Bell-Not-So-Sympatico: throttling P2P
p2pnet news | P2P:- “Ok.Here’s the deal.”
That’s Rocky Gaudrault, CEO of Canadian ISP of Teksavvy Solutions, as quoted in dslreports.
The subject? As p2pnet’s Ottawa Gal was the first to reveal last year, Bell-Sympatico is throttling wholesale Net services.
Teksavvy, however, doesn’t cap its bandwidth and Gaudrault goes on >>>
They’re now openly acknowledging that they are rolling out a full throttling process. They plan to have things fully throttled by April 7th. All BT and P2P traffic will be affected.
They claim they are allowed to do so according to their Terms and Services under the Fair Usage Policy in the tariffed contracts. We’ll be looking into this shortly.
The meeting was with Sales and Product Management. They will be preparing a formal letter before end of week.
In the meantime, we (many other ISPs) are going to prepare as well. I guess the high road is the path taken in this case.
Spread the word one and all as this topic needs to reach every level possible. There’s now officially an issue and action must be taken by all if we’re to rectify things.
The word is indeed being spread to the extent the mainstream media are now running with the story.
Better late than never and the coverage has sparked a sharp reaction from Bell Canada spokesman Jason Laszlo, quoted in the Globe & Mail as saying the company has, “every right to limit the amount of bandwidth certain applications can consume on its networks and those it rents to third-party ISPs”.
“This isn’t a new policy,” he said. “Our agreements with wholesale ISP customers clearly include provisions regarding our rights to manage our networks appropriately to the benefit of all customers.”
Bell began implementing its third-party ISP traffic shaping policy on March 14 and plans to have the program implemented across its entire network by April 7, says the story, slugged, Bell irks ISPs with new throttling policy.
‘Irks’ hardly touches it.
“Based on Laszlo’s comment on the ability to do what they want to the network, this is the exact problem and where Bell doesn’t get it,” Gaudrault told Ottawa Gal.
He went on >>>
TekSavvy and all third party ISPs are paying for a “slice” of this network, so no, it’s not Bell’s at that point. They’re paid to make sure the infrastructure remains in good shape, but they’re not paid to police it!
The flaw in Bell’s thought is in their not understanding that we’ve paid for the right to this space. We’ve paid for multiple Gig-E connections for the data to flow back to; we’ve paid for the DSL aggregation interface (AHSSPI) and we’re also paying on a per user basis (approx $20/month) to have the data relayed directly back to our main point of Interconnect.
So, in short, no, they don’t have rights to this network segment.
An easy analogy would be a landlord, who is managing an apartment, gives himself a key to come in and out as he pleases and on top of that decides which of the tenants’ friends they let in!
I’m not sure about you, but I’m fairly certain, one; the tenant would call the police, but two; you’d land up with a very big black-eye!
Says Ottawa Gal >>>
This new Bell tactic will destroy the small wholesale competition in the Ontario & Quebec markets, leaving only Bell, Rogers and Videotron to call the shots and shape the internet a-la-AOL.
Bell wants their ball back and no one can play with it, whaaaa.
Bell claims the full out throttle affects P2P traffic only. But users are discovering that much much more than P2P is affected, while their “High-Speed” internet comes to a screeching halt, and Bell knows full well that P2P is not just affected, as reported by p2pnet here, Bell-Sympatico P2P throttling: more.
More is sure to come.
Meanwhile, Bell-Not-So-Sympatico has issued a script it expects reps to follow when they’re trying to talk angry customers out of cancelling their contracts.
“Who can I speak with about this issue?” – asks an imaginary customer.
The rep responds:
“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.”
In other words, get stuffed.
[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 
) ]
Stay tuned.
Also See:
dslreports – Update on throttling issue, March 25, 2008
Globe & Mail – Bell irks ISPs with new throttling policy, March 25, 2008
first to reveal last year – Bell Sympatico P2P Black List, November 3, 2007
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March 26th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Well we already know the real issue is they oversell, plain and simple.
Your Xmb/s connection is not really Xmb/s, it’s a little bit Xmb/s and mostly unused so we can resell thet unused portion to others. They try to get around this by adding limits in the TOS.
I a not a third party ISP so I don’t know how the system works, but if they oversell to their standard customers, what are the odds that they oversell to the 3rd party ISP as well.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:11 am
These types of problems are not limited to Bell.
It’s bad enough that practically no one can get the top quoted speeds, due to distance from the exchange, line noise and equipment, but many ISP’s have already veered quickly in the direction of price and service fixing, as well as restrictions that tend to give you dialup speeds (dependant) at certain peak times for X times the price.
A typical example of this is when you first sign up for a new service and the line is ‘tested’ for best speeds. Many throttle your speed at this point, giving a total sham top range, at worst, less than half your real line capabilities. I cannot -prove- this, but I know it is true based on my own research and is something all ISP’s would vehemently deny, even when faced with absolute proof.
My only advice is to never sign up for long contracts, always complain or request a MAC at the first sign of punitive or ridiculous throttling or lower than expected sync rates and keep changing your service until you find one that is ok. It’s the only way to regulate this joke of a regulated system. Stuff like this does nothing but stifle the originally intended growth.
If you have no choice for your ISP, move to a real democracy
March 26th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Throttle down the $50 you are paying for Bell to $20 then it’s fair game.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Not only that, they’ve lowered the throttled speed to 384/384
March 27th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Quoted from a Bell/Sympatico notice recently posted in other forums had this info in it. As Bell/Sympatico would never release the actual numbers, Here is somewhat of an extrapolation.
“Important Usage Billing Changes
dated March 13, 2008″
“only 5% of our base exceeds 60GB/month. In fact 82% of customers stay under 10GB /month.”
This leave 13% of customers using between 10 and 60GB/month.
So using the above info at worst case usages:
82 x 10GB = 820GB
13 x 60GB = 780GB
820GB + 780GB = 1600GB
1600GB/95 = 16.8 GB
In effect 95% of Sympatico’s own user base average about 17GB a month at worst.
Now lets say the other 5% use 500GB a month on average per user:
5 x 500GB = 2500GB
1600GB + 2500GB = 4100GB
4100GB/100 = 41GB
so as per Bell/Sympatico’s numbers: overall, I don’t see a real issue here with total amounts of bandwidth used, as 41GB is not a huge amount in our present internet world….
So what is the real reason for capping and traffic shaping?
March 27th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I wonder when these people will start blocking or interfereing with SIP (internet telephony) traffic as well as p2p. I know if my provider does, I will be cancelling my Internet service because I will have no use for high speed service if I cannot use it.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I have Cogeco and my combined Download and Upload is limited to 60 gigabytes per month for Standard service. I checked Rogers and Bell Sympatico who, interestingly enough, have the exact same limitation.
Realistically, I do not have a huge issue with a limit on how much âBandwidthâ as 60 gb is almost reasonable.
I do however, have an issue with an effort by these companies to manipulate with what we download.
What really is going on here is that these large companies (Bell, Rogers and Cogeco) want people to purchase Cable TV or Satelite TV to watch the shows and movies.
I for one do not want the TV services that they offer, just an unimpeded Internet connection and I can live with the 60 gb limit.
March 30th, 2008 at 1:41 am
Personally I don’t have any issue with having with Bit Torrent, but I do have a problem with what restrictions Bell may come out with next. If they get away with acting as an internet cop, then they will start imposing more restrictions. Where does it end? Will I be forced to use the yahoo search engine over google because Bell is a shareholder?
April 9th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
The real problem in Canada are the POLITICIANS who fail to protect it’s citizens from being systemically stripped of their wealth by the “protected” big boys. Business has proven over recent years just how immoral it can be when left unregulated and unaccountable. So-called Crown Corporations also take regular bites out of the citizens pockets, with Municipalities joining in on the feeding frenzy! WHere are the modern day Ralph Naders/Robin Hoods!!!!
April 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I agree with the others. If Bell is selling a 60 Gig cap then that is enough of a restriction. You are paying for the 60Gb then they should not try to control the way you use that bandwidth and prevent you from even using the 60Gb you are paying for.
It is like renting a house out to someone but telling them they can’t use water or electricity between 4 pm and 2 am.
We need politicians to stand up to these tyrants that want to monopolize all telecoms and keep us in the dark ages like South Africa. As far as internet speed goes Canada lags way behind Europe and even communist China.