Canadian ISP Ordered to Prove Traffic-Shaping is Needed

Sepiraph writes "In a letter sent to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers and Bell Canada on May 15, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have ordered Bell Canada to provide tangible evidence that its broadband networks are congested to justify the company's Internet traffic-shaping policies. This is a response after Bell planned to tackle the issue of traffic shaping, also called throttling, on the company's broadband networks. It would be interesting to see Bell's response, as well as to see some real-world actual numbers and compare them to a previous study."

Hurray!

Hurray! Finally my government makes itself useful. Finally they protect my rights.

Re:Hurray!

Even if Bell can not prove at the moment the network usage is saturated all they have to do is wait and do not invest a penny in new infrastructure. Eventually the network will be saturated and Bell will win. They can even help themselves by selling a server or two to speed up the process.

Re:Hurray!

Except if Bell can be shown to be falling down with respect to deploying the _necessary_ infrastructure to support telecommunications, they might be penalized in subsidies or something.

They've been granted a (partial) monopoly in order to ensure the infrastructure gets built. If they say it's not big enough, then they're likely to look silly and be told to build more.

Really, really bad idea for Bell.

They won't win by sitting on their hands and had better get moving. They tried that back in US back in the 80s and lost big time. It has taken ATT the last 20 years to lie cheat and steal their way back to government protected monopoly status and they are about to lose it all again. Your government is not the only one feeling redfaced about the pathetic network capacity they got in return for $200 billion and a lot of promisses [newnetworks.com]. The next monopoly break up is not going to leave pieces large enough to grasp - it's going to be spectrum liberation [reed.com], and that will be the end of all traditional broadcast and telcos. The more they piss their customers off, the sooner customers will realize what a fraud traditional telco is.

Re:Hurray!

[1] a) Bell Canada states that 5% of users were generating 60% of total traffic and 60% of that traffic was P2P traffic...

[2] d) ... During peak periods before deployment of its traffic management solution, 60% of total traffic corresponded to 33% of available bandwidth. Commission staff notes that 100% of the total traffic would correspond to 55% (100/60 x 33%) of the available bandwidth. Provide a detailed explanation of why utilization of 55% of available bandwidth would require the use of traffic management to ease congestion.

I can't wait to hear their explanation for 55% utilization requiring throttling. At worst, they would have to throttle certain links

If their clever plan involves sitting around and waiting for the network to get saturated, they might be waiting for a while.

Re:Hurray!

That's called fraud.

Many things big businesses do are illegal, just look at MS, both the EU and US found them engaging in anti-competitive practices, MS just said what are you going to do about it and still continues to. Most ISPs can do the same thing, if you want high-speed internet, who else are you going to turn to other then those who offer it regardless if they throttle, overcharge and inject ads into your internet.

Possible Solution

Crime amongst the wealthy is a considerable problem. Corporations (and other obscenely wealthy folk) commit these crimes because they can, and they know that even if they are caught, it becomes more of an inconvenience than a problem. Compare that to a middle-class home, who would be devastated by fines that the rich can simply take in their stride. It's a one size fits all approach, and it doesn't work.

I propose that we scale fines to the income of the guilty party. Give out fines as percentages of yearly income. You could take the income records from last years tax time and fine a certain portion of that amount. If you commit a particularly serious crime, you may be charged as much as 50% of your yearly income, which would be equally devastating for anyone, no matter how much money they have. Fines would become a deterrent for all. Suddenly, breaking the law routinely doesn't seem to be such a financially viable business strategy.

Of course, the deterrent factor becomes less reliable on the very bottom of the scale. If a person has no money, then there would be no punishment, and consequently, they could do what they want. It also wouldn't cover damages to specific parties. We wouldn't want a situation where the fine is less expensive than the damage of the act itself. Whatever the problems, though, I think this idea has potential.

Re:Hurray!

Don't celebrate, yet.

Here's the deal: The ISP is going to produce a bullshit report that will be taken as The Gospel Truth from the Mountain that was Hand-Delivered by Moses Himself - by those that matter, anyway - and it will be used to justify each and every new attack on the proles.

Do you honestly believe that politicians, who need contributions to get re-elected, will bite the hands that feed them? American, Canadian, African - it doesn't matter.

The system is rigged to fuck us. Accept it and act accordingly.

Re:Hurray!

Bell doesn't have a monopoly on internet access in Canada.

Correct, but they own the infrastructure and have been throttling the competition, which is effectively circumventing CRTC regulations requiring them to lease lines to competitors.

Re:Hurray!

What? I hate ISP traffic shaping as much as anybody, but if you agreed to the contract, you agreed that you didn't care if they shaped your bandwidth. If you didn't like the product they were selling, why did you buy it? Nobody likes traffic shaping, and if people would stop being idiots and start refusing to agree to these contracts, one of the big ISPs would start offering non-shaped bandwidth.

Ok, I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that you have no idea what you are talking about, and no idea what this whole matter is about. Here's what happened:

People who didn't want Bell's throttling read Bell's contract and decided they didn't want it. Instead, they went and got their internet service from a competitor. Unfortunately, since Bell owns the wires, every competitor in the DSL business has to rent bandwidth wholesale from Bell. At first, Bell didn't throttle the wholesale bandwidth, and the competitors could then offer contracts that had no throttling to their customers. Then, without notice, Bell throttles the wholesalers. So even though people read the contracts and refused to agree with throttling, they still get fucked by Bell even though they get their service from a competitor. Reference here [slashdot.org].

This "I don't like this, but I'll just buy it now and sue later" bullshit is out of control Don't people take any responsibility for their actions any more?

Repeat after me: People read their contracts, refused the throttling, went with a provider that didn't throttle, and got fucked anyway. Please... stop talking out of your ass now.

A fortuitious happenstance

Wow this is actually good news. The people at Bell Canada are scumbags. At my previous job we had the unfortunate misfortune to have Bell Canada as our ISP. They started slowing down our connection speed which in turn slowed everything in the entire studio down (since we were saving files to a server across town). It used to only take a few seconds to save the files, then it turned into 10 minutes. Bell insisted there was absolutely nothing wrong with the connection. Just doing my job was turned into an ordeal because bell feels the need to tamper with their connections. I hope Bell gets crucified. That would be absolutely wonderful

Re:A fortuitious happenstance

Bell insisted there was absolutely nothing wrong with the connection.

Heh. I know people that have bribed Rogers managers to get their connection fixed. No joke. A friend of mine, who grew up in the USSR, has a saying for this sort of thing; it's something to the effect of, "Each day a little of the old country follows me across the sea."

I hope Bell gets crucified.

Me too. In fact, I've got a big, old, rusty, railroad spike I'm going to save for just such an occasion.

Hey what about common decency

One thing that confuses the US net neutrality debate is that the ISPs have got massive subsidies in return for apparently better services, which have not occurred. If everyone bit the bullet and accepted they are not going to get them then everything could move on. They have wronged by handing out monopolies and they have wronged by subsidising them. Another wrong isn't going to fix the system. Just allow proper competition. (Yea sorry I didn't get to read this article but i want to go to bed now :) ) Anyway, there was blatantly no net neutrality in the first place.

Re:Hey what about common decency

How do you allow "proper competition" in the ISP market? How many sets of wires will you run to every house? How many antennas will you have to erect and satellites to put into orbit? How many data centers and backbone hubs can you build?

Net Neutrality is based on the fact that, at some point, your data will have to flow through a competitor's infrastructure.

In the past, when the internet was still in its infancy, there was little need for net neutrality; bandwidth was simply another commodity. Today, there are data services - streaming media, VoIP, internet applications, etc. - and there is financial incentive to make bandwidth a resource. Companies are looking at converting their infrastructure from a simple toll road (pay for the privilege of using X bandwidth) into toll roads that discriminate on what type of vehicle and cargo you're carrying AND limiting your speed based on how much you've paid. Oh, and the same cargo from their own company gets a free ride, high priority.

So much for competition in that environment.
=Smidge=

Re:Hey what about common decency

How do you allow "proper competition" in the ISP market? How many sets of wires will you run to every house? How many antennas will you have to erect and satellites to put into orbit? How many data centers and backbone hubs can you build?

There was an interview on the radio with a young girl from Bhutan who was visiting the US for the first time. While she was surprised by many things here (obese people, clean toilets, etc), she was positively amazed to learn that banks, phone companies and hospitals weren't run by the government.

She couldn't understand how private companies can be allowed to provide these services.

Your post reminds me of her. Just because you cannot think of a solution doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re:Hey what about common decency

One thing that confuses the US net neutrality debate is that the ISPs have got massive subsidies in return for apparently better services, which have not occurred. If everyone bit the bullet and accepted they are not going to get them then everything could move on.

Alternatively, the Government could say "We gave you lots of money, now we want results, or you can pay us back".

Every now and then, Governments crack down on waste/fraud/etc, usually by making an example of someone. The only reason they don't do it more often is due to the sheer scope of the spending that goes on.

Personally, I'd rather spend all that wasted money on oversight than leave it to a for-profit company receiving handouts they shouldn't be getting.

Re:Hey what about common decency

Anyway, there was blatantly no net neutrality in the first place.

I am not sure what you mean by "first place" - as in pre ATT-breakup?

Because there certainly WAS net neutrality in the USA up until just recently, 2005 in fact, when the SCOTUS ruled that ISPs provide "information services" rather than "telecommunications services." [techlawjournal.com] The net effect was that the "tariffs" (fancy word for rules) that insure network neutrality on the phone network (aka a telecommunication service) no longer applied to ISPs. You'll note that it was in late 2005 - right after the ruling in fact - when all the ISPs started making noise about "google using our networks for free" etc, etc.

How convenient

I think this is a pretty clear effort by the federal government to try to put the matter to bed by giving the big, monopolistic corporation the chance to "prove" that this is "necessary", which they will then accept without question. I've said it before: net neutrality is going nowhere in Canada without a change of government. But that's just my $0.02 CAD.

Wrong evidence to ask

I would rather have the CRTC ask Bell Canada to provide tangible evidence that the laws of arthmetic failed when they computed the bandwidth available to each customer.

Re:Wrong evidence to ask

I recall seeing Bell advertisements that DSL from Bell was better than cable, because there are "no slowdowns". I also recall advertisements, but I can't remember if they were specifically Bell advertisements, that your bandwidth was dedicated. I didn't really believe it then, and now it seems that neither does Bell.

Ridiculous Euphimism

Traffic shaping? That implies it does something artistic or useful to the traffic.

Throttling conjures up a more accurate image. (I think of Homer throttling Bart.)

And if they insist on shaping my traffic, I hope they can shape it into things I'm comfortable with like hearts, moons, and stars.

Re:Ridiculous Euphimism

That's funny. I was thinking shaping internet traffic into, say, origami swans. But maybe they're thinking shaping as in cutting off sharp corners so more internets can fit through the tubes faster.

There actions are would still not be justified

they made promises they can't live up to and now they are handling it by censoring the internet. I don't care if it is "necessary", they screwed up and it should be handled in a responsible way - by upgrading the network

It's a trap!!!111one

This is funny. If they can "prove" that traffic shaping is necessary, they have essentially proven that they are unable to provide the services they are charging people for. No matter what their proof looks like, they're hosed. Either they will be forced to quit traffic shaping and admit they don't need to do it, or they'll be open to class action lawsuits for failing to provide contracted services.

I don't feel too sorry for them... The telcos tear up the street every couple of years and I still don't have fiber to my house. To hell with them. The concept of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders has gone way too far, and it's time that service companies get a little legal protection when they choose to provide their customers with their contracted service instead of making an extra penny for their shareholders. Just look at the yahoo debacle... The company leadership might actually end up IN JAIL for trying to do the "right thing" for the company and their customers, because a couple shareholders are pissed they couldn't make a fast buck by selling out to Microsoft. That is a complete perversion of the concept of fiduciary responsibility, and our legal system ought to provide for companies that actually attempt to stay in business and fulfill their contracts with their customers.

ISP's need to put up the S and P.

Selling a specific accessible 'bandwidth' of internet access and then throttling it is not a fair business practice. Even if the terms of service include an allowance for such throttling, the provider should clearly and explicitly make sure the buyer understands such controls. Otherwise, you have buyers like myself who pay for 6mbit wondering why we are not getting 6mbit 24/7, 365. Thats what I bought, just as it was advertised. 6mbit internet access. It didn't read an ad saying 'sometimes 6mbit, mostly 3, and if you use it a lot, then almost none'. For an ISP to advertise a product one way, then provide the product differently is disingenuous and debateably illegal.