Kdee
join:2005-08-26
Etobicoke, ON | reply to jat
Re: Proof Bell throttles everything but known ports/protocols
It's in the blogasphere:
»itnerd.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/···be-bell/ |
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SteveJ
@bell.ca
| reply to jat
said by jat  :I'll see about playing with it tomorrow. Maybe I'll write something to test it in a reliable way. I don't think it should be too hard. If you figure something out it would be much appreciated. I tried
myself and ran into the problems you described. Additionally, I'm not
sure how to rate limit the sender so that it doesn't transmit packets
faster than the nominal DSL downlink rate. |
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Savant
Premium
join:2001-08-12
Toronto
clubs: 
| reply to teksuebell
said by teksuebell :
Great work!. Please send your info not just to CRTC but PLEASE SEND IT TO:
www.michaelgeist.ca
mgeist@uottawa.ca Michael Geist is a waste of time imho. He lost all credibility in my eyes when he endorsed and supported Cleanfeed Canada. If that is not an affront to 'net neutrality' then I don't know what is.
--
Could be better, could be worse, could be Monday... |
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j3richo
join:2007-12-08
Gatineau, QC | reply to Name96
»Setup Multiple VPN servors to combat Bell Throttle? |
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An Onymous
@teksavvy.com | reply to jat
When I run a SSL connection (standard ports 6668,6697,9999) to IRC server, it triggers the throttling on everything else.
So much for affecting P2P only and so much of DPI is independent of ports. |
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UT_CK
Premium
join:2008-01-28
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
1 edit | reply to Cyborg994
When running a P2P application it slows all other applications, including StarWars Galaxy.
If I use P2P, my son's SWG gets 40% packet loss and the ping shoots up to 400. Without p2p, it runs ping 120 and 0% packet loss.
I have to stop all my p2p activity. for his ping and packet loss to be "normal" in SWG.
Regards,
CK
{:(B) |
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Cyborg994
join:2005-04-18
Montreal, QC
| reply to jat
In my experience with the throlling so far, I also noticed that having any p2p app running greatly affects my SSH sessions, to the point where they are unsuable (high latency, packet loss, slow speed, lost connexion ). Even using vi is a pain...
I consider it important not to run ssh servers on port 22, but even the one running on it is affected.
When I don't run any p2p app everything is fine. Also SSH works great when I run p2p apps outside of the throttling period, so it's not an issue with my local settings.
So much for the throlling only affecting p2p... |
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timc
join:2008-04-21
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·odynet
| reply to dbsanfte
said by dbsanfte :Gonna chime in to say the KiB/MiB nonsense is pedantic at best. Yes, let's work on differentiating kB from kb first. |
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teksuebell
@cgocable.net
| reply to jat
JAT
JAT
Great work!. Please send your info not just to CRTC but PLEASE SEND IT TO:
www.michaelgeist.ca
mgeist@uottawa.ca
Michael Geist
University of Ottawa
Faculty of Law
Common Law Section
57 Louis Pasteur
Box 450, Stn. A
Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5
Canada
Please .... |
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Terence
join:2003-11-26
Toronto, ON
| reply to jat
I like to management my bandwidth better to minimize the effects of throttling have on my internet usage.
So if I am using P2P (or an application protocol unknown to Bell) during throttling hours and it maxes out the 30 KB/s limit, would my other applications (e.g. http, ftp, mms, rtsp, Shoutcast, etc) be affected if I use them simultaneously?
In other words, does the throttling slow down your entire internet connection when P2P is detected? (I heard that's what Rogers was doing some years ago, but I am not sure.)
Is Skype throttled?
Are they throttling upload, download, or both?
If they are throttling both, is the 30 or 60 KB/s limit shared for both upload and download, or do they have seperated limits?
Does Bell throttle wholesalers like TekSavvy the exact same way as they throttle Sympatico?
How does Bell different from Rogers in their throttling method? |
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Bellthrottles
@teksavvy.com
| reply to jat
This proves that Bell is effectively reducing the speed of everyone's connection to a mere 350kbps when they feel like it. Right now it's 4pm to 1am (or 2am)? Eventually it could be anything at all.
Normally, a company that would act like that would die in a true concurrential environment, so Bell decided that for Slowpatico to survive it had to push the throttling over to the independant ISPs. After all, who would accept to have a slow and crippled connected about half the daily hours.
As it stands now, Canadians have one of the worst internet service offer in the industrialized world.
If the appeal to the CRTC doesn't work, Slowpatico and other independant DSL customers should launch a class action lawsuit about how Bell is using its monopoly to force unconcurrential business practices upon the customers.
The throttling of nothing but what Bell thinks you should use your internet connection for is just the start of the downfall for all DSL customers. What's next after that? They will decide that you can't max out your connection for over 2 minutes before deeming you an abuser? Am I the only one that thinks it is absurd that the DSL terms of use are now worse than they were eight years ago?
Finally, I must say I am surprised that a company like Bell, with already a really bad reputation, would do a kind of move that brings the hatred of their customer base that's left. If the situation isn't resolved, I will move all my remaining services from Bell and I will inform all my family so they do as well to the cable company (not that I like them that much either, but at least they're not crapping on their customer base yet). |
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ultracat
join:2008-01-30
Toronto, ON | reply to jat
You should print this all out, write up your methodology, and mail it off to the CRTC explaining exactly how it proves Bell lied in its submission to them. One more nail for the coffin. |
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dbsanfte
join:2005-03-15
Montreal, QC | reply to jat
Gonna chime in to say the KiB/MiB nonsense is pedantic at best. |
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jat
join:2008-04-28
Burlington, ON
| reply to SteveJ
said by SteveJ :
netcat has a '-u' switch which should do it. If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, UDP is a bit more complicated, and I can't find a good way to test it with existing tools.
Timing how long netcat runs doesn't work. UDP provides no way of indicating that one side is done sending, so the receiving netcat never knows to quit. It also doesn't resend dropped packets, so the sending netcat quits as soon as it's done sending everything as fast as it can, despite the fact that the receiver never got half of the data.
Per-connection speed monitoring only works for connection-oriented protocols (i.e., TCP), so the usual tools for that don't work. I think I have something I can use (it monitors host/port pairs instead of connections), but I'll have to play with it another day. Although it's worth mentioning that my connection seems to get maxed out receiving the random data over UDP on an unknown port, so it doesn't look like it's being throttled.
I'll see about playing with it tomorrow. Maybe I'll write something to test it in a reliable way. I don't think it should be too hard. |
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Rand2k1
join:2003-12-09
Canada
| reply to recneps
said by recneps :To clarify his explanation: KiB (kibibyte) and MiB (mebibyte) are used to distinguish between "true" binary values (1024) and the "metric" (is it really metric?) values (1000's) KiB = KB in terms of computer language (1024 bytes) MiB = MB in terms of computer language (1024 kilobytes (of 1024 bytes each)) This is opposed to the now common (by hard drive manufacturers) use of (technically true) kilobyte ("1000 bytes") and megabyte ("1000000 bytes) Much like the metric system (powers of 10) In this system KB is not the same as KB above (1000 bytes vs 1024), so KiB is used to ensure there is no confusion. (same with MiB, GiB, and so on) Not metric, base 10, which is the standard numbering system we use.
Base 2, Base 8 and base 16 are also used for various purposes.
Computers are binary (base 2) and 1024 was called a kilobyte because it was the closest whole number in binary to 1000 (1024 in binary is 10000000000) this was done so they didn't have to make up a new term as they figured anyone who would care would take the time to understand the differences between base 10 and base 2.
They were wrong. |
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SteveJ
@bell.ca | reply to jat
Can you re-run your tests in UDP mode? netcat has a '-u' switch which should do it. |
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recneps
join:2006-06-24
Whitby, ON
| reply to jat
To clarify his explanation:
KiB (kibibyte) and MiB (mebibyte)
are used to distinguish between "true" binary values (1024) and the "metric" (is it really metric?) values (1000's)
KiB = KB in terms of computer language (1024 bytes)
MiB = MB in terms of computer language (1024 kilobytes (of 1024 bytes each))
This is opposed to the now common (by hard drive manufacturers) use of (technically true) kilobyte ("1000 bytes") and megabyte ("1000000 bytes)
Much like the metric system (powers of 10)
In this system KB is not the same as KB above (1000 bytes vs 1024), so KiB is used to ensure there is no confusion.
(same with MiB, GiB, and so on) |
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np
@bell.ca | reply to jat
Additionally it makes it clear how throttling can be evaded (although this was easily suspected beforehand) |
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np
@bell.ca | reply to jat
Thank you for your work. It's good to have hard evidence regardless of what an employee alluded to what was happening. Moreover this is a good baseline to check changes in the way throttling is performed in the future. |
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Name96
join:2008-03-28
| reply to j3richo
said by j3richo :good job, however we already knew that Bell does this when Deadpool admitted they use a "better safe than sorry" policy, meaning they throttle what they can't identify. Got a link to that?
It's certainly been implied that they're molesting anything they can't identify but I haven't seen an explicit admission anywhere.
This has really bad ramifications for the deployment of new protocols on the Canadian Internet. Bell has frozen out the possibility for using anything custom, unusual, or heavily encrypted anywhere in Bell-controlled territory unless Bell decides to allow it. This means that if someone develops a new killer app that uses a new protocol, that 'killer app' won't work in Bell territory until Bell specifically decides to unblock it.
To put this in perspective, just think how slowly the WWW would have been adopted if it was necessary for every ISP to explicitly permit HTTP before their customers could access website. Chances are the Web would still be a niche tool with no widespread market penetration, and with that, the Internet would remain the niche domain of academics and professionals.
This is why we need net neutrality. No one should have to ask permission to innovate. |
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