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Rogers to End Throttling in March
Now That They Can Just Charge Users an Arm and a Leg

For most of the last decade nobody has exemplified the clumsy, ham-fisted approach to network management better than Canadian cable company Rogers. From crippling encryption and VPNs to throttling legitimate apps and games like World of Warcraft, Rogers has accounted for nearly half of all network neutrality infractions in Canada. Recent MLabs data highlighted that Rogers was among the worst ISPs in the world when it comes to aggressively slowing user traffic.

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It was Rogers constant and clumsy throttling of World of Warcraft traffic that finally got the company in hot water with regulators, the CRTC last week officially ruling Rogers was violating Canada's new network neutrality rules after years of complaints.

Many of those complaints originated right here in our forums, with anger from Jason Koblovsky, Teresa Murphy and the Canadian Gamers Organization leading to a campaign pushing the CRTC to finally act. In a response to the CRTC, Rogers today announced that they'll finally stop throttling user traffic starting in March. The move comes on the heels of a similar December decision by Bell.

"New technologies and ongoing investments in network capacity will allow Rogers to begin phasing out that policy starting in March 2012," said Kenneth Engelhart, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs in the filing. "These changes will be introduced to half of Rogers existing Internet customers by June 2012 and to its remaining customers by December 2012."

While that's certainly a win for users, Rogers spends the lion's share of their filing taking pot shots at the CRTC and denying any wrongdoing in their implementation of Internet Traffic Management Practices (ITMP). While acknowledging a "few isolated cases of misclassification," Rogers continues to insist their network management platforms rarely catch legitimate traffic in their net.

Rogers says that "out of an abundance of caution" and "to allay any concerns which the Commission’s investigation may have created," the company has reconfigured their Cisco hardware so that unclassified traffic that utilizes peer-to-peer ports are no longer traffic managed. In other words, Rogers has finally agreed to obey Canadian law but, despite being universally derided as one of the worst ISPs in the world when it comes to heavy-handed network management -- still swears they didn't do anything wrong.

Either way, users in our forums say they'll take it. Some argue the glacially-moving CRTC and Canada's new network neutrality rules are to thank for Rogers' begrudging change of heart. Others believe Rogers' moves are motivated by the fact that the CRTC recently allowed incumbent ISPs to drastically raise (already very high) rates on consumers and wholesalers, making dramatically degrading the quality of the bandwidth delivered less useful. In other words, cue the broadband price increases.
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RyC
join:2007-08-18
San Luis Obispo, CA

RyC

Member

Picture

Hah, love the picture!
grunze510
join:2009-02-14
Cote Saint-Luc, QC

grunze510

Member

Price increases ahoy!

Seeing as this is Rogers we're talking about, I'm guessing that they're going to decrease their caps by a bit, probably around 9%. They'll also probably raise their maximum overage limit to $75 to $100 (like B$ell's $80 limit) or have a $50 limit on their slower tiers and no limit on their faster ones (like Videotron and Cogeco do). Oh, and of course, a standard $2 - $4 price increase.

TOPDAWG
Premium Member
join:2005-04-27
Calgary, AB

TOPDAWG

Premium Member

Great

This is great with my business account I don't have to worry about a cap. Man now paying 82 bucks a month does not seem so bad. Now watch them give business accounts a cap HA.

God please let my area be in the first group of march.
JonyBelGeul
Premium Member
join:2008-07-31

JonyBelGeul

Premium Member

What's "legitimate apps"?

If they mean non-P2P, this implies that they consider all P2P to be illegitimate. If that's what they mean, it's probably due to the fact that lots of P2P traffic is not so legal. If that's their argument, they should also throttle HTTP because lots of traffic on that protocol is also not so legal. But if they did that, it would mean they'd have to sniff IP packets to find out if the data was legal or not. If they did that, they'd have to show that they own the rights to the data that is being transferred not-so-legally across their networks. If they did that, then they could just as easily apply this discrimination to P2P traffic. If they did that...

But that's not the true purpose of throttling P2P traffic, is it Rogers? No, you want to prevent people from getting stuff that you otherwise sell, don't you? If you throttle all P2P, you are making it impractical for people to shop around for crap you sell at absurd prices.

By eliminating throttling, and by lowering usage caps, you are doing the same thing, aren't you Rogers? You're profiting from the not-so-legal traffic generated by P2P apps, aren't you Rogers? And you say "Well, if you don't want to pay extra for overage, why don't you subscribe to our service and give us the money directly instead?", don't you Rogers?

ITMP means a whole nother thing for Rogers.
Rogers_Chris
VIP
join:2010-12-15
Toronto, ON

Rogers_Chris

Member

Re: What's "legitimate apps"?

said by JonyBelGeul:

If they mean non-P2P, this implies that they consider all P2P to be illegitimate. If that's what they mean, it's probably due to the fact that lots of P2P traffic is not so legal. If that's their argument, they should also throttle HTTP because lots of traffic on that protocol is also not so legal. But if they did that, it would mean they'd have to sniff IP packets to find out if the data was legal or not. If they did that, they'd have to show that they own the rights to the data that is being transferred not-so-legally across their networks. If they did that, then they could just as easily apply this discrimination to P2P traffic. If they did that...

But that's not the true purpose of throttling P2P traffic, is it Rogers? No, you want to prevent people from getting stuff that you otherwise sell, don't you? If you throttle all P2P, you are making it impractical for people to shop around for crap you sell at absurd prices.

By eliminating throttling, and by lowering usage caps, you are doing the same thing, aren't you Rogers? You're profiting from the not-so-legal traffic generated by P2P apps, aren't you Rogers? And you say "Well, if you don't want to pay extra for overage, why don't you subscribe to our service and give us the money directly instead?", don't you Rogers?

ITMP means a whole nother thing for Rogers.

The CRTC permits ISPs to manage non time-sensitive traffic on their networks, which we've done in the past and will phase out beginning in March.

Also, we upgraded two of the most popular high speed internet plans with faster download speeds and higher monthly data allowances earlier this month.
JonyBelGeul
Premium Member
join:2008-07-31

JonyBelGeul

Premium Member

Re: What's "legitimate apps"?

Are you a Rogers rep? Let me take a moment to consider what I'm about to say to you. Wait, another moment please. OK, are you ready?

I, Martin Levac, hereby make the oath to never give Rogers a single specimen of legal tender until the end of time, and, to always advise all my friends, family and colleagues of the same, and to do my best to lobby the ruling government to separate functionally the Rogers company so that the infrastructure company becomes separate from the content company thereby making it impossible for Rogers to leverage the infrastructure company to increase its profits in the content company and to make it possible for competitors to do business as equals and not as subordinates to Rogers.

Functional separation is inevitable. Rogers should cash in while it lasts. Ironically, it's this very cashing in that will cause functional separation to occur more quickly. The harder Rogers squeezes, the more attractive functional separation becomes.

JC_
Premium Member
join:2010-10-19
Nepean, ON

JC_ to Rogers_Chris

Premium Member

to Rogers_Chris
said by Rogers_Chris:

Also, we upgraded two of the most popular high speed internet plans with faster download speeds and higher monthly data allowances earlier this month.

Extreme is going to 28/1 with a 120GB cap and Ultimate is going to 75/2 is that still gonna be with a measly 250GB cap?

Extreme 120GB cap is hit in 9.5hrs.
Ultimate 250GB cap is hit in 11.12hrs @50Mbps
Ultimate 250GB cap is hit in 7.4hrs @75Mbps

Chronium
@teksavvy.com

Chronium

Anon

Bell still throttles

I'm still waiting for Bell to stop throttling Teksavvy. I still get throttled to 30kb/s at 6pm to 1 or 2 am.

JC_
Premium Member
join:2010-10-19
Nepean, ON

JC_

Premium Member

Re: Bell still throttles

said by Chronium :

I'm still waiting for Bell to stop throttling Teksavvy. I still get throttled to 30kb/s at 6pm to 1 or 2 am.

That won't change till March 1, 2012.

Chuck sTruck
@teksavvy.com

Chuck sTruck

Anon

Impossible

Rogers can't stop throttling because if they did their whole network would fall apart. Rogers has only spent diddly-squat over the years. They still think it's 1990. If their internet was properly run like other countries it could only handle about one-tenth the present subscribers.
RickStep
Premium Member
join:2002-11-25
Hamilton, ON

1 edit

RickStep

Premium Member

Rogers throttling

I love this crap!

There is equipment installed at Rogers that filters Internet requests and applies the appropriate response.

According to Rogers, if the EQUIPMENT is turned OFF Rogers system would GRIND TO A HAULT.

ANY COMPANY, Rogers included that would integrate a filter device so deep into their system and not be able to remove it "on a moments notice" should FIRE whoever they have running their cable Internet system.

My take; Rogers is going to SCREW some of their customers for another few months.

I read two reports today (February 03, 2012). The first said that Rogers would stop throttling by December 2012 and the second said by Match 2012.

How about by February 10, 2012, a week after today; that should be 72 hours longer than they need (not counting Saturday & Sunday).

EDIT:

From the CBC; quote:

"New technologies and ongoing investments in network capacity will allow Rogers to begin phasing out that policy starting in March 2012," wrote Kenneth Engelhart, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs.

"These changes will be introduced to half of Rogers existing internet customers by June 2012 and to its remaining customers by December 2012."

The entire article is here:

»www.cbc.ca/news/business ··· ing.html

I rest my case, THIS IS PURE CRAP!

Rick

Mashiki
Balking The Enemy's Plans
join:2002-02-04
Woodstock, ON

Mashiki

Member

Well now...

This is surprising news, and after this has happened. I wonder should individuals start filing in small claims court against rogers for the period of network neutraility infractions.
Cloneman
join:2002-08-29
Montreal

Cloneman

Member

really?

Why is Rogers considered among the worst, when they only throttle upload speed?

Bell has been throttling downloads for a long time (which is of greater impact for most people), yet somehow Rogers keeps getting the spotlight for being a net neutrality pig.

cork1958
Cork
Premium Member
join:2000-02-26

cork1958

Premium Member

Why?

I'm not even a Rogers customer nor do I even live in Canada, but the below surely seems a bit absurd to me.

"These changes will be introduced to half of Rogers existing internet customers by June 2012 and to its remaining customers by December 2012."

Why can Rogers do half of their internet customers by March, but not the other half until December? 9 freaking months to do the other half?!! WTF?!
technocar2
join:2009-05-29
Brampton, ON

technocar2

Member

Re: Why?

said by cork1958:

I'm not even a Rogers customer nor do I even live in Canada, but the below surely seems a bit absurd to me.

"These changes will be introduced to half of Rogers existing internet customers by June 2012 and to its remaining customers by December 2012."

Why can Rogers do half of their internet customers by March, but not the other half until December? 9 freaking months to do the other half?!! WTF?!

From what I hear, upstream channel bonding is a multi-year process so I can assume that as areas start to get upstream channel bonding they will stop upstream p2p throttling in those areas. Seems logical that way.

Chuck sTruck
@teksavvy.com

Chuck sTruck

Anon

What about Rogers computerized systematic disconnections?

Much hasn't been said of this issue but if throttling is ever taken care of what about all the subscribers in Mississauga and Brampton who get systematically disconnected by a computerized system? You just look at your watch and say right about now and presto you're disconnected. Rogers uses this tactic to dissuade p2p downloading and uploading. It's very disheartening to lose your place in the queue.

abitbent
join:2004-04-23
Brantford, ON

abitbent

Member

The Network Is NOT The Issue

I happen to be good friends with a contractor who travels all over Southern Ontario doing upgrades for Rogers.

Rogers is spending all kinds of dollars on network upgrades and has been for years.

Anyone find it oddly coincidental that the only time Rogers justifies caps or throttling, it usually is revealed in areas where there is direct market competition to existing Rogers services?

This has NOTHING to do with congestion, only OTT/Netflix prevention. It's all about charging you for content and when their monopolistic business model for content is threatened, Rogers sites network congestion and uses regulation and lawyers to stop it.

Bell/Rogers/Telus want nothing to do with competition, they are simply protecting the long time old boys club from falling apart, with every tool they have.

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

1 recommendation

KrK

Premium Member

They don't want to throttle anymore....

...because now that they can charge mass overages, all throttling does is throttle their own gouging!