Bell Canada Official Speaks Out On Throttling 207
westcoaster004 brings to our attention an interview with Mirko Bibic, head of regulatory affairs for Bell Canada, discussing the ISP's traffic-shaping practices. This follows news we discussed recently that a class action lawsuit was filed against Bell for their involvement in traffic shaping. Bibic reiterates that internet congestion is a real problem and claims that the throttling had nothing to do with Bell's new video service. CBC News quotes him saying:
"If no measures were taken, then 700,000 customers would have been affected by congestions during peak periods. We want to obviously take steps to make sure that doesn't happen. So this network management is, as we've stated, one of the ways to address the issue of congestion during peak periods. At the end of the day, the wholesale ISPs are our customers and we generate revenue [from them], so we want to make sure we're serving them to the best of our ability as well."
a sort-of monopoly means they can be defeated (Score:4, Interesting)
In other news : Genetically modified pigs can fly (Score:3, Interesting)
traffic shaping only in peak periods? yeah right. (Score:4, Interesting)
Either way you cut it: it stinks (Score:5, Interesting)
Economics 101 (Score:4, Interesting)
Bill per GB, and set peak and non-peak rates. Be transparent about it though. People should be able to see how much they have used at any time, receive alerts when they cross some preprogrammed levels, and even choose to throttle themselves down when they cross a certain number of GB per month, or just during peak hours.
Make people responsible for their usage, and give them the tools to monitor/control it, and you'll find this problem will fix itself.
Re:traffic shaping only in peak periods? yeah righ (Score:3, Interesting)
DL 5MB/UL 512KB
But it throttles that 5MB seemingly randomly, ocasionally I can get up to 600k/s download (using BT, HTTP, FTP, etc doesnt matter) other times 15k/s... noon, midnight, weekday, weekend doesnt matter... and 2 or 3 times a week, it just shuts down entirely for about 3 hours somewhere between 9PM and 9AM...
So i assume one of two things.
1. they don't know what they are doing.
2. they most likely dont know what they are doing.
They behave like an infected computer... unless their hardware is constantly dying, inwhich case see assumption 1. or 2.
Re:Wanna reduce congestion? (Score:2, Interesting)
d) continue to rip off the customer because they can.
Looks like they picked d).
and leave us no choice, except to demand that the government take over the infrastructure and lease it out, not to the higher bidder, but to ones who will provide the best access. We need an alternative to the corporate ball and chain.
The ILECs spend money on improvements every day (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Lobbyists
2. Campaign contributions
3.
4. Oh, ok, a few bucks now and then on basic improvements in areas where they can DEFINITELY get a profit on them in the short term.
Now, that all works very, VERY well to improve the company. The profit margins of the company, that is.
But the Incumbent local exchange carrier companies (the ILECs -- other wise known as TPC) in North America have spent so much money on discouraging competition through regulation that they have made their own business very expensive to run. They also have policies going back to the late 1800s of treating jobs as cogs in a machine with replaceable parts, so their labor relations are geared towards replaceability and strike-resilience. It's very inefficient.
And in a business where things can be automated up to wazoo, the ILECs are hamstrung by unions and their own evil need to have huge headcounts so that their lobbyists can pressure their unions to pressure the politicians to do as their lobbyists demand. Need for headcount reduces desire for automation.
You want more bandwidth? Push for campaign finance reform. Whenever you hear ANYTHING that a local ILEC wants from a politician, call your local reps and tell them you wont vote for them again if they vote for what the ILEC wants. Then, after any election, whether your anti-candidate wins or loses, call them and tell them that they didn't get YOUR vote because they voted with the ILEC.
Only by removing the best business model the ILECs have (preserving the status quo and gaming our democracy) will you get ILECs which listen to customers.
diffferent battles (Score:2, Interesting)
Since the traffic shaping controversy began, I've been surprised by the number of negative (towards Bell) comments I've heard about it. Not just from my
A website is slow -- is this that Bell 'throttling' I've been hearing about?
A (sketchy) website in China is down -- Bell
The internal university network is slow today -- Bell
Skype is unreliable -- Bell
my VOIP is saying 'all circuits are busy' -- aargh. Bell
My DSL connection was down -- Bell's really throttling my internet now!
I hear these things and have to laugh. I think Bell's really shot themselves in the foot when it comes to customer perception and mind-share.
Bell absolutely should be allowed to throttle... (Score:4, Interesting)
They should also not be allowed to throttle wholesale bandwith that other DSL providers buy unless those providers agree to the throttling (and advertising restrictions.)
Only in Peak Periods, eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is actually an issue for several of my clients who use P2P for backup purposes, etc. So I watch what is going on in terms of throttling. I can demonstrate that Bell Canada is throttling P2P at just about any time you care to mention, including 4 A.M. Sunday morning. Does Sunday morning sound like a peak period to you? Or does this smell like more B.S. (Bovine Scatology)?
Fortunately, this issue won't be affecting my clients for much longer at all. I have nearly completed a P2P application that does all its work over port 80, and as far as the ISP is concerned, the traffic will be indistinguishable from loading a series of web pages with large graphics.
I dare them to throttle HTTP.
Re:Either way you cut it: it stinks (Score:4, Interesting)
At least the cable internet provider was never that stupid with marketing. It was always on a "best available" basis.
Off topic, but illustrative of what I think of Bell:
Now, the ONLY reason I use cable vs. Bell service is that Bell blocks port 25 -- both outbound and INBOUND. I tried it, and was lied to when I asked that exact question. They also will NOT unblock the inbound port for me, making the service useless. The only way to run a private mail service on the Bell network, using Bell services is... there isn't a way.
As a result of the direct lie, I was convinced to try the Bell service. I installed it, and... no email. After a few days I started investigating and discovered the port 25 inbound block. What a waste of time.
Rogers, on the other hand, doesn't block port 25 inbound (they now block outbound). However the Terms of Service explicitly state that I may not run servers. But... I have tried (and continue to try) to purchase business service from them. And they refuse to sell it to me (something about the service not being available in a residential area). I have informed them that I will continue to run these services, and will purchase the business service when they decide to make it available to me. At least Rogers doesn't bother me about it...
Caps? Yes Rogers has a cap. They even allow me to exceed the cap, and tell me how much it will cost. Bell? They have already directly lied to me.
After outright lies and misleading marketing we have lawsuits.
Re:Just an excuse (Score:3, Interesting)
bullshit - DSL does .. EXCEPT speakeasy (Score:4, Interesting)
One exception: Speakeasy, who lied to me during pre-sales chat [flickr.com], stating I could use 100% of my bandwidth 100% of the time, and that they don't regulate their connections at all [flickr.com] -- ultimatley called me up and told me if I didn't download less than 100G a month, that they would terminate me.
They then had the gall to try to silence me with a threat of an early termination fee, and took many months to properly pay me back for the pre-paid month of service that I didn't get.
They are assholes. They should burn. But Patriot.Net? Capu.Net? Silcon.com? All great ISPs that let you do what you want.
Back in the day... (Score:2, Interesting)
when I had a single 56k dial-up connection that was shared among four computers congestion was the norm. In such an environment, even viewing a single web page often filled the available bandwidth. This made browsing from multiple computers at the same time nearly impossible. To counteract the issue, I implemented a single SFQ QOS on my router and within minutes after turning it on, the congestion was well under control.
Congestion primarily occurs due to more data being sent than can be received during a specified amount of time. Consequently this often results in unnecessary retransmissions of data and increased congestion. By dropping data which would otherwise be duplicated during a retransmission, congestion is relieved and the flow is normalized.
One must therefore ask, why have they not implemented a QOS at the locations where congestion is known to occur?
Re:Just an excuse (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is what happens... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I routinely hit peak throughput when serving heavy loads to clients all around the globe. I don't just hit it once either, there were times when all four of my boxes saturated their lines - 400mbit out, just for cheap little me. Meanwhile, I've visited local datacenters that have less aggregate bandwidth across their 50-60 cages, than I have in a half-rack.
So then, if the Dutch can sell me such plentiful bandwidth so cheaply, why can't these two-faced half-bred North Americans do even better with their big bucks and big business ? We had 10mb cable a decade ago. Where my fiber ? Where's my fucking fiber to the downtown high-density tech-capital home ?
Idiots, there is no other explanation. Lazy lying idiots.
Re:Only in Peak Periods, eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
As I said, I DARE them to throttle HTTP.
Re:This is what happens... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=8447&topic=e-government [publicservice.co.uk]
Which basically sums it up.
Re:You clueless basement dwellers (Score:1, Interesting)
And there's another factor that is hardly ever mentioned. Some numbers came out around 6 months ago that showed that on average for most ISPs, 5% of the userbase uses bittorrent, which uses upwards of 95% of capacity at any given time. So 95% of customers can suffer slowdowns because 5% of the userbase abuses the system. I fully agree with the throttling of bittorrent traffic in regards to those numbers.
And just check DSLreports. Its not unusual to see those bitching state stuff like "I used to download 600 gigs a month over bittorrent, I pay my 30$ a month, I should be allowed to do this without being throttled!" There are very very little reasons for an individual to download 600 gigs+ every month over bittorent. If you're doing it for business purposes, then get a business grade connection. If you run your own tracker to distribute your own legal content, then pony up the dough for a proper webhost (and see how much they'll charge you for that much bandwidth usage).
And yes, I do use bittorrent (for anime fan subs). I don't really care that it takes me 2 hours instead of 20 minutes to get something. I've heard friends complain about the throttling, that they can't download 200 gigs worth of movies or music at their usual fast speeds. These are also the same people who don't watch/listen 90% of what they download. They download it just for the sake of having it, without using it. Nothing but a packrat mentality. If you really want something, waiting a little longer for it isn't going to kill you.
Abuse the system and stuff like this happens. Its that simple.