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Indie ISPs Eyeing Legal Action Against Bell Canada
Company continues to insist it has every right to throttle...

As we've noted over the last few days, Bell Canada has started throttling bandwidth to wholesale partners -- initially without telling them. The anti-competitive move prevents competing ISPs from offering un-throttled service, which is a competitive threat to Bell's own, throttled, residential service. The move has made a large number of Canadian customers and indie ISP operators furious. Bell Canada continues to inform the media there's nothing anyone can do about it. From Canada's Globe and Mail:

quote:
Bell Canada spokesman Jason Laszlo said the company has every right to limit the amount of bandwidth certain applications can consume on its networks and those it rents to third-party ISPs. "This isn't a new policy," he said. "Our agreements with wholesale ISP customers clearly include provisions regarding our rights to manage our networks appropriately to the benefit of all customers."
Teksavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault responds to Laszlo's assertion in our forums:
quote:
This is the exact problem and where Bell doesn't get it. TekSavvy and all third party ISPs are paying for a "slice" of this network, so no, it's not Bell's at that point. They're paid to make sure the infrastructure remains in good shape, but they're not paid to police it! The flaw in Bell's thought is in their not understanding that we've paid for the right to this space... We've paid for multiple Gig-E connections for the data to flow back to; we've paid for the DSL aggregation interface (AHSSPI) and we're also paying on a per user basis (approx $20/month) to have the data relayed directly back to our main point of Interconnect.

So, in short, no, they don't have rights to this network segment... An easy analogy would be a landlord, who is managing an apartment, gives himself a key to come in and out as he pleases and on top of that decide which tenants friends they let in! I'm not sure about you, but I'm fairly certain, one; the tenant would call the police, but two; you'd land up with a very big black-eye!
Speaking of black eyes, Canadian ISPs like Acanac are telling customers they're considering legal action.
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backness
join:2005-07-08
K2P OW2

backness

Member

Fight the Good Fight!

Good luck with everything Rocky,

I hope you tear these Mabell dorks a new one!

ropeguru
Premium Member
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA

ropeguru

Premium Member

Re: Fight the Good Fight!

Nah... The govt will back the bells...

hairspring
join:2007-11-23
Oakville, ON

hairspring

Member

Re: Fight the Good Fight!

said by ropeguru:

Nah... The govt will back the bells...
Quite true. These independents don't stand a chance. The amount of political influence Bell and its stakeholders wield is unbelievable.

james16
join:2001-02-26

james16

Member

Re: Fight the Good Fight!

Goddamned Teachers Union.

Steven Wong
@teksavvy.com

Steven Wong

Anon

Re: Fight the Good Fight!

Deal will fall apart. It's overpriced and no bank will fund it.

Snickerdo3
Premium Member
join:2001-02-28
Niagara Falls, ON

1 recommendation

Snickerdo3 to ropeguru

Premium Member

to ropeguru
said by ropeguru:

Nah... The govt will back the bells...
That comment shows that you don't understand the history that exists between Bell and the various regulatory agencies in Canada. Unlike in the US, Bell/Telus/et all are very much at odds with the government on most occasions, and regulatory bodies like the CRTC have gone out of their way to screw Bell while giving the cake to CLECs and the like. The indie ISPs have very solid ground to work on in this particular situation.

Thane_Bitter
Inquire within
Premium Member
join:2005-01-20

Thane_Bitter

Premium Member

Landlord - more like SCUM-SLUMLORD.

An easy analogy would be a landlord, who is managing an apartment, gives himself a key to come in and out as he pleases and on top of that decide which tenants friends they let in!
I think that is a very fair analogy of the situation. Even if throttled, the wholesalers are still a better value then BELL.
Give them Hell R0CKY!!

pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium Member
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD

pnh102

Premium Member

Learn From Mistakes Of Others

You would think Canadian ISPs would have taken a cue from what happened to DSL resellers in this country before using the back of a competitor to offer service.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

1 recommendation

sbrook

Mod

Re: Learn From Mistakes Of Others

They aren't resellers in the same sense, and government regulation in place should have in theory prevented this.

Considering that DSL wholesalers have no choice but to use the services of the telco, to not do so would mean no competition at all (other than the cable operator and that's just a different crock of shit)

ykronic
Premium Member
join:2006-01-31
Canada

ykronic

Premium Member

Re: Learn From Mistakes Of Others

said by sbrook:

other than the cable operator and that's just a different crock of shit
And this is why I'm happy I have shaw

Quake110
Premium Member
join:2003-12-20
Ottawa, ON

Quake110 to pnh102

Premium Member

to pnh102
They are NOT DSL Resellers. These ISPs have their OWN transit network (Such as Cogent, Teleglobe, Peer1...) and use Bell's DSL network to provide the service.

Think of it as gaz pipelines, where Exxon from Alaska, pays Canada to deliver their product to the USA mainland.
The gaz is Exxon, they are not a reseller.

ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium Member
join:2005-03-14
Woodstock, CT

ptrowski

Premium Member

Good luck Rocky...

I know it will be a long uphill battle for you and could get nasty, but you havce alot of people here cheering you on.

Raptor
Not a Dumptruck
join:2001-10-21
London, ON

Raptor

Member

Re: Good luck Rocky...

At least it's getting some media attention. Until now, Bell likely dismissed complaints as a few unhappy customers don't really have an effect. This could certainly generate some attention, the kind of attention the big guys don't want.

Time and time again, overloaded nodes, severe throttling, received speeds not near advertised, etc are being given to customers that have no recourse. We have either Rogers (cable) or Bell (DSL) to choose from essentially. And at this point they're both offering the same degraded services. Clearly Teksavvy and other indie ISPs are making money off non-degraded services, otherwise they wouldn't be in business. Which suggests that this is just Rogers/Bell/etc looking to reap more profit per customer.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

I hate having to start a subject....

Is BellCanada applying the same traffic rules to their own customers?

Raptor
Not a Dumptruck
join:2001-10-21
London, ON

Raptor

Member

Re: I hate having to start a subject....

Yes, very much so. The big deal here is up until very recently they weren't touching wholesale ISPs running on their lines. Perhaps these companies were stealing too many customers by offering a better service.

Now they've gone ahead and started throttling the traffic of other ISPs, which is one of the main attractions of switching to them - without telling these other ISPs of course, leaving said parties in the dark about why their customers are complaining about mysterious slowdowns.

anon1976
@rogers.com

anon1976

Anon

Re: I hate having to start a subject....

I don't like it, but quite frankly it's their network, and they have a right to do what they want with it. If you don't like it, go build your own.

They should have informed the companies first, that I don't disagree with, and may land them in some trouble.

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz

MVM

Re: I hate having to start a subject....

Not when doing what they want with it is a breach of contract. Which is why we'll likely very shortly see legal action by the independent ISPs seeking an injunction.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

Re: I hate having to start a subject....

I think someone has said that there is language in the contracts between Bell and the ISPs that allows for this. There is such language between AT&T and NSPs addressing the same thing. This language showed up with BellSouth as soon as they were able to have DSL deregulated.

JunkieXL1
join:2004-11-15
Canada!

JunkieXL1 to anon1976

Member

to anon1976
They actually did build their own. They have their own transit, network equipment and everything. It's the last mile they have to depend on the incumbent (BCE) for. The whole problem here emanates from BCE's interference with the last mile. Even if they had informed them beforehand, I don't see how that makes it right. As Carbidyne says, it does indeed hinge on the contract. I hope the lurking lawyers here shed some light upon it.

ps: would be nice if this leads the Indies to form a consortium and result in widespread investment in direct DSLAM presence. _Then_ BCE will have some real problem. The overwhelming political influence they have now essentially immunizes them from anything.
backness
join:2005-07-08
K2P OW2

backness

Member

Re: I hate having to start a subject....

Also to the guy who says build your own.... have you ever been to Canada before?

The bell network was built entirly on Public Dollars. We built our own state of the art network from coast to coast only to be ripped off by bell once they had control of it.

This can't stand

Dogfather
Premium Member
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA

Dogfather

Premium Member

What does their contract say?

Depends on what the contract says.

milnoc
join:2001-03-05
Ottawa

milnoc

Member

Has this ever happened before?

Has there ever been a time when the members of dslreports were overwhelmingly BACKING UP and SUPPORTING an ISP to this scale i.e. TekSavvy?

JunkieXL1
join:2004-11-15
Canada!

JunkieXL1

Member

Re: Has this ever happened before?

I live in the prairies so this has 0 effect on me, but that didn't stop me from notifying the CRTC and Minister of Industry
zed2608
Premium Member
join:2007-09-30
Cleveland, TN

zed2608

Premium Member

Re: Has this ever happened before?

that's the way i am while my isp does not nlock p2p and stuf i still told the fcc how i felt in an email

Froggy
@teksavvy.com

Froggy to JunkieXL1

Anon

to JunkieXL1
Sure but you also live in Canada. Soon your isp will own you. Welcome to your future, speed throttling traffic shaping no newsgroups busted email and exhorbitant fees for busting miniscule caps. Your going to be all theirs' believe you me.
axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC

axus

Member

Canadian laws...

I don't know much about the Canadian government and how it regulates these guys. First it depends on the contract; if they are guaranteed a level of service, then they should get it. Second, it depends on what Canada thinks is appropriate regulation of its phone companies.

Can Bell Canada just stop selling connections and keep a monopoly for itself? If not, why not? If Canada's goal is competition between Bell and the resellers, I think they will force Bell to make a clear contract and get rid of vague, subjective clauses like "reasonable network management".
zod5000
join:2003-10-21
Victoria, BC

zod5000

Member

Re: Canadian laws...

I always thought forced resellers wasn't a great idea, because thats got to give bell or telus or rogers or shaw less incentive to improve their infrastructure (ie their lines). Every house only has phone lines/cable going into it, so everyone else has to rent those lines.

If you're cutting out the owners ability to profit from those lines, aren't you decreasing the incentive to improve them?

Then again if there's no resellers, do the telco's/cableco's even see themselves as competition. I've always been skeptical of resellers, not sure if its a good or bad thing. Can't really blame bell for not wanting to share their lines they paid for?

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

Re: Canadian laws...

Actually it's not a bad deal for the telco because they no longer have to provide support, email, transit bandwidth. They get a fixed amount in per month and the cost is pretty much fixed, unlike their normal customers.

The telcos and cable mso's do see each other as competition, but at the same time they play the "If they can do it, so can we game."

When Rogers threatened byte caps a few years back, Bell jumped on and implemented them. They lost TONS of customers to Rogers who decided to delay and have only just formally introduced caps. Bell had egg all over their face.

Now they both have caps together ... both implemented about the same time, prices go up. It's almost looking like collusion.

Raptor
Not a Dumptruck
join:2001-10-21
London, ON

Raptor

Member

Re: Canadian laws...

said by sbrook:

Now they both have caps together ... both implemented about the same time, prices go up. It's almost looking like collusion.
I always find it amusing (in a hateful kind of way) how instead of price cuts and then the competition matching, we get price increases and then the competition following suit. What's up with that?....
axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC

axus

Member

Re: Canadian laws...

In a duopoly where you don't have to worry about new competitors, and the number of customers isn't increasing quickly, you can make more money playing leader/follower than actually competing.

JR
@q9.net

JR

Anon

Tired of Bell

I was just about to switch from Bell to TekSaavy due to the throttling but I still might since it is cheaper. I am just tired of Bell acting like the typical schoolyard bully.

joako
Premium Member
join:2000-09-07
/dev/null

joako

Premium Member

Canadian Bandwidth

So Bell Canada is the only source for bandwidth in Canada? Or is Bell throttling the connection between the CPE and the ISP front end network?

••••••••••

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK

KrK

Premium Member

Nuke the Telco

... In Court! Win a huge victory for consumers everywhere, and fight the good fight.

Good luck!

ChevTex
@chevrontexaco.com

ChevTex

Anon

Re: Nuke the Telco

Sue the pants off them!
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88

Member

easy to defeat

Perhaps its time for Indie ISPs to give each customer a hardware encrypting VPN box (a modded Linksys router perhaps?), and tunnel to their (ISP's) demarc, then put a high speed hardware VPN decoder, all traffic is now encrypted and all Bell sees is 1 TCP or UDP connection. No impact or difference to end user. Aren't things so much easier when you have ISP cooperation? Any speed problems with that tunnel slowing down can now be blamed directly on Bell, since a VPN is legitimate traffic right? Since this isn't the UK, I doubt there is a clause in the tariffs forbidding any encryption on the line, then all HTTPS would be illegal.

Snickerdo3
Premium Member
join:2001-02-28
Niagara Falls, ON

Snickerdo3

Premium Member

Re: easy to defeat

said by patcat88:

Perhaps its time for Indie ISPs to give each customer a hardware encrypting VPN box (a modded Linksys router perhaps?), and tunnel to their (ISP's) demarc, then put a high speed hardware VPN decoder, all traffic is now encrypted and all Bell sees is 1 TCP or UDP connection. No impact or difference to end user. Aren't things so much easier when you have ISP cooperation? Any speed problems with that tunnel slowing down can now be blamed directly on Bell, since a VPN is legitimate traffic right? Since this isn't the UK, I doubt there is a clause in the tariffs forbidding any encryption on the line, then all HTTPS would be illegal.
Bell has been throttling all encrypted VPN traffic, period.

Lukerduker
@teksavvy.com

Lukerduker

Anon

FIGHT!

I'm behind teksavvy all the way! What Bell (scumsuckers inc) doing has to be illegal, i don't see how it couldn't be.... A class-action lawsuit plus massive negative publicity will make them reconsider i hope. Tell your friends and family what is going on here, the more people who are aware of this, the better. Write your MP! If all else fails, use your imagination to come up with other ideas.
houselog442
join:2005-10-05

houselog442

Member

Communism: It's Fantastic!

Don't you love your communist country's anti-competitive internet system. Communism: it's fantastic!

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

Re: Communism: It's Fantastic!

Trust someone to introduce that irrelevance. Of course there's the wonderful Bells in the US that have over the last few years started reassembling themselves like the Terminator.

And of course, there's Comcast and the wonders of the other cable MSOs. There was @home who imploded itself leaving the cable operators to run internet their way.

This is about the power of the corporations which is rampant in all of the free world. This isn't about government control that you get in a communist country ... this is what happens when you DON'T control them, just like the FCC isn't doing too good a job at.

drjp81
join:2006-01-09
canada

drjp81 to houselog442

Member

to houselog442
'Communism' feh. Just because it doesn't get a Red White and Blue stamp doesn't mean it's communist. At the most we can be sometimes labeled as socialists.

The real problem there is here just like anywhere else, is that there are ignorant people such as yourself in the loop.

IanS
@teksavvy.com

IanS

Anon

More people need to know about this...

... so that they can be as pissed at Bell as I am! What a move! How did these people come up with such a whopper?

"Hmmm... lets degrade the quality of our service intentionally, and uh... but we won't tell anyone about it, especially those pesky rival isp's. Oh wait but aren't they, like, also our customers since they pay us for the service.....Ah nevermind those small details... (voice trailing off) Maybe no-one will notice??"

I feel bad for these isp's because Bell totally screwed them . They probably have a good case for a lawsuit. Maybe even their customers too.

Screw you Bell!

Their eventual response will go something like "Our networks are overloaded with people downloading movies"

Then upgrade your network!!! I think you can afford it!! Its called high-speed not slow-on-purpose-speed right?

Why don't you try to sell me a car missing half the engine while your at it??

-Affected and extremely angry (not at teksavvy) customer from Ottawa

nydwarf1
@gpc.ca

nydwarf1

Anon

Wake UP!

Bell Canada you need to wake up, YOU ARE NOT A MONOPOLY ANYMORE, start competing!!!

Adrian F
@terago.ca

Adrian F

Anon

Bell should be renamed Hell(tm).

I hope to god that the CRTC has the balls to squash Hell(tm) on this one. What the resellers are doing, as mentioned by TekSavvy, is paying for a slice of the pie - what the reseller chooses to do (or not do) is the reseller's business. I actually respect TekSavvy and have been contemplating switching from Hell(tm) to them as they have great tech support and offer a great product.

For Hell(tm) to just turn around and say, more or less, we have the right to reshape internet traffic AFTER you've paid for your bandwidth is absurd. I liken this, in a way, to a record company coming into my house after I've bought an album by an artist and telling me I can only listen to specific tracks on the album. Sorry, I've paid for it so I can do as I please.

The only reason that Hell(tm) is doing this is because Robbers(tm) already has. The difference here is that Robbers isn't reselling bandwidth to anybody (that I know of). Hell(tm) just sees this as a way of cutting people back on P2P transfers; even if I was capped at xx GB/month, I should be able to do what I want with that and not be told what I can and can't do. The worst part of this is a lot of P2P content available that in the public domain so to group everything under one umbrella is a very pathetic plan of Hell's(tm).

All I know is that I'm going to be canceling both my home phone and internet service will Hell. I already switched my cellular service to Telus as a result of Hell's piss-poor customer service and billing issues. Unfortunately, I can't get either service with Telus in Ontario.

Good luck to all of the ISPs who are rallying together in attempt to fight the Giant. I really hope you win for everybody's sake.

dirtyjeffer0
Posers don't use avatars.
Premium Member
join:2002-02-21
London, ON

dirtyjeffer0

Premium Member

Go Rocky!!

Kick his ass Seabass!!...errr, i mean Rocky!

Boboche
@teksavvy.com

Boboche

Anon

This is just unacceptable

I've switched to Teksavvy because 1. there was already a DOWNLOAD CAP so I was pretty sure that eventho some users can abuse the networks somtimes, the DOWNLOAD CAP would take care of things to not get out of control.

Also, the DOWNLOAD limit was clear, and I wouldn't fall from unlimited to 25GB the next month on a 1yr contract like waveII did with me.

That download cap also reassured me on the fact that if there was a cap, they wouldn't limit anything else since it would kind of be very restrictive in the end. You reach 100GB, fine, wait or pay for the excess. You know what you're getting into.

With 30K/sec cap, that's about 78GB of download in a month if used non-stop, so clearly just by numbers, this would change what I paid for (assuming I was on the internet only for P2P). Okay this is arguable, my point here is just to put the numbers on the table.

I am seriously frustrated by the DSL business here in canada... I mean, companies pay huge sums to lock you in place with contracts or whatnot (not blaming teksavvy here) change features all over the place, then pay huge sums and do serious mishaps to get users back? to screw them up again...I mean, spend that money a little bit better and you won't get that much competition and you will keep a satisfied loyal userbase.

Teksavvy has been abused in this, they are offering a CLEAR service and numbers are on the table, they rely on their suppliers business sense and client approach in order to be able to provide this service with the optimal offering in order to satisfy their clients. Force majeur can sometime mix the cards, but in this case, this was brutal and total bullying. You can't cut off services without prior notice or without a plan B (and if it's for network integrity (Bullshit but still) well you can cut off during peak times to start with, and inform the people of the whys and all.

At 3AM I was still at 30K/s... so clearly, someone made a stupid drastic decision @bell. If they want to move everybody from DSL to cable, this was just about the smartest move ever.

Hey someone at bell looking for a job at videotron maybe?

Lugnut2000
@dsl.bell.ca

Lugnut2000

Anon

Bell Throttles Third-Party ISP Traffic

By moving to throttle P2P and BT traffic, Bell is really missing a larger issue. The business model they are espousing, as evidenced by their current behaviour, makes no allowances for the fact that P2P networks ARE the future of the internet.

Content delivery and so many other things are going to depend on it.

It looks to me like TekSavvy et al. might actually have a case. I suspect Bell has no means of hiving off third-party traffic so it's not affected by the throttling. So the throttle is being applied in blanket fashion, consequences be damned.

Bell's arguments about the evils of file-sharing and clogged networks seem a little weak to me. They saw this coming and they chose not to upgrade their networks. So they are now expecting everyone else to pay for their failure to plan.

If we had full fibre-optic lines and terabit servers like they do in parts of Sweden (and elsewhere), the issue of bandwidth bottlenecks (if it's real at all) would be a non-issue.

If you ask me, Bell is no better than the cell phone companies like Telus, Rogers, etc. who sell crippled, overpriced phones and charge usurious rates even for basic service.

It's funny to see how deregulation of communications has actually played out. It was supposed to bring consumers greater choice and cheaper service. Instead all it has brought is higher prices, non-negotiable 'bundles' of services and a duopoly (basically a monopoly shared by Rogers and Bell).

Maybe the answer is independent, decentralized wireless networking. Intel has brought out a WiFi router with a range of sixty (yes, I said 'sixty') miles. It's intended for use in Third World countries, but it seems to me that it offers the potential to create an internet which operates separately from the existing greedhead, erm *corporate* networks.

Wouldn't that just piss them off royally?
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