Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue in TekSavvy

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:58:32 EDT

Omr : I believe the ellacoya boxes have internal storage capabilities ie. a built in HDD.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:30:33 EDT

puzz1ed : Perhaps they can use it to start charging by protocol or usage pattern. :o

Obviously, if you're using VPN software from 9 to 5 you should be on a more expensive business service etc. The possibilities are endless.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:12:17 EDT

R0CKY : As fatness just pointed out... It's entirely possible they're holding the data as, if they're intending on possibly running billing on use, they'd have to almost for sure store it for proof of billing.
--
TSI Rocky - TekSavvy Solutions Inc.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:42:06 EDT

Guspaz : I don't, so I admit that I'm making an assumption here. What I want to convey is that the DPI throttling system, if used as intended, does not do those things.

If Bell is doing that, it's unrelated to the throttling.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:33:11 EDT

fatness : How is it known that they are:

not capturing/storing HTTP Post form data?
only examining data?
not storing data?

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:25:42 EDT

Guspaz :

said by fatness :

said by Guspaz :

Problem is that Bell does not "Collect, use, or disclose" any private data. At least, nothing that the government considers private information.

Guspaz, I have a question: how is that known?

Because PIPEDA seems to have an extremely narrow definition of "personal information", and would seem to not include things like what website you visit or what files you download. To capture traditional personal information, the only reasonable way would be for them to capture/store HTTP POST form data.

Are they capable of grabbing that data? Probably. Are they? Probably not.

As long as they're simply examining data, anyhow, and not storing it, they're not collecting it, and they're not disclosing it. You could argue that they're using it, but they're not using personal information to help them throttle, they're using application fingerprints, which are decidedly not personal information.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:46:19 EDT

fatness :

said by Guspaz :

Problem is that Bell does not "Collect, use, or disclose" any private data. At least, nothing that the government considers private information.

Guspaz, I have a question: how is that known?
--
Female monkeys often utter loud, distinctive calls before, during or after sex..

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:48:45 EDT

Candoo3 :

said by Comment :

It would be annoying, but all Bell would send you (if anything) would be a form letter saying they do not collect any PERSONAL information nor "read your raw data". (They only look at the formatting of it.)

In contrast, BT (British Telephone) is in the midst of a kerfuffle because they did collect "personal information" by recording the addresses of the sites INDIVIDUAL subscribers were visiting.

And BT also DENIED that they were doing this, until they were caught.

»www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/27···er_2007/

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:32:03 EDT

jfmezei : >Problem is that Bell does not "Collect, use, or disclose" any
>private data. At least, nothing that the government considers
>private information.

Problem is that the boxes used to throttle are capable of collecting private information. What you do, what applications you use and how much data you transfer is private as far as Bell is concerned (it has no business knowing that).

Unless Bell canada is audited at regular intervals, there is no way of knwoing what Bell does with those boxes and whether it collects data or not.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:13:16 EDT

ultracat : Yeah, but once you get that response from Bell then you turn around and give an appeal to the privacy commissioner and complain that they are in fact inspecting my data. Then let Bell deal with the privacy commissioner. It's just one more irritant (and not a false accusation either, if you ask some people) : )

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:38:45 EDT

anon :

said by ultracat :

For those looking for a link to read:
»www.privcom.gc.ca/information/02···08_e.asp

btw - this would be a GREAT letter writing campaign to conduct against Bell. Imagine if Bell had to all of a sudden handle 21,000 or whatever written requests for privacy disclosures!

It would be annoying, but all Bell would send you (if anything) would be a form letter saying they do not collect any PERSONAL information nor "read your raw data". (They only look at the formatting of it.)

In contrast, BT (British Telephone) is in the midst of a kerfuffle because they did collect "personal information" by recording the addresses of the sites INDIVIDUAL subscribers were visiting.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:30:26 EDT

Guspaz : Problem is that Bell does not "Collect, use, or disclose" any private data. At least, nothing that the government considers private information.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:22:43 EDT

therustyspoo : rogers ultra lite:
25$ for 2GB
twice that
50$ for 60 GB
im dont download or play games alot. Neither am i rich. But does 2 GB sounds fair??

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:19:45 EDT

ultracat :

said by root9 :

Correction:

Bell has NO legitimate case to throttle via DPI [deep packet inspection] due to Canadian privacy laws and other related laws unless it's a direct attack on their servers or equipment. Neither does any ISP in Canada. It's called self-defense for ISP only.

This is why Rogers moved their email and homepages to USA and to get around these laws. It's why Bell uses MSN as email partner. And so they can watch users private communications.

Users can request such DPI protection from an ISP "in writing". Answer from ISP must be in writing as well. It can not be a part of User Agreement or initial contract.

As a user or person living in Canada you must be notified in writing that such may be taking place by any company. Unless there is a warrant signed by a judge with damn good reason to do so.

You have the right to request any and all information being gathered by any company. This includes their partners or resellers. They must provide it! Same as you have the right to visit Hydro-1 Power company and request information pertaining to you. You then have the choice of wiping such information from any and all records of said company.

I suggest that all Indie ISP's and users request this information in full, make a full copy and or have it wiped.

It is up to the user to provide their own protection. In cases where offered a user may request protection by or from ISP.

Thank You,
Senior Network & Systems Analyst

For those looking for a link to read:
»www.privcom.gc.ca/information/02···08_e.asp

btw - this would be a GREAT letter writing campaign to conduct against Bell. Imagine if Bell had to all of a sudden handle 21,000 or whatever written requests for privacy disclosures!

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:57:20 EDT

travisc : I'd be interested in seeing this as well.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:49:48 EDT

anon :

said by root9 :

Correction:

Bell has NO legitimate case to throttle via DPI [deep packet inspection] due to Canadian privacy laws and other related laws unless it's a direct attack on their servers or equipment. Neither does any ISP in Canada.

Users can request such DPI protection from an ISP "in writing". Answer from ISP must be in writing as well.

As a user or person living in Canada you must be notified in writing that such may be taking place by any company.

You have the right to request any and all information being gathered by any company.

Strange that no one has mentioned these "points" of yours - perhaps you could substantiate with a few links to the relevant statutes.

Re: chrish, 2008-03-28 10:04:44

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:04:36 EDT

root9 : Correction:

Bell has NO legitimate case to throttle via DPI [deep packet inspection] due to Canadian privacy laws and other related laws unless it's a direct attack on their servers or equipment. Neither does any ISP in Canada. It's called self-defense for ISP only.

This is why Rogers moved their email and homepages to USA and to get around these laws. It's why Bell uses MSN as email partner. And so they can watch users private communications.

Users can request such DPI protection from an ISP "in writing". Answer from ISP must be in writing as well. It can not be a part of User Agreement or initial contract.

As a user or person living in Canada you must be notified in writing that such may be taking place by any company. Unless there is a warrant signed by a judge with damn good reason to do so.

You have the right to request any and all information being gathered by any company. This includes their partners or resellers. They must provide it! Same as you have the right to visit Hydro-1 Power company and request information pertaining to you. You then have the choice of wiping such information from any and all records of said company.

I suggest that all Indie ISP's and users request this information in full, make a full copy and or have it wiped.

It is up to the user to provide their own protection. In cases where offered a user may request protection by or from ISP.

Thank You,
Senior Network & Systems Analyst

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:48:31 EDT

puzz1ed : As reporters, they have to remain objective. Entering into the fray of discussion here would undermine that. I'd suggest emailing or sending the OP a PM if you have something you'd like addressed more directly.

Incidentally, as I type this, the OP was last on 20 minutes ago.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:31:30 EDT

Kokanee483 : Anyone else ever notice that these media type fellows always just make a post, but then never stick around for the feedback? There were quite a few well written responses that I fear will never make it back to the thread originator....

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:58:39 EDT

anon : Shawn,

Do not look upon this battle with Bell as a single issue – throttling. There is more to it than that…..

Bell has been losing customers to smaller ISP’s because of their business ethics and their off shore tech support. Rather than address the concerns of their customers they want to eliminate the competition. Take a look at the six month ratings for Teksavvy and Bell on dslreports for more insight.

Bell whines that they are forced to provide independent ISP’s access through their network structure and that the independent ISP’s should be forced to install their own network structure. The problem here is Bell’s network structure was bought and paid for over many years by the monopoly we the tax payers let them enjoy. Since we paid for it should be owned and operated by someone other than Bell and Bell should pay for access like every one else.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:54:54 EDT

djforumsguy :

said by Omr :

They may be able to, but throttling HTTP would need one hell of an explanation to throttle. To also use the DPI to read the packet opens even greater privacy issues

These privacy issues are real because they do open every packet, and as demonstrated by Rocky, the DPI does slow down HTTP.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:13:29 EDT

Omr : They may be able to, but throttling HTTP would need one hell of an explanation to throttle. To also use the DPI to read the packet opens even greater privacy issues ... a cat and mouse game worth playing because it cost's them a scale of thousands of dollars to play while for us it's a code change.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:17:10 EDT

jfmezei : >Simple thing is to make a HTTP Proxy/ or SOCKS type of
>connection with a client side application where all our
>chosen data/

Over in Canadian Broadband, I had started a thread about "Straight from the Ennemy" (or something akin to that). The second message has a link to a PDF document that outlines what those boxes' capabilities are, and they go to tgreat lengtsh to detect people trying to bypass their filters by using well known ports or using HTTP.

This is a cat and mouse game. If you switch you tactic, Bell will come back fairly quickly with new filters and block you again.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 15:40:44 EDT

anon : Anyone want to place bets on why Bell and Rogers are *really* limiting bandwidth?

I was thinking this over, and thought to myself "The internet is the same as it ever way. I never noticed a slow down, and the net as it is works just fine for me. In fact they are always upgrading it, usually on the publics dime via the government... and with the new HD on-line video being offered in Blu-Ray file sizes, how can there be a bandwidth issue"?

Then I answered my own question... With the new on-line Blu-Ray quality downloads, me thinks Bell and Rogers are either making extra bandwidth available for this PAY service, and effectively killing the competition (free content) off in the process. It also wouldn't surprise me if both Bell and Rogers either have a stake in the new on-line Blu-Ray content, or are getting paid for it's usage... So, kill off the competition citing bandwidth utilization concerns, then replace it with content that is 10X more bandwidth intensive, but is pay per use...

Wonderful country we live in where every single consumer and citizen knows this is garbage, but some how the corporations are still allowed to do it... something is rotten in the state of Canada...

I'm holding my breath for the day a single honest politician who talks straight comes to light so we can all vote for the "peasant wisdom" candidate and take this country back. We were founded as a country of the people, governed by the people, and look what we have now... What ever happened to the days when the population didn't like something, so the citizen elected government stepped in and said "Wait a second, the voters run this country and they don't like this. We best do our job and correct this problem"

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:22:02 EDT

Grappler :

said by Guspaz :

a companies admission that they're recording ...gives you the right to record the call as well.
Does it work the same way in Canada? It'd make sense if it did, it always seemed logical to me.

In Canada we have what is known as "first party consent", either of the parties can record the conversation without the others knowledge, as long as they are a part of the conversation. That said, calls initiated by a government agency, corporation (as an entity), etc must give notice. Note: 911 calls or calls to a government agency can be recorded without notice as they did not initiate.

There are many exceptions and protections regarding the above and what I said is just an extremely simplified version especially with regards to government and corporations, but for an individual it does apply.

Ray

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:32:53 EDT

Guspaz : PPTP seems to already be addressing this quite successfully.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:36:48 EDT

Omr : Simple thing is to make a HTTP Proxy/ or SOCKS type of connection with a client side application where all our chosen data/ applications on the client side are gzipped then sent over one port where at 151 front street would be the logical endpoint. There it can be decompressed and sent along as a normal packet ... Bell would never dare throttle HTTP.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:07:05 EDT

Guspaz : My understanding is that in most of the US, a companies admission that they're recording (the whole "Your call may be monitored for quality and training purposes") instantly gives you the right to record the call as well. The whole idea is that, if they can record the call, it's fair game for you to record it too. They gave their permission to record based on the fact that THEY're recording.

Does it work the same way in Canada? It'd make sense if it did, it always seemed logical to me.

Re: note true

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:12:28 EDT

Grappler :

said by chronoss2008 :

not true
in order to use a phone conversation you need to make hte party that you are taping aware that you are taping the conversation otherwise it is against the privacy act and someother laws, thats why at the beginning of bells automated crap they state that the call may be monitored ( taped ) for quality purposes ( that also means that other then quality it cant be used for anyhting else )
it does not mean i can just say Scott ( myself) im taping and not tell them.
Thats against the law and the tapes are in effect not admissible in court unless its the tapes in question that are being the reason your in court. Which would prolly have most of you going woa if they ever are legally allows to be heard, be sad if my computer gets hacked wouldn't it.

Almost messed up on this quoting thing. Just to clear things up a bit on taping of telephone conversations; I am recently retired from law enforcement and was quite involved in court orders, etc. regarding taping, video and the like.

The reason that Bell and other companies have to inform you of the recording is that the company, as an entity, is not present when the recording is being conducted. They are represented by the telephone operator only, who may or may not be around if needed, the company itself is not actively monitoring the call. As an individual, you are present and as you are physically there you may record the conversation, this also applies to any hidden microphones you may be using, as long as you are in the vicinity of the conversation and can hear what is being said. Note: this only applies outside your home. In home use is different as it is your domain and you are allowed to record, video and/or audio if you are present or not, hence the use of security cameras that record video and audio in the home.

This is how law enforcement gets around the requirements for a court order authorizing recording devices, the victim authorizes the recording as a first party consent rule.

Ray

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:26:41 EDT

anon : As a Velcom customer, I heartily endorse your idea!

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:22:22 EDT

velcomrob : I thought about that already. The client side application will check for updates on our side and allow us to change algorithim at any time. You have NO idea how HORRIBLY slow Bell is with doing ANYTHING. They'll patch their traffic shaper 3 months after figuring out what to do. It'll take us couple hours to apply an update.

its crazy but in this circumstance thank god they're slow :)

However we are still trying to resolve it outside this scramble patch. We're trying to figure out what to do in the meantime as a quickfix.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:19:08 EDT

matt_m : Very cool that you guys are thinking of this and care enough to try to work around the Bell stupidity, but in the end you'd probably spend a wad of cash on development and QA, only to realize Bell found a way to detect a pattern in your scrambling that identifies in, and patches the shaper or some other firewall for it.

said by velcomrob :

I understand your concern Chrish and we are as much peeved off as anyone. I can only see one reason they're doing this, loss of customers.

We are working with several ISP's to try to come to a resolution on this matter as quickly as possible. We can't divulge to much information at this point (legal stuff).

But if worse comes to worse we will work very hard to find a way around this problem. First off Bell shouldn't be looking at our packets (data transfer) that occurs over our network. We have several scenarios we will pressure Bell. But in the end if they want to do child's play then be it. We ill possibly create some sort of application that sits on the clients side PC and that sits in the middle of our network that will scramble packets as they are sent to your side. The application will decompress the packet and thus rendering Bell's traffic shaper useless. I'm not 100% sure it can be done yet but we are investigating different possibilities. We are speaking to our developers about it.

The only limitation in this is data being transfered out to a recipient won't be encrypted. But your download speeds shouldn't be affected.

Let's hope its doable.

Again data being transferred our our network is private, so we will keep it private.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:58:06 EDT

Guspaz : Just because we might agree with him doesn't mean it's appropriate ;)

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:54:49 EDT

cacruden :

said by KPaul :

hey CBC guy...

»digg.com/tech_news/Bell_Canada_r···Facebook

PLEASE show this around the office... this guy is a bell REP and he is calling you lemmings!?!?!

Actually, I sort of agree with the bell rep. Most reporters are lazy and really don't do investigations like they did in the old days.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:50:29 EDT

velcomrob : I understand your concern Chrish and we are as much peeved off as anyone. I can only see one reason they're doing this, loss of customers.

We are working with several ISP's to try to come to a resolution on this matter as quickly as possible. We can't divulge to much information at this point (legal stuff).

But if worse comes to worse we will work very hard to find a way around this problem. First off Bell shouldn't be looking at our packets (data transfer) that occurs over our network. We have several scenarios we will pressure Bell. But in the end if they want to do child's play then be it. We ill possibly create some sort of application that sits on the clients side PC and that sits in the middle of our network that will scramble packets as they are sent to your side. The application will decompress the packet and thus rendering Bell's traffic shaper useless. I'm not 100% sure it can be done yet but we are investigating different possibilities. We are speaking to our developers about it.

The only limitation in this is data being transfered out to a recipient won't be encrypted. But your download speeds shouldn't be affected.

Let's hope its doable.

Again data being transferred our our network is private, so we will keep it private.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:14:00 EDT

KPaul : hey CBC guy...

»digg.com/tech_news/Bell_Canada_r···Facebook

PLEASE show this around the office... this guy is a bell REP and he is calling you lemmings!?!?!
--
I hate rogers and their CRAP tech. support... But, MAJOR kudos to the TekSavvy team!

Al Bundy - "Six bucks is too much money to spend on any woman." it's too true sometimes :D

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:08:26 EDT

theninjasqua : Did anything become of this? Was there a news story on the air about this story and with anyone from here interviewed?
--

-theninjasquad

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:58:44 EDT

mazhurg : Looks like the issue is back on /. again :)

»yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=···/2217231

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:11:56 EDT

anon : I've just switched from bell to teksavvy after being with bell for 4 years, and although the final reason for leaving was the cap in speeds, its the whole companies policy regarding their service thats all wrong.
You sign a contract (a verbal confirmation) for a service which for me was up to 6 mbit of download speed unlimited and 2 months later they start capping the speeds without any real notice.
When I decided to leave and question all these changes to my contract, bells response is read the contract, they offer speeds UP TO 6 mbit, well why the hell would I pay $65 a month for speeds of 1 mbit and lower (cap speed for me was 30 kb/s)?? and why not tell me the cap was taking effect while I was signing up.
Some of the people I spoke with had no idea what I was talking about regarding speed caps, OR were they just playing ignorant about the whole situation ?
After dealing with the slow speeds for 1 month, I had to leave Bell, so when I called to cancel, they said I was in a contract and it was cost me $100.00 to leave, SO!! they can change the terms of the contract without notification and and offer me a choice to opt out of the contract, and when I find out about the changes, I have to PAY to leave ? because THEY changed the contract ? where is the logic in that, if they would have just said, yes there are changes to the service after signing up, if you want to leave, no penalty and goodbye, but this didn't happen and they gave me a hard time, always telling me to refer to the online contract. I said I'm still leaving, charge me the 100.00 if you want, it will be the best 100 spent in my life...
in the end, I did get another call from the business office and I told him the whole story, he tried to get me to stay, I still refused and he reversed any charges on my account.

So my whole issue here is not what they did with the service, its this contract that they are allowed to amend without giving the user an email telling of the changes and giving the user a chance to leave with any penalty.
and when I say sending an email, I DON'T MEAN a monthly bulleting with a bunch of other promotion which I have filtered as spam, I mean a real email OR snail mail to me that I can respond to within a reasonable time.

In the end, I think bell just wants anyone who downloads to leave and all those who just browse the internet to pay for the service they hardly use.

I'm not a heavy downloader compared to others, but when I want to download, I want the speeds that I was promised, not this lame excuse "up to" speeds.

SK

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:40:03 EDT

anon : Bell has taken it upon themselves to try to create an illusion an imaginary facade. Bandwidth prices are the lowest they've ever been and and still going sharply lower. At the same time over the year the Canadian dollar has seen a huge run-up vis-a-vis the US dollar. All of this means sharply higher profits for bell. Bell has in turn not used any of this money for what it's intended for... upgrading their networks because in case they don't know it already the population of Canada is increasing and internet use will probably increase well at least in other parts of the world where it's run properly. Bell should be fined to nines like Comcast is. Rogers should be shutdown completely. Put another way if rogers existed in America they'd be shutdown and fined and Ted wouldn't be able to startup any companies under different names.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:36:46 EDT

ultracat : My mistake, his profile is *still* public. Please go to facebook and post him a Wall message telling him what you think of Bell's actions. He believes there's no backlash, well lets show him there is.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:16:01 EDT

ultracat :

said by NeTwOrKDawg :

Wow looks like Jason has changed his profile.. someone must have alerted the goof.

Hilarious! So, if there's no backlash then why would he have to change his Facebook settings? There's no backlash right? So there's no more people than normal looking at his profile, sending him messages of disapproval, etc. No backlash right? Whatever, you liar! What I like about liars (especially professional ones) is that once the light is shined on them little things begin to crack and almost always the truth comes out given enough attention.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:54:50 EDT

homeplanit : Hi all,

Yesterday I thought I'd install World of Warcraft - an extremely popular online multiplayer game - on a second PC so a visiting friend and I could play at the same time. After 30 minutes of loading discs the game starts and first has to download a patch. It uses the most efficient techology for distributing large patches - BitTorrent! So a 923MB download begins ... estimated time remaining: 12 HOURS!

I had a fairly poor DSL line at 1500/500kbps, which a Bell tech graciously improved to 4000/500 just minutes ago. I watched the download speed get limited to 30kbps just after starting (around 4pm) and then jump back to 100kbps+ after 2am. So to install this legitemate game took about 12 hours due to the throttling, instead of perhaps one or two hours depending on my connection.

And during that time I could not play the game on the other PC due to server disconnections every couple minute - something that rarely happened before. Even though the download was using a fraction of available bandwidth, I suspect the traffic shaping was interfering with the game communications.

I'm a moderate bandwidth user, but I see other ways this impacts me. I use VOIP which seems to suffer when traffic shaping occurs. And I plan to establish a VPN with my parents when I get them on TekSavvy DSL so I can remotely assist them with their new PC. VPN traffic is a target of traffic shaping as well.

Why are our historic "leaders" of communications technology working so hard to limit rather than enable new and exciting applications? Greed, perhaps?

Re: note true

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:52:40 EDT

eots : Sorry to burst your bubble but you're wrong. Canadian law allows for only one of the parties involved in the conversation to be aware of the taping.

We had this very issue arise at work a few years ago where a client recorded calls to staff and posted them on the Internet and there was absolutely NOTHING that could be done about it because it was perfectly legal. I assure you the lawyers were involved but as no law was violated there was no action taken.

Re: note true

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:00:16 EDT

chronoss2008 : not true
in order to use a phone conversation you need to make hte party that you are taping aware that you are taping the conversation otherwise it is against the privacy act and someother laws, thats why at the beginning of bells automated crap they state that the call may be monitored ( taped ) for quality purposes ( that also means that other then quality it cant be used for anyhting else )
it does not mean i can just say Scott ( myself) im taping and not tell them.
Thats against the law and the tapes are in effect not admissible in court unless its the tapes in question that are being the reason your in court. Which would prolly have most of you going woa if they ever are legally allows to be heard, be sad if my computer gets hacked wouldn't it.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:53:32 EDT

Jean_22 : Yes that's true.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:48:11 EDT

eots : Actually in Canada it's only required that one of the parties involved in the conversation be aware it's being taped. If you are doing the taping and are also involved in the conversation then no one else needs to be informed.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:43:32 EDT

NeTwOrKDawg : Wow looks like Jason has changed his profile.. someone must have alerted the goof.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:27:41 EDT

iconfat : And before that...

Jason is throttle-icious. 4:34pm

Jason is throttle-ishus. 4:32pm

Good spelling Jason. Obviously he thinks this is a game.
I guess he doesnt get that this is my money and my internet experience he is tampering with.

I don't want to give any money to the company that hires him.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:56:18 EDT

LiQuiD : Wow, I would totally direct those reporters to that. I bet they'd sympathize alot less with him and who he is representing
--
Windows is the virus. Linux is the vaccine, FreeBSD is the CURE

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:47:54 EDT

iconfat :

said by sbrook :

Note in that article, Bell's Lazlo says there hasn't been a backlash! Looks like his head's been hiding under the covers to avoid seeing the lightning flashes!

I think he would make a great politician.

Btw, I didnt want to post this but he is on facebook with an open profile.

His latest status is "Jason Laszlo
is realizing how little seperates most journalists from lemmings."

Loser.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:01:07 EDT

anon : @a1_Andy

you have to in canada before taping anyone alert them that you are doing I suspect you think that because they said they are taping me or could be for quality purposes that means i have a legal right to just start taping them, which it does not.

Ive checked into things and unless someone wants to guarantee paying a fine regarding me and or guarantee legal expenses im not outing th tapes, i can tell you as a person what i went through but there is in them also my own personal data on those as well. and i have to say it makes me sick the to think that people less strong in the mind would and could get bothered like this.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:34:17 EDT

Candoo3 : Maybe his head isn't under the covers. :)

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:08:50 EDT

mazhurg : Can't from here, but need to find that Iraqi speaker pict from the war...

:D

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:06:21 EDT

matradley :

said by sbrook :

Note in that article, Bell's Lazlo says there hasn't been a backlash! Looks like his head's been hiding under the covers to avoid seeing the lightning flashes!

I read that - I was wondering what rock he is hiding under! lol

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:04:08 EDT

sbrook : Note in that article, Bell's Lazlo says there hasn't been a backlash! Looks like his head's been hiding under the covers to avoid seeing the lightning flashes!

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:45:05 EDT

chrish : looks like a new article is running on the national post site also:

»www.nationalpost.com/news/story.···d=407117

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:38:05 EDT

Jean_22 : Since also talking about the cap, you might also want to add Videotron :p

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:27:03 EDT

padenom : Saw that report a few minutes ago. Please click the recommend link and add comments to the post too.

PS: removing cbc.ca cookies allows you to recommend again ;)

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:13:46 EDT

a1_Andy :

said by scott allison :

A) they know i have tapes
B) at time i did not state like the law says that i was taping until later on which is a privacy act violation
im not going to prison to prove a point
so while i have such , all it does is protect me form legal action from bell as they stated and make sure that any action they wish to take against me in future , id bring em.

AND i cant state enough , maybe everyone should do it and state at beginning "you say your taping for quality , im taping for legal protection...then proceed"
All i can say is if i were subpoenaed or somehow the law were to be able to protect me then and only then id out them.
Like i can say they already put me through hell im not going to jail or being sued for it on top of it.
Privacy laws while great can protect the wrong people too.

did the bell recording not say to you "this call may be recorded"?

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:07:52 EDT

Mark Rejhon : I nominate that Shawn at CBC should also give coverage to Voip users (i.e. Vonage) who are being interfered by these throttling issues. This can seriously affect ability to place phone calls, including 911 calls, as Vonage now supports them.

quote:
Some hours ago I sent the following to Shawn Benjamin:

...

I want to emphasize an angle to BellNexxia's traffic policy that's been ignored in most reporting so far. Anecdotal evidence from people in areas where traffic shaping has been turned on indicates that Bell's tools are extremely blunt weapons. They are reportedly slowing down or rendering unusable all encrypted communications, including protocols used for voice over internet (internet phone services), possibly the secure HTTP protocol used for online ecommerce including online banking, and VPN protocols used to tunnel private data over the public internet. None of these tools are in any way related to P2P or overall traffic use, but all of them have been caught up in the overly broad net used by Ontario ISPs to filter internet traffic.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:04:05 EDT

Ank14 : »www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008···ity.html

found this just now, dont know if it was posted already.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:41:46 EDT

Ontarionet : What about a report on how Bell OWNS the lines and is virtually a MONOPOLY as is Rogers (more or less) and how the Canadian government allows this?

Isn't CBC owned/controlled by the government? Ooops... I guess we won't be seeing that report anytime soon.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:51:06 EDT

anon : @Arbalister

i brought this up at the facebook site
that if you have a contract for a service with someone and they violate it you can use, if the cause of that isn't TSI but BELL you as a business have legal right to sue and may in fact class action it on behalf of other TSI contractee's and as TSI gives me 1$/month fo rsign up people who are thinking of getting unliited or unthrottled speeds they may apply to join that action.
Need to pass that buy a lawyer but the great thing about cnauck law is like this.
you get bad milk in a store , all the store owner needs to do is prove it came form supplier that way and instead of you sueing the store owner and then him sueing the supplier,
YOU sue the supplier ( that lessens burden on justice system by factor of two and lessons hastle for businessman whom was innocent)
also if anyone wants to ensure my legal protection via lawyer or legal fees should bell canada sue me for violating the privacy act, i'll release my tapes.
otherwise all i can offer as an idea is to phone up the business office and say im taping the conversations state what tapes i have and then ask them to waive the privacy concerns, and out there repsonse.
That might get an actual investigation going ....if they say
NO. What has BELL after all to hide.
The legal threat was very mean and i am like do they do this to kids? Do they do this to elderly or older people who are less savvy?
Does Warner Brothers know about this? They own utorrent. Do they know BELL Canada is telling people there application is illegal to use? Do people realize that getitng free ebooks is legal even if i do it right in front of the RIAA/MPAA CEO?
do you realize that getting tv off the net is no differant then taping with a VCR off the HDTV with a svideo cable?
Do people realize that when i pay for 5 hammers a month, i want 5 hammers, not 2.5 ( which the shaping effectively does and as it does it at time when i cant pick up the other 2.5 it effectively stops me from getting less then half a hammer) as to my open source project i was developing, i have informed all involved im shutting it down publically.
ill still make it and maybe find a way later to get it out.
30Kbytes is not what i need.
at least triple that and i definately need the upspeed to send my dbase and files up to sourceforge.net daily.
Last i checked its legal to download also so whats the big hoopla.
So what if a few kids want some music and movies and tv.
As long as htey dont sell that stuff no damage done.
the next point is the main one. if you want to fight piracy go after tiawan that stomps 30000 dvdrs a day for commercial selling. go after that. and if everyone has access whose going to buy that? so ok tax the net with a liscense of 5$ ( 1.3bill a year and YOU figure out how to distro it)
the cdr levy currently gets 40-60 mill a year so go with that.
And remember that p2p is like advertising too.
FREE i might add.
look at dls for that cbc show.
I have been watching net tv for years and now with new tech that is being surpressed you could have one tv ep at 140MEG thats the exact quality of a 350 meg xvid.
an entire season of tv at under 4gb.
if there going to start capping we should educate people on how to get these h264.mp4 recodes of xvids.
that turns that so called 30Kbytes into 60-75Kbytes for your dling.
for music aac and flac offer much better quality and aac can really get small.
I also agree with an above poster it really is anti competitive for bell to do and like i showed on face book site, i cost bell 13000/year cause a what they did to me.
think about that. they cant keep losing like that espeically when they may be getting sold to the teachers pension ( note that deal has a go ahead, i wonder how the mostly majority of that deal which is american will affect things )
so what if the people on the board are canadian, they will be american schills and prolly fall right in line.

BTW one of the things bell said to me was that they are activally using sandvine which uses an exploit on operating systems to traffic shape and protocol shape.

Last i checked using an exploit on me without permission is a federal offense and a very very SERIOUS one.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:56:10 EDT

anon : A) they know i have tapes
B) at time i did not state like the law says that i was taping until later on which is a privacy act violation
im not going to prison to prove a point
so while i have such , all it does is protect me form legal action from bell as they stated and make sure that any action they wish to take against me in future , id bring em.

AND i cant state enough , maybe everyone should do it and state at beginning "you say your taping for quality , im taping for legal protection...then proceed"
All i can say is if i were subpoenaed or somehow the law were to be able to protect me then and only then id out them.
Like i can say they already put me through hell im not going to jail or being sued for it on top of it.
Privacy laws while great can protect the wrong people too.

Re: Video and audio of BELL practices

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:40:07 EDT

LiQuiD :

said by neko :

@: Scott Allison

You have 'tapes' of Bell stating these things?

release them: Rapidshare, etc...get them out. Lets have a listen...

just don't bother using BT to share them.

Re: Video and audio of BELL practices

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:27:27 EDT

neko : @: Scott Allison

You have 'tapes' of Bell stating these things?

release them: Rapidshare, etc...get them out. Lets have a listen...
--
...virtue gives you heraldry.

Re: Video and audio of BELL practices

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:20:35 EDT

anon : I am all you smoking guns
if they tape you tape them back
and as they dont seem to care about privacy laws then why should i?
A) After moving, was tricked baltantly into a 7 megabit 60GB capped account,
this right after having dropped a 160GB external and going back to net and grabbing 84GB,
-remedy took three weeks and ultimatly was never solved
B) lied to over course fo three weeks that my 2 year ocntract for 5 megabit unlimited was restored.
C) when thought it was fixed was playing ogame.org and developing my onine game, both non intensive bandwith things to do. Router declared 300Megabytes transfer over three weeks.
D) Capped me anyways which was a violation, and on tap threatened to sue me or as they said considered me "actionable for use of a p2p client as the govt a few days ago made them illegal"
that statement was false. I told them i considered them actionable for violation of my contract and changing it without contating me properly as per the contracts rules much as they have recently done to TekSavvy and 3rd party isps there blatant disregard for legal practices is astounding.
E) then canceled contract on the above grounds and they still billed me and not only that have somehow tried to bill my father for MY INTERNET. they ever requested he return the modem. NOW IM 37 not 13. billing both of us is fraud again.
and about that bill, 7 pages . and in my phone section is 50$ charge to satellite ironically its not payper view its a
differant charge. thats also billed in the OH MY television section.
F)note at tiome of the legal threat i was using utorrent and grabbing some free ebooks from northern journeys WHOM I AMY add have stated to me in email that they have no problem with me getitng the books via bittorrent and after we talked about it may in fact do future releases that way as it SAVES THEM THE DEVELOPERS AND PUBLISHERS MONEY.
chronoss2008@hush.com
i am leaving the net possibly as im not paying 34$ for 30Kbytes so bell silences me by taking away that which i pay for.
I moved to TekSavvy for these reasons.
There may be legal reasons i can't publically out these tapes unlike bell i should follow the law.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:10:21 EDT

neko : Well I just wrote to Shawn, explicitly telling him that Tek has generous 200GB a month caps, CAPS aren't the issue. It's the throttling that's the point.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Shawn,
I seen your post on DSLR reports. I thought I should write to you, just to get a few things clear.

The mainstream media, in general, has been obsessed about ISP's limiting data by 'Bandwidth caps'. This is *not* the case with my ISP: Teksavvy, & the recent fiasco with Bell.

Teksavvy give me a generous 200Gigabytes a month, to download. But Bell has been limiting the ability to download, in effect, cutting my bandwidth.

I tried to download the recent CBC showing of 'Canada's next Prime Minister' via bittorrent. It was abysmal! It took 11 hours to download.

This was due to Bell Canada's recent throttling. Teksavvy don't throttle their connections, but with Bell doing this, they are affecting my Internet connection.

I also use SSL FTP to transfer files to my family, securely. Home movies, pictures of the kids, songs that the kids made, etc...NO PIRATE STUFF - ALL LEGITIMATE.

If Bell suspect your line of doing any encryption; they throttle it!

Please ensure your story covers these points. Teksavvy don't have small caps. They have large caps that are throttled by Bell - Limiting my Internet experience.

Yours faithfully,

*** ******
-----------------------------------------------------------------

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

Shawn Benjamin
National Tape Producer
CBC News
416 205 6645

--
...virtue gives you heraldry.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:16:09 EDT

anon : Some hours ago I sent the following to Shawn Benjamin:

...

I want to emphasize an angle to BellNexxia's traffic policy that's been ignored in most reporting so far. Anecdotal evidence from people in areas where traffic shaping has been turned on indicates that Bell's tools are extremely blunt weapons. They are reportedly slowing down or rendering unusable all encrypted communications, including protocols used for voice over internet (internet phone services), possibly the secure HTTP protocol used for online ecommerce including online banking, and VPN protocols used to tunnel private data over the public internet. None of these tools are in any way related to P2P or overall traffic use, but all of them have been caught up in the overly broad net used by Ontario ISPs to filter internet traffic.

The implications for me when BellNexxia imposes traffic filtering in my area (Ottawa) will be severe. I will no longer be able to phone family in Vancouver over the Internet (at no cost) and will instead have to fall back on making long distance phone calls. I will no longer be able to manage my parents' computers remotely or easily share photos with them over our VPN. Closer to home, as a student, there is a very real risk that I will not be able to access academic research databases from off campus and will need to commute 40 minutes to access electronic materials I've so far been able to access at home. Bell has no legitimate right to impose these costs on me for any reason, let alone as collateral damage as part of a highly questionable war on P2P users.

Moreover, because Rogers implements the same policies as BellNexxia is imposing, it's not clear if I can get back the services I currently enjoy at any price short of the $3000 a month fee required for a dedicated commercial connection. I don't have that kind of money to spare.

My situation, though, is really just the tip of the iceberg. BellNexxia traffic shaping will severely impact people who telecommute from home and freelance/home business professionals who regularly need to move client files confidentially over the Internet. There is a very real risk that these people could be unable to do their jobs once BellNexxia's traffic shaping rollout is complete. I'm going to be severely inconvenienced by Bell; others who need to use VPNs for their jobs could be put out of work or forced to leave the province (!) to get unfiltered Internet access.

The whole P2P issue is really secondary to the fact that what Bell has done in the past few days is quantitatively different from ordinary P2P filtering as implemented by ISPs such as Bell-Sympatico and Rogers.

What Bell is doing is filtering their backhaul network which moves internet traffic from subscribers to third party ISPs. By placing filtration gear on the backhaul network, BellNexxia is restricting competition.

As you probably know, Bell-Sympatico filters traffic to restrict the use of P2P applications. Virtually all of Ontario's 3rd party DSL ISPs earned their market by offering unfiltered service. By imposing filtering on the backhaul network, BellNexxia has essentially prevented Bell-Sympatico's competitors from offering substantively better service than what Sympatico chooses to offer.

What's going on here is not a network neutrality issue as much as it is an apparent conflict of interest between Bell as an ISP (Sympatico) and Bell as an infrastructure provider (BellNexxia). The CRTC is supposed to prevent these kind of things from happening, *especially as BellNexxia's backhaul is regulated by CRTC order.*

My overall point here is that BellNexxia's questionable zeal to attack P2P users has lead to them adopting practices akin to using a nuclear device to kill a fly. They're going to penalize a lot of people for things that have utterly nothing to do with P2P or alleged overuse of Bell's backhaul bandwidth. What Bell is doing is unethical, unreasonable, a threat to privacy, and a threat to the Canadian economy.

I got several emails back and then the reporter on the case phoned me and we spoke for a few minutes. While he seemed to be most interested in people who have been burned by GB caps, I made a case that GB caps aren't the real issue and that the real problems are traffic shaping and Bell's conflict of interest. I was, however, caught off guard by the reporter's emphasis and probably didn't make a very good verbal case.

I'm not convinced the media has yet bitten down on the teleology of BellNexxia traffic shaping. They are certainly aware that something is going on, but they seem to be more interested in issues related to nextgen content distribution (the reporter specifically mentioned HDTV over Internet) and caps, but I don't know if they've cottoned on to the implications of traffic shaping yet.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:06:39 EDT

aheintz :

said by LiQuiD :

I started a post in the bell sympatico forum to guage just that, and I did so there to leverage the fact that they've been subject to this for a while. We had a few people post confirming this. Not only that, but also that the entire connection is crippled once you do something that is deemed worthy of throttling by bell's throttle boxes

I agree that once you start using anything that bell does not like it completly throttles your connenction as that has happened to me. Edit.. Since online banking is encrypted traffic trying to manage your account takes a wheil at night as well

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:01:10 EDT

LiQuiD : I started a post in the bell sympatico forum to guage just that, and I did so there to leverage the fact that they've been subject to this for a while. We had a few people post confirming this. Not only that, but also that the entire connection is crippled once you do something that is deemed worthy of throttling by bell's throttle boxes
--
Windows is the virus. Linux is the vaccine, FreeBSD is the CURE

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:00:46 EDT

inferno_gn : Hi there,

Problem is the average joe won't know what to do. *hehe* But seriously, we want to help the average joe to get out of Bell, but it's hard.

inferno_gn
--
Otaku Anime Network
»www.otakuanime.com/

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:51:56 EDT

Quake110 :

said by Flannel :

Michael Geist would be a good candidate, he's pretty well the expert in the Canadian field.

He will be considered, no doubt about it. I think what the CBC wants is to interview the average joe.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:46:13 EDT

Trisomy21 : Yeah they uploaded a torrent of Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, the last episode. Many people complained about waiting 6-12 hours to download it.

Hmm anyone know when this segment is going to air? I hope they use my video lol

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:33:56 EDT

Laidback : I just want to thanks those of you who responded to this. you have great writing skills.

To Shawnb, did the CBC not recently start using P2P for program downloading. I apologize for being vague on that, but I do seem to remember something about that. Bell's decision will obviously affect that also.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:33:55 EDT

theninjasqua :

said by LiQuiD :

Bell's response is to completely throttle all encrypted data, which is reprehensible.

Are you sure of that? I don't think we have seen any definitive proof of this to know for sure, unless you've seen something I have not.
--

-theninjasquad

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:29:52 EDT

milnoc : 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.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:17:04 EDT

LiQuiD : 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

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:04:27 EDT

chrish : 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.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:00:11 EDT

LiQuiD : **Sigh**

Sounds canned, I got the exact same response. Hopefully they will at least read them all before completing their piece.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:59:39 EDT

chrish : I think they are focusing on the user side of things here, which is good - showing the actual effects on wholesellers customer base.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:56:35 EDT

Flannel : Michael Geist would be a good candidate, he's pretty well the expert in the Canadian field.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:52:19 EDT

chrish : 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

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:47:57 EDT

Arbalister : 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

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:37:45 EDT

Jabus : I like the idea he's going for.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:35:15 EDT

Trisomy21 : 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

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:30:22 EDT

Trisomy21 : ^^ Already done.

Just make sure you explain things simply, use analogies.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:20:02 EDT

LiQuiD : 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

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:17:58 EDT

Trisomy21 : 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.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:10:58 EDT

anon : 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.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:04:44 EDT

chrish : 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

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:58:28 EDT

iconfat :

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!

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:30:22 EDT

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 ***
       ---

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:28:34 EDT

anon : 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.

Re: CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:16:47 EDT

iconfat : 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.

CBC TV request for people to talk on camera about this issue

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:54:55 EDT

shawnb6 :
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