CRTC Rules Bell Can Squeeze Downloads 245
pparsons writes "Bell Canada Inc. will not have to suspend its practice of 'shaping' traffic on the Internet after a group of companies that resell access to Bell's network complained their customers were also being negatively affected. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission today released a decision that denied the Canadian Association of Internet Providers' request that Bell be ordered to cease its application of the practice to its wholesale customers."
Why is shaping in "quotes?" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tag this story (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why is shaping in "quotes?" (Score:3, Informative)
it indicates that the process they call "shaping" is not actually "shaping" the traffic.
Misleading article (Score:5, Informative)
after a group of companies that resell access to Bell's network complained their customers were also being negatively affected
That's a misleading statement. Bell resells access to its DSLAM- the "last mile" of copper to users. Generally Bell does not provide a backbone internet connection to independent ISPs. Bell is, in essence, altering the traffic of users and ISPs because Bell is the middle-man, and they want to reduce the differentiation between their internet service (Sympatico) and competitors. As I understand it, Bell has not produced any evidence as to what it costs to have traffic crossing their DSLAM.
An example of how this works (at least how I understand it) is via the company Teksavvy. Teksavvy buys bandwidth from ISP backbones, and resells it to consumers. In order to get a DSL line to the consumer, Teksavvy has to go through Bell because Bell has a de facto monopoly on the installation and maintenance of copper lines. Bell connects the copper line at the user's residence to a Bell DSLAM, which in turn is a network switch that connects to Teksavvy's network (and then on to the backbone). Bell manipulates the traffic crossing their DSLAM from consumers to Teksavvy.
This is only part of the story (Score:5, Informative)
The ruling here was simply that Bell Canada isn't doing anything different for their resellers' customers than what they're doing for their own customers. Basically, the question before the CRTC was, is Bell hindering their resellers' customers in an unfair way? And the answer was, no, they treat their own customers the same way.
As to whether "traffic shaping" should be occurring at all, whether with respect to their own customers or their reseller's customers, that is still to be discussed in a separate hearing that starts next July.
To summarize: this really has nothing to do with "traffic shaping". That hearing is yet to come.
Marketing the problem (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why is shaping in "quotes?" (Score:4, Informative)
Anon coward is right. Traffic shaping is perfectly legitimate way to make sure that your links are used fairly and efficiently without actually dropping packets. You hold a few packets back in long lasting streams to allow other low latency streams better service and then let them go later. What they are doing is best described as traffic limiting, even if they use traffic shaping to help with this and they are just avoiding calling it what it really is.
Misleading topic (Score:5, Informative)
There is Workaround (MLPPP) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Misleading article (Score:2, Informative)
The real problem is, the shaping isn't reducing traffic where Bell claims to have a congestion problem.
If they drop X% of my BitTorrent traffic between the DSLAM and my ISP, then I'm still SENDING that much traffic. In fact, I'm probably sending _even more_ to make up for the lost packets.
So my _ISP_ sees _less_ traffic from my account, but Bell sees _more_ traffic from my _DSLAM_. They don't have a DPI box connected to each DSLAM.
(Except I've got a workaround so mine isn't throttled any more.)
Re:Misleading article (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't, strictly, cost them. However, they do need to buy more and more hardware to manage the bandwidth, and aren't able to oversell their network as much. This costs them money, both potentially earned money, and money to upgrade their hardware.
That doesn't make right their shaping, but I do see, having worked at an ISP, that it does cost money to provide service, in one way or another. When you're talking multi-gig speeds, you're not talking cheap hardware anymore. Go price out a 6500 with 10 gig conections (backbone/carrier class) and see what it costs to provide a big fat pipe in the backbone to move all that traffic coming in.
Re:Abolish the CRTC (Score:4, Informative)
In Alberta at least, this has ended, you can order "dry pairs" now.
Re:Tag this story (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In the US (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's recognized that they need to break up monopolies abusing their powers to prevent competition from being established or surviving. Monopolies that exist because no other competitors are willing or able, absent market manipulation by the company with the monopoly, to enter the market are okay.
These are rare, however, they exist.
The Full Decision (Score:2, Informative)
In case anyone wanted to read through it. I didn't see a link from TFA.
Re:Abolish the CRTC (Score:2, Informative)
In Ontario is well, but you're still paying Bell $6.95/mo for having a dry-loop in place...
Re:In the US (Score:4, Informative)
Phone companies monitor their networks, and may monitor calls carried on their network - it is their network
They may incidentally monitor phone calls as a part of normal operations (the lineman plugs into your pair while troubleshooting a problem somewhere) but they don't have the right to just monitor your line for the hell of it.
and you give up your right to privacy (at least privacy from the phone company)
Says who?
I hate to side with telecoms on anything, but in this case I think I need to - as long as people sign up to use a service on company X's network, company X can do whatever they want with the packets that find their way on to the network
I disagree. We've given the telecom industry billions of dollars in tax breaks and preferential treatment (codified monopolies, rights of way, etc) to assist them in building their networks. We have the right to have some say in how they manage those networks. If they want a true free market system then let's bring it on -- I'd love to be able to negotiate with the telephone company for royalties on that pole they put on my property.
Re:Misleading article (Score:3, Informative)
In most cases, the session is transitting Bell's network to an interconnect point, wherein it's handed off to the third party and terminates an on LNS.
Generally, the third party doesn't have fiber going to each CO and interconnecting directly to the DSLAM.
The CRTC's mission (Score:3, Informative)
"In response to the government's policy direction, we have launched a new market-oriented approach to telecom regulation. We are giving priority to market forces, and we will intervene only when market failure makes it necessary."
- Konrad von Finckenstein, head of the CRTC, June 17, 2008 speech in Toronto
Translation: companies - do whatever the hell you want. And customers - fuck you.
Sign me up on the "Abolish CRTC" campaign.
Re:Tag this story (Score:3, Informative)
If you are in Ontario (I haven't research other jurisdictions) you are free of any contract you may have had with Telus.
Changing the prices definitely constitutes a material change.
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_02c30_e.htm [gov.on.ca]
Re:You cannot call it breach of contract... (Score:3, Informative)
Except, in this case, these aren't all resellers. Many of the companies complaining lease last-mile (backhaul) bandwidth, and have their own pipe to the 'net.
These companies are not reselling Bell services, they are supposed to be getting 5Mbit/sec per customer of BACKHAUL (from the phone jack to their routers) bandwidth. Again, they supply their own pipe to the 'net.
Re:In the US (Score:3, Informative)
Employers may monitor employees' phone calls [privacyrights.org] and location [privacyrights.org] (using cell towers or GPS).
I'm talking about telcos here and not employee/employer relationships.
Cell phone companies are required by the FCC to have the ability to track your location to within 100 meters for the purposes of 911 calls.
Not really relevant to what I was asking.
Telephone company employees may listen to your conversations when it is necessary to provide you with service, to inspect the telephone system, to monitor the quality of telephone service or to protect against service theft or harassment.
That's what I already presumed and stated in my earlier comment; as I've stated I was more interested in knowing whether the telco had unlimited access and liability to listen in whenever they wanted (as was your original statement of facts).
Note that the above paragraph gives telephone companies free license to listen to phone conversations
That's your interpretation. As I've stated I was looking for specific laws or precedent and not legally dubious loop-holes.
Unfortunately all of your examples and references refer to the USA; I was specifically talking about and mentioned Canada and it's much stricter privacy laws. I will give you kudos for going out of the way to do some research however. It does appear to me that your initial statements are actually just dubious assumptions.
Best regards,
UTW