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Maynard G Krebs
@teksavvy.com
| reply to amigo_boy
Re: Anti-competitive
said by amigo_boy  :I don't understand that part of Karl's editorial. If Bell is throttling the bandwidth they retail, how is it anti-competitive if they do the same thing to their wholesale market? They're doing the same thing to others that they do to themselves, right? Mark BCE, the parent of Bell (telco), Bell Nexxia (wholesale network operator), Symaptico (ISP), and CTVGlobeMedia (content creator/provider/TV network/print publisher/newspaper), generically "Bell"
The ISP's are purchasing Gig-E pipes from Bell with guaranteed throughput between the DSLAMs and the NAP. This is in effect a 'leased line' in the old parlance, or PVC - a private virtual circuit.
Bell has no legal right to throttle the circuit under the terms of service.
Moreover, they are using DPI equipment to inspect each packet on the PVC, which is akin to the USPS illegally opening your mail, reading it, and then deciding how long to delay delivering to you based on the content, ranging from no delay through to never delivering. Bell is doing this without a warrant.
The throttle/DPI is occuring from 4pm - 2am, which is prime television viewing time. It is widely thought that Bell is implementing this throttling to create 'space' for their own imminent IPTV launch.
The CRTC (same as your FCC) has mandated through various 'tariffs' that all telco's and cable operators provide wholesale access to any ISP in order to foster a competitive internet access regieme in Canada. There is noting in the tariffs which permit a wholesale provider to delay or inspect traffic on these 'leased lines'.
Imagine for a moment that Bank of America had a similar network provided by ATT and configed similarly as one of the ISP's - branches connected via DSL to the local telco central office (CO), thence via leased capacity to a NAP and then on to BofA's datacenter.
Imagine that ATT did DPI on all the capacity between the CO and the NAP and delayed or dropped all encrypted traffic. Imagine dropped or seriously degraded banking or stock trading.
Imagine that BofA used Vonage for voice traffic over the same DSL link (implausible I know, but bear with me), and VoIP calls had so much jitter as to be unusable or 911 calls could not be connected.
Imagine that authorized BofA employees could not get connected from home or hotels via the corporate VPN due to the discarding of encrypted packets.
What do you think BofA would do to ATT?
All the above is happening in Ontario and Quebec to low millions of both individual and SME business customers because of Bell's actions. Do you get it what the issue is now? | |
Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
 ·Colbanet
| reply to amigo_boy
Other ISPs in Bell's service area (Videotron's cable service in Quebec) are not throttled.
Bell is, in effect, preventing wholesalers from effectively competing with unthrottled providers like Videotron.
This is similar to a big store selling stuff below cost to drive other smaller stores out of business.
Bell introduces throttling, Videotron doesn't. Bell loses a few customers, but they have many and can afford it. Also, they lose mostly the less profitable customers. Bell survives.
The wholesalers, though, they're small. They can't really afford to lose many customers, and their core user base tends to be much more affected by the throttling. They can't afford to take the hit, and go bankrupt.
End result? Even though Bell is throttling their own customers, Bell drives the wholesalers out of business by offering them up to the wolves (Videotron). Unable to effectively compete in the marketplace, and unable to take the hit of lost business due to their size and different customer demographic, the wholesalers tank!
If all ISPs throttled, this would not be the case. But since some major ISPs do not throttle, Bell is preventing the wholesalers from competing against non-throttled ISPs. That is anti-competitive. | |
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