Arbalister
join:2007-11-24
St Catharines, ON
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to backness
Re: Charlie Angus, an Honourable man. VIDEO OF GOVERNMENT DEBATE
said by backness  :angus.c@parl.gc.ca i just sent him an email thanking him for his work I did more. I explained how the ministers condescending "for your information" made him look like an ignorant ass.
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Mr Angus,
For the last 12 years, I've managed an independant ISP. Long before Bell got into the ISP business. Back then we had no choice but to buy essential services from Bell. In real effect, we financed their move into our market.
Today, in many cases, we have alternatives to many services that Bell Provides. The one that we do not have, is in last mile connectivity between ourselves and our end users. Whether it be dialup internet, or highspeed internet, the only way we have to get it to homes and businesses is via wire owned by either Bell or the local cableco - and the latter is prohibitively expensive, most independants can't afford to pursue it.
I personally pay Telus for my dialup last mile connections. And they sell me access to lines they buy from Bell. For highspeed, I use a 3rd party ISP - Teksavvy - via a reseller arrangement. They buy lastmile from Bell, and internet connectivity from several sources, including Peer1 and Cogent. The file attached is an illustration of that - replace the word "Easystreet" with "Teksavvy." Teksavvy purchases everything above and to the left of their position on the diagram, from Bell, and it's all regulated, CRTC tariffed (CRTC 2008-17) service. The portion marked "telephone line" is the segment of this network that determines the consumers DSL speed, along with a service profile set on the "dslam" unit. Currently it tops out at about 6 MB/s. Only Bell has control of those settings - the ISP can request the profile be altered to stabilize the connection, but it's a Bell service technician that performs the changes.
Bells current throttling of service is occuring on one of 2 segments of this diagram, either before, or behind the Dslam. We don't know for certain which. But it is *not* internet traffic being affected, it's the core backhaul network. The bandwidth leased by the ISP from Bell. CRTC Regulated services.
As shown in the letter to the minister below, Bells own stockholder report for this year states that they don't expect to be able to cover the cost of upgrading the core network from their customers. And that they *expect* loss of business if they institute "traffic shaping" (throttling) for their own users. So. instead of spending the cash to upgrade facilities, they've purchased 3rd party systems (and stock in the company that provides it) to deliberately sabotage the flow of information through their internal network. And they've applied the same limitations on the people that compete with them - the independant ISPs.
Now, yesterday, they've applied to file an appeal of CRTC 2008-17, to try to get out of the requirement to sell this service to the Independant ISPs on the grounds that there is sufficient competition. If they win, there won't be *any* competition in the DSL market, in Bell's territory. Your choice will be Bell or the Cableco. In fact, it will also allow them to stop reselling to CLECs. No more local phone service competition, either.
Having watched your exchange with Minister Prentice on the Net Neutrality issue, I wanted to hand you a bit more information. I've attached a note I sent to the Minister last night.
In response to your question the Minister replied that "For your information ... we do not regulate the internet" and "the matter is between the ISP's and the Consumer."
He's wrong on both counts, and should probably ask for some research on what the current throttling problem *really* is.
First off, the latter comment that it's between the ISP and the Consumer. The consumer is nothing more then a victim of collateral damage in this issue. The real victims are all the independant ISPs whose businesses have been hurt for years by Bell's move from a supplier to a direct competitor. They should never have been allowed into the ISP marketplace in the first place - we insisted bak then that *today* would eventually be the result.
Secondly, as shown above, its not "internet" that's being throttled. It's core telecommunication services, mandated, regulated, and tariffed by the CRTC. For the Ministers information. By the way - he could have looked that up...on the internet.
Thank you,
Chris Hanlon,
Manager,
Merge Internet,
St. Catharines, ON |
