Price- and bandwidth fixing? Competition fixing?
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Ottawa Gal is back.
You’ll remember her from last year when she told p2pnet readers (and others 
) about the Bell Sympatico P2P Black List.
Now, with the news that Rogers is applying the same 60-gig throttled limits as Sympatico, and with dissemination of a leaked Sympatico document announcing further changes to its bandwidth policies, she’s wondering if there’s more to the situation than meets the eye, with the phrase ‘price fixing’ front and center.
“The Leaked Sympatico Document can be found in its entirety here or downloaded from DSLreports,” says Ottawa Gal, going on >>>
“As bandwidth-intensive activities on the Internet continue to grow in popularity, it is vital that ISPs are able to charge a customer for usage.”
ISPs (plural). It doesn’t state it’s vital for Bell-Sympatico but, rather, that it’s vital for “ISPs”.
So Sympatico wasn’t speaking only for itself, but for all ISPs.
At the same time we had the Rogers release (Rogers – new caps and fees).
It’s no coincidence Rogers and Sympatico now have the same 60-gig limit in Ontario and similar pricing schemes, or that Sympatico and Videotron have the same 30-gig limit and an almost similar cost structure in Quebec. What we’re seeing is duopolies completely controlling the market, and squeezing it.
A few months ago Sympatico waged war on P2P and tried to strong-arm a small wholesaler into removing its log-in only accounts and prevent the sale of them (Bell Sympatico P2P Black List and p2pnet talks to ISP TekSavvy).
Now it appears there’s a whole new game.
When Bell and Rogers first applied the throttle and caps, a significant number of people decided it was time to try the smaller ISPs such as Teksavvy, Velcom, Acanac and Electronic Box, to name a few.
Does Bell-Sympatico want another exodus of users with the release of their new bandwidth policies?
Does Rogers?
How can they prevent it?
THROTTLE THEM ALL!
All DSL Wholesalers must at one point or another go through Bell equipment. So Bell is going to try to prevent another customer flight caused through their new bandwidth policies by FORCING the same throttle on the entire wholesale side, like it or not.
And if Rogers and Sympatico are doing it, they’ll make sure it’s imposed on all the wholesalers.
That way, users can’t say, “we’ll change ISP”.
This is apparently what’s happening now with the news breaking on DSLreports.
Some people believe it’s temporary because Bell can apparently no longer handle the traffic in what’s apparently only the Toronto area.
But leaks are making their way onto DSLreports and insiders are saying the throttle will be applied to all areas where Bell currently has throttling capabilities in place.
Not only do we have what appears to be price- and bandwidth-fixing by the major players, we might now be seeing them flexing their muscles to control what little competition Quebec and Ontario has —- namely, the small guys who represent the last bastion of unlimited and unthrottled internet.
More to come as the news and rumours unfold.
References:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20191279-Nexxia-throttling
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20176991-Teksavvys-throttling-now-Just-a-vent-nothing-is-needed~start=100
[Ottawa Gal is a long-time p2pnet reader and comment poster who’d rather remain anonymous. She says she works in the University, likes her cat, reality TV, and Doctor McDreamy. Her favourite web sites are the Michael Geist blog and p2pnet.net. “Privacy on the net is also important to me,” she says. “I need a tinfoil hat ” She’s also the mother of, “two darling little girls who tore down my ceiling fan thinking it would be fun to hang from it.” So she advises parents to, “never have an armchair around from which little ones can reach fans”. (No one was hurt 
) ]
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March 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Reminds me of “The Dilbert Future – Stupidity of the 21st Century” by Scott Adams… he talks of a business system called “Confusopolies” where companies all worl together to confuse us until we just pick… read the book, its awesome
March 24th, 2008 at 4:48 am
“Confusopolies” hahaha