Bell Canada Confirms Throttling

Thankfully, we don't use their network. I'd be a bit pissed right now if we did.

I can't believe this is not a breach of contract with smaller isp who buy access wholesale.

Wouldn't you think these smaller isps make sure unfiltered, unthrottled connection would be in the terms?

As soon as DSL was deregulated BellSouth came out with a new agreement that had similar language. You had two choices, sign it and keep your DSL network or not sign it and close up shop. I never saw the revised AT&T contract but I am sure it has similar language.

Comcast must be wetting themselves over the prospects of doing this in their own network.

Sad state of affairs up there, coming to a US ISP near you.

Are the Canadian cable companies throttling P2P as well? Or is it just the DSL providers?

Rogers throttles, for one.

Cable and DSL seems to be afflicted in Canada.

Cable isn't affected here

Videotron is about the only Cable company in Canada that does not throttle. They do have some of the lowest caps in the country however (20GB down and 2GB UP for their 5Mbps/850Kbps High Speed Service)

Adi

It was 10GB/month the last time I checked... and I've been with Videotron HS for roughly 10 years before switching to TSI.

Edit: 10GB up, of course. The 20GB down is correct. If Videotron had increased both limits by 5-10GB, I would have signed up for one more year.

You are correct. It was a typing mistake on my end.

Adi

Not true. SaskTel does not throttle, nor are there usage caps.

Not for the moment, but their transit is provided by Bell Nexxia so watch out.

Compton doesn't throttle either, but their market reach is fairly limited (2 rural towns in Durham Region, Ontario)

Rogers, Shaw, and Cogico all have throttled their upstreams as of this date, March 26th/08. Even home users with HIGH SPEED EXTREME modems are limited to 5 to 10k/s total upstream on FTP and Torrent applications. I had to buy a service for $25.00 a month to get onto the NewsGroups as Rogers doesn't support them either.

sturog

Boy, what have you got against Comcast? I sincerely doubt they would ever do this to anything but p2p traffic, which if you believe the numbers, could alleviate some 70~80% of the network load. IMHO that would be a good thing.

Or would you rather have AT&T's filtered content approach?

I lol'd so hard at your post.

So far there is no evidence of AT&T doing anything but mouthing off about content filtering, not unlike Big Ed used to do when he'd had a couple too many for lunch.

Comcast's transgressions are here for anyone to see, and they've compounded them by lying about it. If you don't think they'd start throttling the download side if they could get away with it, you are very naive.

Those 70-80% numbers are wholly made up unless their network craps out at 100 megabits. If they were true nobody would ever be able to use a cable modem on their networks.

Well at least Comcast was so honest and upfront about their "network management" at first. Oh wait.....

The problem with what you think is good is that you don't think beyond what you are told. The high end consumption drives the costs down long term, it also causes the networks to be structured such that future heavy demand services will be possible. Someday we all might buy the TV channels we want (and only the ones we want) on the Internet and stream them to our TV's directly.

Without P2P driving the cost of bandwidth down the demand ceases and the internet never moves beyond web and email. Looking at countries where lots of bandwidth is available and cheap (Japan and Korea) and you will see countries with rapidly developing new interactive markets. Markets the US will be excluded from if we choose to take the path that providers can discriminate against the type of traffic they carry.

In the long run the excess consumption of a few drives down the costs and availability for everyone. But why would we want to advance right? Horse drawn carriages are fast enough and why on earth would we want to buy channels directly rather than being forced to buy them as a package from a middleman? Many technical advances come about with the availability of high bandwidth, without the P2P driving the curve the bandwidth will never happen and the interactivity and cheaper systems that would result will never happen.

I'm astounded at times how many people fail to realize that this debate about filtering is nothing more than a debate about net-neutrality. The pipes should be dumb, they should provide and serve ANY data the customer wants and any attempt to interfere in that is an attempt to insert or preserve a middleman that doesn't need to be in the system. Opposition to Net-neutrality (or pro "network management") is about preserving and enhancing revenue streams and has little to nothing to do with network management. Comcast and other don't want you to have unrestricted data because then they become a dump pipe and you could buy services (phone, video) from anyone on the network. That's the greatest fear of the providers and the reason they use P2P as their sounding board for network-neutrality opposition. The minute it's a dumb pipe is the minute the information becomes a commodity sold to the market at the lowest acceptable price.

When you realize what's at stake, that's when you'll realize how important network-neutrality is and why P2P filtering is the step in the door (and the first nail in the coffin) to charging companies to access you, and limiting what you can do as a consumer to maximize the revenue of the pipe provider. Don't fall for the BS, network-neutrality is probably the single most important debate in this country regarding the availability and access to information.

You've just described a Cable TV Company Exec's worst nightmare.... and now, a Telco Company Exec with new TV services worst nightmare.

Why do you think they want to push caps, throttling, and pay-per-byte? To make sure that consumers can NOT go to such a system, and WILL have to stay paying them for content. It's designed to be anti-competitive, and block consumers choice.

Yep. Except that the telco IPTV model scales directly to the pay per channel market. It's damn close to that now. Even at this point I can order programming to my TiVo or a MPC and play it in as good a quality as standard cable gives now. All we need are more like the Fox/Universal 'hulu' and others to provide more content and speed up the process. The seeds are already planted.

This is indeed the NCTA's worst-case scenario and as you said they will do anything to prevent it. It's the VoIP to their outdated Video on Demand cash cow long distance, to use a familiar analogy.

are you serious? filtering is wrong, because isp's should protect the privacy of its users and not give in to the mpaa/riaa.

throttling is wrong because these companies offer bandwidth and a certain speed promised to you, if you are going to use this bandwidth you should be allowed to, and if comcast and bell cannot provide this bandwidth the answer is not to eliminate its users speed thus eliminating bandwidth the answer is to add MORE BANDWIDTH (what the hell am i paying bell $20 a month for if i already pay dry loop fees for the copper?), this is the proper network management. Companies can save money by using p2p because it doesn't use their bandwidth(ex WOW updates, linux iso's) there are legitimate uses for every protocol and it is unfair to single out any and throttle a user for bandwidth they pay for!!

... I was writing out the check to pay for your services when I hit my bandwidth or cash spending limit and had to throttle your payment to $1.58 for the month.

Here's your $1.58, bill balance is paid in full. Enjoy...

Yeah.... wish it worked that way.

The sad way in many states it does. You can write your check out to a dollar amount in the memo section write "paid in full" and as long as the person cashes the check; that bill is paid in full.

And that also opens you up to charges of FRAUD - a criminal offense.

Care to cite some case law where someone was charged and convicted of a fraud-related offence for an action such as this?

You sir are 110% wrong. It's not fraud, it just doesn't work.

What you write on the memo is irrelevant. I could write "TK is a Democrat" in the memo, send him a check for $100 and the only thing I would have accomplished is sending him a Franklin.

If you want to play the "paid in full" game it has to be on the back, in the endorsement area, and be fully spelled out. And you'd still lose because the game is rigged against you when automated payment processing equipment handles the check.

MYTH

»consumer-law.lawyers.com ··· emo.html

I am pretty sure I read about a case where someone actually won a court case doing this, but I think he complied with the restrictions below. He basically printed a short contract statement on the check and whoever he owed it to thought it was a joke, signed it and deposited it, then asked for the rest of his money. Went to court and the check writer won.

»www.snopes.com/business/ ··· full.asp

Section 3-311 of the Uniform Commercial Code does state that a debt can be discharged with a check designated as payment in full "if the person against whom the claim is asserted proves that the instrument or an accompanying written communication contained a conspicuous statement to the effect that the instrument was tendered as full satisfaction of the claim." However, it's up to the claimant to prove "that within a reasonable time before collection of the instrument was initiated, the claimant, or an agent of the claimant having direct responsibility with respect to the disputed obligation, knew that the instrument was tendered in full satisfaction of the claim." So if you receive a check marked "paid in full" made out for less than the amount you have agreed upon, you'd best not cross out the words "paid in full" or write "disputed" on it and cash it anyway, as you risk having the entire debt discharged. However, this condition does /not/ apply to "transactions conducted or performed, in whole or in part, by electronic means or electronic records, in which the acts or records of one or both parties are not reviewed by an individual in the ordinary course [of business]," which means that this scheme will not work at all for most bill or credit card payments, as those payments are typically handled by automated systems and not humans.

That section may apply with the UCC applies, but the UCC doesn't apply in all situations in which case you have to use ordinary common law and contract law which varies in different places.

Hehe, That's why bell forces you to use pre-authorized credit card or debit for payment

It seems that the big ISPs are trying once again to quash the competitors and give us less choice. Microsoft is another giant that uses this logic to kill their competition and none of us are better for it.

Americans need to get up off their butts and get busy talking, emailing, faxing and doing whatever it takes to get legislation passed that will put a stop on the attack freedom of choice and freedom of enterprize.

Big Typo...sorry had a Bell moment ;-D

...

Uh....

What I find troubling is not that Sympatico would filter based on content, ISPs have more or less been given that right by default, but that BCE as a telecomunication company is actively inspecting and taking action on content when they are supposed to be a common carrier.

You can bet that the business customers of Sympatico will not suffer from any type of traffic shaping while those from the independent ISP will be as there are reports already that VPN and other type of connections are being throttled.

It was my understanding that Teksavvy was a true wholesale provider, meaning that they provided their own internet access and simply used the Bell copper last mile (as opposed to being a reseller). If they have all their own equipment, and are their own ISP, where is the throttling happening? Is Bell throttling the last mile between the customer and Teksavvy, and if so, how are they doing that?

1 thing that no one seems to be addressing in this discussion is whether there exists a "NEED to throttle" based on congested networks.

If there truly is congestion conditions(and why would Bell Canada put themselves thru the negative publicity if there wasn't), then maybe what they are doing is justified.

Of course they can start massively upgrading their network, but given current economic conditions and prospects it would certainly be reasonable to put off those expenditures for 8 to 12 months.

Very simple,

If you are a Bell phone customer and have the option switch land line providers or reduce your services to a Basic land line. Make sure that when they ask you why, make it clear it is because of what they do to internet users. The left hand will eventually talk to the right hand.

Question: Are there any ADLS providers in the Montreal Aerea using their own DSLAM?

Taf

Good to see the good old Bell mindset is still alive and well at Bell Canada, even after over fifty years of being separated...

I just cancelled my Videotron HS rape internet access as i was planning to go with TekSavvy and now THIS. If all other small providers are going to be affected, where am i supposed to go ???

My only last choice is Look Communications wireless WiMax system but that thing still to this day has hight latency...

At least it's the last thing out there that is truly UNLIMITED and NON THROTTLED.

I was considering Colba.net with their ADSL2+ DSLAMS but now i wonder if they could somehow be affected too...

GOD, i never thought i would reconsider going back to Look.... What is this country coming to ?

Adi

"Move."

Oh yeah, wicked helpful answer there.

The ISP pays an amount to Bell to lease the copper (~20$/mnt). Bell agrees to "transport" the information from the client's premises to the company's premises. There's not much heavy routing.

My ISP has an agreement with me where for 30$/mnt I have up to 200G of bandwidht. What is the difference to Bell if I choose to do 200G of Bit Torrent or HTTP? 200GB isn't a crazy amount. Odly engouh, TekSavvy don't need to pay 20$ for the 200GB I'll use of internet. In other words, Bell is charging alot for not much and now they want to lower what they offer.

If demand is higher than the offering in some sectors, upgrades are require not discrimination of certain protocols.

Not just BC, but Rogers, Comcast, Time Warner and the rest who routinely do this...

»youtube.com/watch?v=_NGz3Fw9s0g

OK if a customer orders a certain tier of speed, say 6mbps/768kbps, then regardless of the internet provider customer is using, or the protocol being used, that's the speed they should get!
The last mile telco shouldn't be allowed to mess with speeds, especially between a customer and a totally separate ISP! Surely the network links between telco's and internet service providers have plenty of capacity, I mean prior to throttling there were no issues, so why the sudden change? And why is Canada so in to this whole let's degrade the internet experience for our users idea? It's not like it's hard to get Bandwidth. If I had a T1 connection between say me and a non-telco affiliated network, I'd expect to get full use of my 1.5mbit/sec line, unless of course I myself choose to only use a portion of the T1 for that network conection. I certainly would not be happy if the Telco that provided my T1 circuit decided to throttle my connection to the remote network just because they could. I'd expect the same equal treatment for DSL users. Otherwise what's the point of having speed caps at all? Hell why not just run all CPE devices uncapped, since the Telco themselves will take care of throttling your connection to a rate they feel will work, even if you're not on their network! It's rediculous, and I think this practice should be stopped. Throttling benifits noone, unless of course the whole goal of Bell and others considering this practice is to annoy evry customer, which makes no sense. The only throttle should be the speeds you requested, nothing else!

You know what, no one in the scheme of things.
When NORMAL users start to see faster web pages, faster downloads, faster everything then I think this argument about how bad this is will die.

See, no one really cares about P2P, I don't.
Throttle it.

I could go door to door, hit 100 houses, I bet NONE would even know what P2P is. Why? Probably because most people started paying for there downloads a long time ago, like itunes.

I think the ones behind the times are actually the ones on BBR this time!

I remember when bell used to be a decent service, unlimited bandwidth for a flat fee, as a student myself i even got a discount from them which made the deal really sweet.

Then i guess they realized, why are we providing all these nice features when we can charge for them, and there went the unlimited bandwidth, and my student discount and now i learn they're throttling?

Forget bell, i'm now in search for a new ISP.

As the amount of internet traffic increases ISPs will be forced to throttle bandwidth to properly manage their networks. It's an inconvenient truth.

what they should be doing is investing in their network and expanding it to handle the increased usage...this is yet another example of poor management at Bell.

I have deliberately started some bittorrents to watch the speed vs time of day. It seems to be continually choked off. Where speeds of 500K/s were typical before now they never get above 50K/s, and at peak times are 25K/s (peak time is virtually all the time, it seems).

I use bittorrent to collect live concerts which are shared by fans and ok'd by the bands themselves. It's not illegal. I also grab linux distros. I chose a high speed connection and pay the higher price to allow me to do this specific purpose. I download about 10-15GB a month. Now Bell arbitrarily decides it needs to throttle this particular protocol. I could live with reductions at peak times from 500K to 300K or even down occasionally to the same rate as the upload speed, but 25K?! Virtually all the time?! While my monthly fee remains the same? This is criminal. I don't even subscribe to Bell. I can't tell them what to go do with their service. If I dump my ISP, I'm hurting Teksavvy, whom I have no complaints against whatsoever.

This fish stinks from the head down.

Lol Bell is by far the worst ISP ever! Their customer service is poop, ever tried to call tech support after 6pm? Good luck cuz you're calling India my friends. I'm all for an outright ban on Bell products, spread the word, ditch bell wireless and ExpressVu(TV just for spite, the other options are also not deserving of your business).
For members of Teksavvy you may not be aware of it but they offer an excellent news server with binary files, and the best part is that there's no way for Bell to throttle it and it will download at the max speed of your connection.

The Company was Deceitfull

NortherTel offered me a new better contract, but in the back ground they were trying to get me off the service I was on to there new service.
In the beginning I had high speed with Static IP at 4500 down and 450 up on the new package I have dynamic IP,1800 down 100 up, Page through terrible. The sales rep said that there would be no change to my service.
How wrong was I that thought they were a honest company. On that note I will move over to Ontera.ca »www.ontera.ca/en/fh_inte ··· dsl.html
(which cost more and less speed but they are honest company.
NortherTel ( Bell North) Throttles Costomers without notice!!