go on the air.
When I start distributing the channel's programming over the Internet in about a year from now, will the communications link between my corporate Internet connection and the viewing public's connections be impeded by traffic crippling technology? Will I be told that the only way to efficiently distribute the channel's content will be via digital cable and satellite only, and that all Internet-based distribution options are no longer available to me?
In today's world of readily available high speed Internet access, traffic shaping technology is attempting to revert us back to the bad old days of painfully slow dial-up Internet access. Technology is suppose to move us forwards, not backwards. Yet, this is exactly what all forms of traffic crippling technology are attempting to accomplish.
Good luck with your piece, and please make sure the technical information is accurate. When a news piece has even a single technical error in it, the entire piece regrettably loses all credibility.
Thanks!
François Caron
President and CEO
TCPub Media Inc.
|
|
