Bell download throttling: update
p2pnet news | Freedom:- As predicted, the CBC’s decision to release the Next Great Prime Minister online so people can download, copy, and share it freely has been seriously marred by Bell Canada’s scheme to throttle P2P downloads.
“One user received a notice that it could take 2½ hours to download, while another was quoted 11 hours,” says the CBC. “The bottleneck is occurring because ISPs such as Rogers and Bell limit the amount of bandwidth allocated for file-swapping on BitTorrent.
“The controversial practice, called traffic shaping, is meant to stop illegal downloading through BitTorrent. But it also slows the times on legal downloads such as Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister.”
But not for everyone. In fact, Bell’s determined implementation of the measure is driving customers away in droves.
Based in Chatham, Ontario, TekSavvy Solutions Inc is the most frequently mentioned of the smaller ISPs —- and it doesn’t use traffic shaping.
Mark Kuznicki said on the CBC site, “I am downloading the torrent right now with my ISP Teksavvy And they never throttle you or use traffic shaping which destroys torrent speeds. Also, bittorrent is SUCH a huge way of distributing content now a lot of people are using it. Right now, I am getting 240K on my download 
Should have it in less than 30 minutes!”
TekSavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault told p2pnet his company and all third party ISPs are paying for a ’slice’ of this network, “so no, it’s not Bell’s at that point,” he stated, going on >>>
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!
A crew of Teksavvy people have organised a Mission Control site they’re calling www.freeourbandwidth.com carrying reports on the travesty, including this dslreports update from Gaudrault in which he says >>>
We’ll be meeting with a Regulatory lawyer in the AM to start discussions while we wait for the officially documented version of Bell’s position. Once we have this, we’ll then be able to figure out if we move forward as a coherent group on this topic or not. The biggest thing right now is to figure out all the needed angles to make sure this all plays out favourably for everyone.
More to come soon…
Says p2pnet’s Ottawa Gal, who originally broke the story >>>
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.
And as we noted yesterday, Bell has drawn up a script reps are supposed to follow if they’re trying to talk angry customers out of cancelling their contracts.
Imaginary customer: Who can I speak with about this issue?.
Imaginary rep: 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, says Bell-Sympatico, “Mrs. / Mr. customer, get stuffed!”
But traffic shaping isn’t occurring only in Canada. How will you know if your ISP is throttling you?
On the azureuswiki, Azureus has a carefully compiled country-by-country list of ISPs, “known to cause trouble for BitTorrent clients or other P2P clients,” and the reason why.
For Canada, it lists: Bell Sympatico; Delta Cable Communications Network (DCCNET); Rogers; Shaw Cable; Cogeco; Xplornet (wireless); Xplornet (satellite).
Stay tuned.
Also See:
throttle P2P downloads – Bell-Not-So-Sympatico: throttling P2P, March 26, 2008
CBC – ISPs limit access to CBC download, users say, March 26, 2008
dslreports update – Update on Throttling: Part 2, March 27, 2008
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March 27th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Bell compares shaping to a slow moving transport truck which clogs up the traffic, but a more accurate analogy is this: there’s a highway and if I send too many trucks onto that highway then they’ll all get pulled over and searched. It’s not the truck that slows the highway it is the total volume of traffic. If most of the traffic is p2p, then that is the marketplace. Do we ban trucks from the road during rush hour? Do large-scale shippers have to pay more for using the highway? If Bell wants to shape traffic, they should do it with incentives and fees — bill more for prime time and more for bandwidth, and otherwise stay out of the mix. It’s none of their business. Next month it will be Youtube, or last.fm. Given the prevalence of header encryption/obfuscation, it’s surprising that anyone is getting throttled anyway.
I recently conversed with a Bell customer service rep who agreed that Bell was shaping, and that between he and his roommate (he had Sympatico, his roommate Rogers) they were getting lousy download speeds on bittorrent (utorrent specifically). When I told him he could turn on header encryption and improve his speed, he got very excited and suggested that he’d be “watching 10,000 BC tonight”. How’s that for customer service?
March 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
lol
March 27th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
That’s pretty awesome…
Unforunately, I’m with Cogeco, which kinda blows… but what’s worse is that I’m in my part of the city, there’s only two ISP’s avaiable, and the other is Rogers…
Man I wish it was possible to pirate internet (and I don’t mean just stealing someone elses wireless, ’cause that wouldn’t solve the problem)
March 27th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Vive La France!!!
It took me 7 and 1/2 MINUTES to download it
Hey, here is what I get in France:
1. 22 to 28 Mbit/s download.
2. no throdling AND no download or upload limits.
3. VoIP phone including free call to over 70 countries (covering over half the worlds population).
4. Over 100 FREE TV channels (including a lot in HD) and some VOD movies and TV shows and another 150 optional channels.
5. IPV6 availability.
6. They are deploying fibre optics (FTTH) over the next few years, with no change in prices and the DL speed will be over 100Mbits/s + full HD TV.
ALL this for the amazing price of 29.99 euros (48 $CAN).
This is what REAL telecom competition brings…
I hope that if I come back to Canada in a few years, peaple will have rebelled and demanded better internet services.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Canada and it’s Colonial policies keep falling further and further behind the rest of the world. Even in third world Mexico is faster and unfettered. Wake up. Stop hugging the trees. The sky actually is falling.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I’m sure glad that Shaw doesn’t throttle … yet. I’m getting over 600kB/s for Next Great Prime Minister.
I’m pretty sure that Shaw will follow Bell and Rogers soon enough though.
Alas.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:09 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 “Bandwidth” 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 Interent connection and I can live with the 60 gb limit.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
If people are pissed with Bell and their throttling they should be voicing their concerns. Call customer service, write to Bell, the CRTC, their MP, their MPP, join a facebook group, post on internet forums. Transfer your services – tell them why; maybe the 3rd party ISPs are throttled but at least they aren’t Bell. We need to come together and quit being so passive with Bell, Rogers and this whole throttling business.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I work for a video game publisher in Toronto, we distribute our demos and patches through Bit Torrent, completely valid uses, yet we’re hampered by the ‘blazing’ fast speeds of the major ISPs….what a tragic waste of technology
March 27th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
ISPs around the world refuse to admit that file sharing is now in the vernacular of internet usage. Rather than embrace this technology, they are trying to restrict it’s adoption by suggesting only a minority use it. This specious rhetoric is fast becoming trite; And is driven by their antipathy for infrastructural investment.
We only have to look to the south Korean or Japanese paradigm; they recognise the importance of continual growth and investment in technology. Our ISPs pale in comparison.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
These idiots are getting away with whatever they want, I just got a notice from rogers that they are limiting their customers to 60gig or 90gigs (depending on which highspeed you have) of traffic per month. Between that and network fee’s its now getting retarded.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Forget Bell, as well as Rogers. Leave them, they are a good ISP if you are grannypants that checks her e-mail and reads horoscopes. Otherwise, they suck!
March 27th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
60 to 90 gigs?! OMFG
how can someone survive with such a low amount?
my router counted last month:
695:20 225897 MB 100182 MB/125715 MB 37
March 27th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
thats hours, total, up, down, connections
March 27th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
this month I was a more generous peer
650:25 96370 MB 69127 MB/27243 MB
March 27th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
“The controversial practice, called traffic shaping, is meant to stop illegal downloading through BitTorrent.”
Bullshit. It’s about one thing: Paying for bandwidth. These telecom companies don’t give a shit about what’s ethical and what isn’t.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Keep complaining to the respective places people.
We’ve got to fight this!
Need to keep TekSavvy an awesome company!
March 27th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
So are there any good reliable alternatives to the larger ISPs???
I was looking up Acanac… they look like a bargain, but I don’t know anyone that can vouch for their service.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Waaah waahh waahh … I am a poor little money sucking subscriber that expects that the world is free and we owe it to you to continue… With no respect or effort, it is a right…
March 27th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Bell has once again shown it’s true colors, it is a selfish, greedy monster that surely lies, cheats, steals form it’s customers to overcome it’s visible poor managemment of internet services, for Bell on it’s own is non competetive..
March 28th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Heh Tbear did you get paid for that or are you stupid in addition to being an ass?
March 28th, 2008 at 2:18 am
Its all an American plot to take over your commie left wing country
March 28th, 2008 at 8:42 am
I can’t resist after Russel’s comment
“The internet is not a big truck .. it’s a series of tubes”
And yeh Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, all bad, and not just recently. At least canada has secondary DSL providers. secondary cable providers would be good too for those out of the “DSL zone”
March 28th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Here is a copypasta from the e-mail sent to all Teksavvy customers:
Dear Customers,
As many of you may have heard of late, there have been quite a few
activities through Bell that have caused some negative performance on P2P
and BT traffic for us and all other DSL providers in Ontario and Québec.
TekSavvy is committed to fighting this injustice.
For more details on this matter, go to:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/teksavvy for various discussions.
In trying to bring a little bit of both humour and fun to this stressful
week, we sat down and came up with a fun event to hold/get us through this
challenging time!
We’ll be setting up a gaming server to be ready for Saturday morning.
Saturday and Sunday will be practice time only, BUT, as of Monday, March
31st, 9AM, until Sunday, April 6th, 5PM, we will hold a TF2 gamers
Challenge!
Lets call it, as a first competition, “Throttle This! Battle at the Big
Barn!”.
Rules and such are going to follow but, it will be for TSI DSL customers
only and the winner at the end of the week will receive $1,000 for kicking
A$$!
More to come on this…
To follow activities, rules and gaming details, go to
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20242138-Battle-at-the-Big-Barn
Regards,
Rocky
October 5th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Hello. And Bye.