CRTC Rules Bell Can Squeeze Downloads

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."

Abolish the CRTC

[Powercube]

This is what happens when you create a regulatory body by appointing former industry insiders and lobbyists. You get a body that exists to protect big telecom from the consumer. The CRTC only is able to prosper because the average Canadian has no idea just how much worse they make their life. I've had enough I say we move to get rid of them once and for all.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Two Options

[RulerOf]

ISP's have two options as their networks become more and more utilized:

1) Expand the network capacity by laying new line, enabling higher throughput of the entire system. This method will incur great cost, but will not create new customers, nor lose customers, nor will it increase profits over current offerings.

2) Throttle network usage to fit current utilization into current infrastructure in a more manageable fashion. This method will incur significantly lower costs than option 1 (lawsuits included), but will not create new customers, nor lose customers (as we are the only provider available to them), nor will it increase profits over current offerings.

What say ye, shareholders?

Re:Sounds to me

[compro01]

1. These guys are independent ISPs. They lease last-mile lines from Bell (Bell owns all the phone infrastructure.) to provide DSL and other services.

2. Bell started shaping their own customers months ago, and they started hemorrhaging customers to the smaller ISPs (A free market working properly) who didn't shape traffic.

3. Bell decided to start shaping the traffic from those smaller ISPs.

Screwing the customer

[phorm]

So basically what happens is:

Bell's solution: Our customers are leaving to 3rd-parties because they're tired of getting screwed by our messed-up policies and cruddy service. But wait, we control a small part of the lines that 90% of the competition uses. So, in order to not lose customers, as opposed to fixing the issues, we'll just give everyone the same problem and to make their customers' connections suck too.

Sorry, but the "we're screwing everyone equally" answer doesn't add up.

It's plainly anti-competitive, all you have to ask is:

If Bell didn't have the ability to interfere with 3rd-party connections, would this issue exist, and would the other ISP's gain customers. If the issue wouldn't exist, or the other ISP's would gain customers, then Bell is abusing their control of the lines and monopoly therein.

Re:Sounds to me

[greed]

OK.

I don't want to deal with Bell. Roger's terms-of-service are unacceptable. I'm a TekSavvy customer.

Find me the regulations that will even _let_ TekSavvy run a copper pair to my house for any amount of money. They can't, Bell owns the right-of-way for phone lines, and Roger's for cable lines.

They should do what they did to electricity and gas. If Bell wants to own the _wires_, they have to split off the company that provides _services_ over them. Or vice-versa; just have a company whose job is to maintain the wires to connect customers and providers.

Re:Abolish the CRTC

[despisethesun]

BC, too. But at the ISP I used to work at, it was a huge hassle to get set up, and dealing with Telus technicians on trouble calls (which you have to do, because you're leasing the connections from them and they won't let you near their equipment) was always a nightmare. To be fair though, it was a hassle if the customer had phone service through another provider than Telus, too, since the phone situation was not at all unlike the ISP situation. It regularly took well over a week to resolve any issue that required Telus' assistance, since they only dealt with you through their online ticketing system and they only ever updated tickets once a day. If you didn't get the answer you needed, or they needed more info, there's another day that the customer was without internet. I don't miss that job at all.

Re:In the US

[Anonymous Coward]

What right does the government have to tell a company what to do with it's own property?

It's recognized by even the most free market-fanatic economists that the government has a responsibility to break up monopolies.

Well, in this case, since the government GAVE the company an EXCLUSIVE right to use the public right-of-ways, then they have every right to tell them what to do.

If the company doesn't like it, they can either stop using the public right-of-ways, or they can start sharing the right of ways.

Let me put it another way:

Let's say you have a delivery company in town, but they have a contract with the city which states that they are the ONLY company allowed to use the public streets to make deliveries.
Now how can anyone else compete? They can't- they have to ship their product to the edge of the city, and then pay the monopoly to carry the goods over the public roads... or find a way to deliver without using roads (good luck).
Since the government granted them the exclusive right, and restricted the rights of everyone else, they now have a duty to ensure that the company they are in bed with is fair about making the deliveries from other companies.

If every ISP had the same access to the home customers, and the playing field was truly level, then no, the government should stay out of it. But by picking a buddy to cuddle up next to in bed, they have taken on the responsibility to regulate what their partner does.