Bell-Sympatico P2P throttling: more
p2pnet news | Freedom:- p2pnet was the first to report the Bell-Sympatico P2P Blacklist and now we have what appears to be a newly leaked Bell-Sympatico Business Office Retentions document, a dialogue Bell-Sympatico reps are apparently supposed to use with customers who call in to cancel their service citing a “material change”.
Someone says on dislreports:
“If you buy a 5-meg or 7-meg or 16-meg profile you are paying damn good money for this. If you are sold a 5-meg, 7-meg or 16-meg service, do you expect to get 30kB/s? No, You expect to receive what you pay for, bought and were sold.
“If Bell installs hardware to IMPEDE what they have sold you, what you have bought, and what you pay for, and what is expected of your service profile, this is a material change in service.”
If you now run any P2P type program, you not only get throttled, you’re on the receiving end of punishment which means using P2P will cause your entire Hi-Speed DSL service and ALL applications (VoIP included) to come to a screeching halt.
Bell-Sympatico seems to be standing firm on its idea that it has every right to charge you a contract termination fee for the hidden P2P throttle and the hidden P2P punishment.
No full disclosure, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Just, ‘Pay us!’
They say all of the above doesn’t constitute a “material change” in service (for those who were with Bell-Sympatico before the throttle), and if you want out of a contract, you’ll have pay them an early termination fee, regardless, as per this dslreports post in which a reader said, “I call bullshit, and so should you”.
In retrospect, when Videotron (Quebec’s cable internet provider) changed its contract bandwidth policies from unlimited to a 100-gig cap, Quebec users fought back by contacting the Union des consommateurs (Consumers Union) to get a class-action lawsuit going against the company for false advertising and breach of contract.
French: http://technaute.cyberpresse.ca/nouvelles/texte_complet.php?id=81,12399,0,082007,1376074.html&ref=top_short
English: http://blog.fagstein.com/2007/08/23/a-class-action-against-videotron/
French: http://www.consommateur.qc.ca/union/code/recours.php?recoursId=847
What would you do if you bought a car with the potential to go 16000KM/hr and which had a nice car phone in it, but dropped to 30KM/hr and cut out the phone if you used the radio, and then you’re told, ‘Pay us anyway, even if you don’t want it’?
Here’s the Bell-Sympatico ’script’ as posted by dslreports >>>
Background
A blog was posted on the website ‘DSL Reports explaining how to cancel a fixed term contract with Sympatico without paying the early termination fee.
[The DSL Reports post is based on the orginal p2pnet story.]
The blog is claiming that the Bandwidth Traffic Management which is being applied by Sympatico and other major ISPs in Canada, constitutes a “material change” to the service which allows the customer to cancel a fixed term contract (as opposed to a month to month) without having to pay the early termination fee.
Who is impacted?
Existing customers on a fixed term contract (as opposed to month to month) who might have read the blog and are calling to cancel their contract prior to the end of their term.
Positioning
Mrs. / Mr. customer, in order to ensure a consistently high level of service for all our customers, Bell may be required to manage its network in such a way that no customer, service or application consumes excessive bandwidth which may impede the use and enjoyment of other customers. Bell has the right to manage its network to deliver a consistent and reliable experience to all its customers and doing so is not a material change to the service. Therefore, the early termination fee will apply if you wish to exit your contract before the end of your term.
Other Internet providers in Canada have implemented similar types of measures.
Please do not enter into any legal discussions with the client. It is strictly prohibited.
If you need more information about this subject, please visit our website www.service.sympatico.ca
Click on “set-up and troubleshooting”, “installing, reinstalling & troubleshooting your high speed internet connection”, “Network management”
However, I can address any concerns that you might have about the Sympatico service
Do you have any concerns which would cause you to cancel your account? Because we would love for you to stay with us as our client. Do you have any other questions that I can clarify?
Questions
Answers
Why would you say that this is not a Material Change?
Mrs. / Mr. customer, I can certainly discuss your concerns about the service and the reason for wishing to cancel your account, but I am not at liberty to debate whether this is a material change to the service. It is Bell’s position that this is not a material change to the service. You are welcome to visit our website where you can read more about Bell’s network management policy.
Who can I speak with about this issue?
Mrs. / Mr. customer, You can certainly speak with a supervisor if you need to, however I assure you that we stand behind our network management policy. Bell has the right to manage its network to deliver a consistent and reliable experience to all its customers and doing so is not a material change to the service.
And finally —
—- a Google map shows throttled areas and meanwhile, remember: this is not just a simple “P2P ONLY” throttle, but a punishment for using P2P at all.
Users NOT running P2P programs can download to the maximum, (ie, non-ssl ftp, DCC), and use VoIP/Skype.
But the MOMENT you use any P2P program, your DSL line will be throttled back to 30kB/s in its entirety,.
That means if you’re using VoIP/Skype and/or downloading MS-updates and you happen to turn on a P2P program, your ENTIRE line will be cut way back, rendering VoIP/Skype and any web downloads, totally useless.
So it’s more than a P2P-only throttle.
It’s a punishment for using P2P.
Period!!!!
So all you bad boys and girls, don’t be caught downloading CBC’s free DRM-free, Bittorrent releases!
More to come as this unfolds ………
Comcast, anyone?
Ottawa Gal – p2pnet
[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 
) ]
[NOTE: Aso see Ottawa Gal's Price- and bandwidth fixing? Competition fixing? post - Jon.]
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March 25th, 2008 at 10:43 am
If they start to throttle my internet access they are the one that broke the contract not me. Therefore they can kiss my ass. They will not get any termination fee. SORRRRRYYYYY!
March 25th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I guess people will have to start encrypting their p2p packets to look like regular traffic. I think Azureus can already do this though I haven’t looked deeply into it. Ah, heres the link: http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/Encryption, prehaps read if you are interested.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Oh, this page look useful if your interested too: http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/Message_Stream_Encryption
March 25th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Azureus encryption (or utorrent encryption for that matter) doesn’t circumvent the shaping algorithm being employed (I’ve tried
). Torrent client developers are working on counter-measures, but we’re left with few options until they come through for us. Leasing a VPN tunnel reportedly works (ISP can’t distinguish P2P from any other VPN encrypted traffic – completely opaque), but then you’re paying another fee on top of your Sympatico bill. Usenet still works if you’re willing to subscriber to a paid usenet service (again, the extra bill). FTP still works if you can find a link. Otherwise, you just have to let your torrents run all night (like you were a low speed user). During off-peak hours the bitrate improves (though sometimes *very* late, 3am or later). This is not a new problem. I started getting throttled in January (Stittsville, outside Ottawa). Nice to see the press though.
March 26th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Enctyption will have no effect on the throttle. Matter of fact any encryption at all seems to envoke the throttle.
March 26th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
well, regardless of the letter / script posted above, I canceled my contract with bell using the arguments about material change, and how I’m paying for “unlimited high-speed internet”, yet they are limiting my use of it, I had never been told of the change in advance etc…
I got nowhere with that level, however going up a level did get me what I wanted, contract ended, and NO 100$ early termination fee, and now I’m happy with Acanac, my new unmetered, unlimited ISP.
now that Bell is going to throttle ALL 3rd party ISPs, I’ll be canceling my phone with them as well…
money talks, screw Bell.
March 26th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
snuggles said:
I got nowhere with that level, however going up a level did get me what I wanted, contract ended, and NO 100$ early termination fee, and now I’m happy with Acanac, my new unmetered, unlimited ISP.
===
Exactly.
As discussed in this story, http://www.p2pnet.net/story/13883 don’t waste your time if you get the run-around with billing. Take it to the top by either calling the Bell Executive Office of Customer Relations at: 1-866-317-3382 (toll free). Be sure to get a confirmation number.
or email the president of residential service kevin.crull@bell.ca and fight.
Not only is it a material change, but according to their OWN terms of uses, and their OWN service contracts, they will inform you of changes. which the did not. Refer to the above link and Bells own service agreements.
Bell is trying hard and forcing their retentions and billing rep’s to not accept their own “material change” clause, and their own clause about informing you (which they chose not to).
Many have cancelled via this route. Some wern’t brave enough to fight and just paid Bell to go away.
Would you give the school yard bully your lunch money to go away? Some have.
Fight or flight.
You did good.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Welcome to my world…Rogers has been doing this to me for about a year and a half now.
When they first started my upload speeds dropped to something like 100 bytes per second bytes not kilobytes.
Welcome to screwsville population everyone in Canada.
There is no one else to chose. Rogers or bell…all the others most likely rent their bandwidth from rogers or bell and are subject to the same shaping.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:47 am
P2P breaks traditional business models and causes ISPs huge challenges in capacity and economics. if you get your way, your “unlimited” connection will be 400/mnth? Ready for that?
maybe not, but thats probably a lot closer to what isps (you pick) would need to cover the costs of pluming. cheap high speed works well when there is a stat mux, but users running unmanned applications that suck as much BW as they can, full time, just don’t work.
If you go to an all you can eat buffet and eat non stop for hours such that they run out of food for the rest of the patrons, I bet some “usage” controls would be enacted such that normal patrons could enjoy as well. Just because you can eat 24/7 doesn’t mean you should be able to
April 15th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Someone needs to publish ALL the contact numbers in the Bell offices Bell employee’s no longer have access to these numbers to give them to the customers. Instead they give you a snail mail address (which generally never gets read) or an email address ( which has filters run on it to only allow certain emails to the inbox)