TekSavvy → The Bell Disclosure!

Oh yes, it's obvious now without a doubt they have the room but because of their media ventures and clueless management, they want to control what you surf and watch on the internet and get more dollars out of it. If they can serve up their lame ads on a throttled and capped 5 Mbps connection instead of 20 Mbps, you can bet they will try.

here is how you tell

Show figures for your 10 hr throttle

Then show figures when not throttled
(use the fact that i am basically ONLY usng my net now during the unthrottled time thus defeating traffic shaping in a sense

Data like that would either prove or disprove the theory and as i get max speeds i do not see the issue and when you take a weekend where everyone else does like i do , it proves logically without need of network knowledge that they are lying about something.
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If ontario had a class action lawsuit that asked for a injunction say bell loses and appeals, that would in effect lift the throttling while the appeal and perhaps even class action were going , it would allow all sides to gather data on "unthrottled use".
Even a full month or two would be a case or not for or against.
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P.S. I havent got less due to throtlling i have merely shifted and scheduled my use of the net.
I am sure many thousands have "got this idea down"
so the throttle is in effect ONLY now FOR sympatico users, and those wishing to use or NEEDING to use during shape times.
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ALso after you see one red marker do you place another?
this is why peterborough has one
the fact is if every person put a marker there it woud look like a bloody mess, there for the map as sent is skwed by the fact they are shaping me in an area with one red marker the same as 50 in toronto.
WHY looks better for bell to show that hey see not so bad over there. CAIP needs the CRTC to know that i myself did not place a marker cause i already saw one on peterborough as an example.

ALSO the downloadhelper addon for firefox defeats the traffic shape, tested at youtube at 500Kbytes/sec.
While i am getitng tv that isn't on dvdr anymore that shows you that what i said about firefox addons can and will slap the system and that in fact you tube is far more worse place for p2p activity.

Just surprised they considered this Confidential Trade Secrets". I guess the only secret they wanted hidden is that they have an under-used network capacity re-branded as congested beyond repair.

Now to the data, I can say there is somewhat visible data showing that Throttling has brought down "congestion" levels, but by not much worth noting ... and for them to say that other traffic came in to replace it is a bold faced lie as Rocky's own graphs show dips in usage levels through-out throttle times.

Keep in mind to get a good before and after perspective look at April 07 Vs. April 08. Those two months are clear times of no throttle, and full throttle (March it was being rolled out still).

So a quick comparison;

April 2007 vs. April 2008

Backbone | 4.5% to 1.0%
BAS | 1.2% to 0.5%
Aggregation | 3.9% to 0.7%
DSLAM | 4.6% to 5.8%

Now I hope people can start seeing a trend , Bell in all it's excellence of being the king of cheap turned the Pyramid on it's head. The Year over Year trend is that of reduction, except for the DSLAM congestion which they want to resolve. Matter of fact it would appear that the DPI is adding on to this layer cake of "congestion" right onto the DSLAM. It is cheaper to have the local connections congested rather then the external. From 4.6% in April 07 to 5.8% in April 08.

Now for the bulk of the data found on that table ... firstly the Total Margin I would presume is useless, and of no use to anyone. Second I've grown up to know that networks are predominantly garbage in and garbage out, there is a relationship. Now this chart personally looks quite shady, especially in it's current form which is not to scale or even fabricated?

DSLAM is related to the BAS (the knee bone is connected to the thighbone), so I think it needs greater scrutiny in areas we see the DSLAM % Higher or equal in one Month compared to another, but the BAS % is lower compared to that other.

March 07(1) Vs. September 07(2)

- DSLAM 5.6%(1), 6.6%(2)
- BAS 3.1%(1), 0.4%(2)

April 07(1) Vs. August 07(2)

- DSLAM 4.6%(1), 4.6%(2)
- BAS 1.2%(1), 0.7%(2)

* Now keep in mind when looking at these data that it most definitely is not in context, Network Upgrades alone could fudge the relationship between numbers. Also key dates need to be understood ... Nov. 07 Sympatico Throttled, March 08 Everyone else is throttled, also we have to keep in mind the seasonality of the internet.

So now goes into how data was obtained, how it can be verified, and explaining key network events in a timeline. Also we have to question Bell's definition of "Congestion", and also get a respected Network Engineers POV of the numbers and get the knowledge individual to write a recommended guideline for congestion and the use of that word.

Initial view:

Not good. I don't see sufficient detail in the data to draw any solid conclusions. Right now their response seems to be too short and simple for the gravity of the situation.

I will have to read this in detail to really understand what is going on.

Funny... the download of this file slowed to a paltry 3 kb/s as I was downloading, hahaha...

The crtc has no plans to rule against bell (by default rogers and cogeco).

Theres far to much political pressure and money to have any other ruling other then for bell.

If you for a moment don't think back room dealing isn't going on when these guys have so much at stake your fooling yourself.

That being said there is still a chance that something leaks that forces the crtc to cover its own collective butt by ruling against bell.

This should give you a idea just how honest the crtc is and how much they care about us.

h**p://bigbry.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/c-r-t-c-on-the-take/

I agree with you, I'm a cynical guy. However, even the most clever, seedy backroom dealings have to be done when no one is looking. The public and media have shone a spotlight on this issue. Do you really think Bell will win? I honestly don't at this point. Even if the CRTC rules against us, this is a political issue now and the cons are a minority. Worst case scenario this is a great problem for the other parties Lib, BQ, NDP, Green to address in their platforms in the next election (e.g. buying our votes for giving us back our unfettered internet). And don't forget there could still be a civil case even after the CRTC ruling. And don't forget that significant privacy issues have come up during this whole thing and yes even the CRTC has to be in compliance with privacy laws (adjudicated by the privacy commissioner NOT the CRTC).

They got away when 1.2 billion was at stake so i don't see them having any problems getting away with this.

As i said though if they get caught badly enough in the public before this goes through then there is a chance.

Bell is counting on the fact that the smaller isp's don't have the dough to go against all three (or more) of them in court.

Remember its not just bell that has a stake in this but both all the other major isp's doing the same as bell.

If the CRTC was on the take, Bell and other ISPs wouldn't be obligated to provide wholesale access to their networks. Bell constantly fights this and tries to have the CRTC remove the requirements, and Bell has so far lost every time.

This is definitely under public scrutiny BEFORE the decisions have been made ... that makes a huge difference.

As much as the major cablecos and Bell all throttle, the cablecos can provide technical validity to throttling as a part of the technology. BUT Bell cannot provide evidence that throttling is technically required, but simply at best mismanagement of their own networks.

The crtc was given no choice when that ruling was made as bell publicly hosed themselves.

Bell has now found its loop hole around this ruling and a likely effective means of killing off the smaller isps and thus removing the problem.

At the same time ripping off the consumers.

The real question here is can bell keep things quiet enough to get away with it or higher more idiots with big mouths.

The later bell does rather well and because of this we could get the same result when they ruled against bell for wholesale isp's.

How do you know that for sure?

They have never had to since no one has ever forced them too.

They like bell have a vested interest in no letting that out and having people maybe find out that they are getting ripped off.

My better half dealt with all the above thanks to the hydrovac business she ran and no one of them isn't run by a bunch of crooks .

And you htink shaping wholesalers to 95% of what they paid for isn't proof they are on the so called take?
So bell loses a few minor htings but gets what it wants in the end , will make it LOOK like there was actual regulation, when in fact its just a HAHA look at the poor people attitude, oh jimmy bring around the limo, bell gave us a lot a cash to seal this we can party now....

Well, fortunately a degree and experience in Computers, Broadcast Television Engineering, and Communications give me enough knowledge to know that the upstream is very limited and that P2P from just a handful of users on a cable segment can bring that segment to its knees. Moreover, a review of these forums will reveal that at least for Rogers, implementing first DOCSIS and then throttling, the number of performance related complaints has significantly decreased.

>I think that you/CAIP should hire some consulting help from one of the big firms with inside telco network consulting experience - maybe Ernst & Young, IBM, HP, or some firm that is recommended to you in the US

Ask google for help. They have lots of PHD and other smart guys that know network there.

The DSLAM is the most congest part, but the numbers before the throttling and after almost show no different. The congestion dropped 2%, but that is also the same amount as short term fluctuations prior to throttling. No enough data to show trend whether or not throttling actually helped.

The cell loss graph is amusing. 4500 cells seems like a huge number, but each cell only carriers 48 bytes of data. So for their highest loss month they lost 216k of data or about 150 EtherNet frames.

I don't know the average data loss stats, but it's something like 99.9% and I gather 216kb of data is going to be a very tiny percentage of the total data transferred.

You have lots of opinions and guesses as to how Bell and the CRTC have in the way of backroom dealings...

Let me ask you your own question in return:

said by davidbrown :

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How do you know that for sure?

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?

Soo, 2-5% congestion, so THROTTLE THE WHOLE NETWORK. That makes lots of sense.

Their definitions of congestion are pretty low too.

They deem it "congested" if the following utilizations are exceeded:
DS-3: 61%;
OC-3: 84%; and
OC-12 and OC-48: 90%.

And they measure it at 15 minutes intervals. For a link to be considered congested, the threshold must have been exceeded at least once on 5 or more different days of a 14 consecutive day period.

Presumably this 14 day figure is a rolling window.

So, if its measured to be congested at just a couple hours in a 2 week period, its considered congested for that whole month?

And only a few percent of links actually met this ridiculously low criteria for congestion?

I agree with the first couple of posters, the CRTC has all the info it needs to make a ruling yesterday. What's the freakin' holdup here?

I'm not sure whether 2-5% congestion means "The pipes are at an average load og 2-5%", or whether that means "2-5% of our pipes are fully utilized, and people are oversubscribed in those areas and getting substandard service"

I'm leaning more towards the latter, and 2-5% might encompass several neighbourhoods in Downtown T.O.!

If you look at this data and combine it with some telecom knowledge, you understand BC's major capital projects that impact xDSL services... and there are a lot of them at every level of the network... stingers to VDSL2 & Dual Gige LAG uplinks, upgraded BAS equipment, replacement of multilayer+multivendor-edge aggregation, better core capacity.

Also, for Rocky, there is still mucho ATM between your service provider GigE and the end user, although the normal MTU is great for users:

Stinger/Anymedia/Subtended DSLAM shelves: most of these use OC-3 to link up to their control units at the CO.

Al-Lu 73xx ASAM and Stinger FS+ controllers: The FS has OC-12 atm uplinks in many POP's. Same with the Alcatel equipment that controls DSLAM's/shelves.

Finally there is an ATM-to_GigE device connected to a Nortel 8600 edge device. In same cases, some of the above links are now Gige, but even 4 Gige uplinks for a device that controls dozens of DSLAM's isn't much.
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Even the VDSL2 upgrades to Stingers puzzle me... 3 48port LIM's on a stinger with 2 Gige uplinks. Even with multicast for the IPTV traffic, that doesn't really seem to make sense. But that is where things are going.

I really think the smart thing would be to replace their POP/CO to DSLAM point-to-point links with some sort of GPON 2.488D/1.24U or 10GEPON feeding 24/48/72port micro dslam's every couple blocks.

What I'd like to know is how/where they measure congestion at the dslam. 5.2% of the links are congested. Which ones ?

Phil

Don't put it past Stevie-Boy Harper to abolish the CRTC when Parliament resumes. It's what the telco's and cableco's want.

E30-64-ac (A/C Power for 64K with 64K subscriber license subscriber) $61,400

E30-64-dc (DC Power for 64K with 64K Subscriber license Subscriber) $61,300

Availabilty 2 weeks

Expect the e100 to be more costly - these figures are in-line with the $1-2 per subscriber previously posted in this thread.

Why not just throttle the upstream then?

Remember that criteria for a congestion isn't that there's an overload. It's just that their "limit" (which isn't 100%) was passed four times out of 1344 checks within a two week span (if I understand the documents correctly). Then that dslam is labeled as "congestioned". It doesn't mean that the dslam was overloaded at any time during the month.

It's pretty shady.

I think i made tables like that in grade 5 math class....

looks sorta like a periodic table..

boxes with percentages... ok .. so what...

can we see actual logs of hardware, congestion, real loss figures...

them taking their own figures ( real or made up ) and just making a nice table for us doesnt give us any real truth.. its still what they want us to see after they gather what they think is relevant...

thats still not any real data to analyze..

nice try ..

in a court room, this evidence should/would just be discarded...

like finding any gun you can and display it for evidence, and say,.. see.. thats the gun ...

i dunno...

that looks like crap to me.. :P

>In a court room, this evidence should/would just be discarded...

only if the opposing lawyers show that these numbers are worthless. If nobody questions (legitimately and logically) these numbers, the judge will accept those as facts.

Yeah, it seems there is strong need to push RDSLAMs if twisted-pair last-mile is to be used, well last 1k-2k feet is more or less the target reach.

GPON is certainly a reasonable solution. Verizon is using it (along with BPON). But somehow I suspect even with GPON, Bell would still be very stingy with bandwidth. I just don't think they have the cahones to put out 10/2, 20/5, 20/20 and 50/20 mbps services (with particular emphasis on those upstream rates).

BTW, I like the 2.488D/1.244U (2:1) ratio i like very much

Simple the crtc passed behavior has been to the point of being totally illegal but they have repeatably done it.

I seriously doubt they are going to change and see the light just on this issue or for us.

Can i know for sure..no..but its a bet any gambler would take in a min.

Add to this bell own dishonesty and backroom dealings and i sure rocky has his own supisions.

I do though have faith in bell ability to mess things up so all hope isn't gone.