p2pnet - rss feed: New Bell Canada scandal looms
p2pnet news | P2P:- Canada’s largest ISP, Bell Canada, is powering ahead with its traffic shaping ‘traffic management’ plan.
It might have been a virtual fait accompli by now had not p2pnet’s ‘Ottawa Gal,’ and Canadian ISP TekSavvy first blown the whistle in November, 2007.
With the story now receiving widespread coverage, p2pnet has unconfirmed reports a new explosion is ready to occur, and one with even more severe implications for net neutrality.
The explosion will include a stop-sell on Bell’s current $25 Unlimited Usage Plan, says an official March 13 document seen by p2pnet.
It states >>>
The Unlimited Usage Plan will still be available in your ordering tools until further notice; however, we ask that you not sell this plan to a customer under any circumstance. All incentives/payouts related to selling this plan are being discontinued.
If a customer insists on receiving unlimited usage, please soft transfer them immediately to the SCS Usage Queue via the A2A transfer application.
Please note that the 30 GB Usage Insurance Plan @ $10/month remains available to High Speed, Ultra, Performance, Optimax & Max customers.
‘… similar traffic management for our wholesale’
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has given its Go-Ahead to a $52-billion leveraged buyout of Bell Canada parent BCE.
But uncertainty continues to cloud the deal, “amid the global credit crunch,” says the Financial Post.
With this in the background, Bell Canada is still throttling P2P file sharers claiming its ‘traffic management scheme,’ which effectively sabotages any hopes of net neutrality for Bell customers, was introduced in 2007, “for our Sympatico residential customers during peak periods of Internet usage (4:30 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.) to ensure we deliver bandwidth fairly to all customers during peak Internet usage,” says John Sweeney, senior VP, carrier services, in a letter to clients.
“[…] we initiated similar traffic management for our wholesale users as well,” he states.
Last week, “They’re now openly acknowledging that they are rolling out a full throttling process,” said TekSavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault (right), going on >>>
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.
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,” he goes on. There’s now officially an issue and action must be taken by all if we’re to rectify things.”
Said 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.
Employees already being trained
At the moment, Bell Canada users can in effect take the throttle off the caps by paying an extra $25 a month.
But that’ll stop in April, after which user fees could skyrocket.
Employees are already being trained to deal with the expected explosion, says Bell in its March 13 document >>>
If a customer expects that they will use more than what is included in our plans – move to step 3
Step #3: Offer a solution – the Usage Insurance Plan
Example:
“Mr/Mrs customer, given your downloading and uploading needs, I understand that you are concerned with the amount of Internet usage included in this plan. For only $10 a month, we can offer you a Usage Insurance Plan. This plan will allow you to upload and download an additional 30GB a month, without having to sign a contract. This would bring your total monthly available usage to [insert current usage included in plan + 30GB]. Does this sound like something you would be interested in?
Don’t forget that you can always monitor your usage online at www.bell.ca/internetusage. This tool will allow you to check how close you are to reaching the amount of usage included in your plan.”
Bell Canada will have to impose throttling on client ISPs to prevent a mass loss of users when the storm hits.
In other words, the company will have to have all resellers firmly under company control by the 7th, if indeed that is the cut-off date.
The last thing Bell Canada wants, especially with the sale of the company front and centre, is for even more users to jump ship to the likes of TekSavvy, as they’ve been doing recently, especially since the mainstream media have now picked up the story.
Ironically, with the throttling fiasco still gathering steam, congratulations are in order for Rocky Gaudrault, co-owner of TekSavvy and his brother, Marc.
Their home base is in Chatham, Ontario, and there, they’ve been named entrepreneurs of the year.
Where’s the irony
Bell Canada is the sponsor.
TekSavvy users are, meanwhile, gearing up for the Battle at the Big Barn!
Definitely stay tuned
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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March 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I would just like you and your readers to know that the Jason Laszlo, spokesman for Bell in Toronto, has made some comments on his (now deleted as of this morning) facebook account that show his true feelings toward the issue of net neutrality, and by extension, Bell Canada’s feelings as well.
Source:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20247550-Jason-Laszlo-Bell-spokesmans-real-thoughts-on-this-issue~start=100
March 30th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Nice article. Bell is engaged in illegal, anti-competitive behaviour if you ask me.
March 30th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
“Don’t attack the Bell PR guys. Attack the fucking company. The question is how do we attack a public company?
Do we go after the CEO or president? Do we go after the Headquarter?
The first and most efficient way is to spread a massive boycott.
March 30th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I can see how this would happen with all ISPs. ISPs generally over subscribe their customers so that they can make more on their infrastructure. It’s kind of shady for sure, but I guess it’s the only way to be able to make money. A few years ago, people weren’t doing all the stuff on the internet that they are now like youtube and bittorrents. They were doing mp3s, but not to the same extent that people are now. I’ve actually worked on bandwidth servers, which we had to impliment on a wireless isp to improve everyones overall performance. I guess bell could argu that they are doing it for the overall benifit of everyone using their service.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:11 am
These ISPs may take an enlightened approach to P2P by implementing caching servers within their networks. That way P2P traffic could be cached and forwarded to their own customers through an ISP’s own internal network rather than directly over the Internet. I don’t know if such caching servers exist yet, but I would expect that when they do become a reality, it will be the smaller ISPs adopting them, not the behemoths like Bell or Rogers.
March 31st, 2008 at 8:49 am
Collaboration from the p2p software is needed too - software must choose peers that have least hops between them. This way, it should significantly decrease the load on ISP transit lines (there was another proposal that ISPs make topology information available to p2p clients, but measuring the number of hops with traceroute is just easier to automate). I am not mentioning this approach would decrease the risk of being nailed by riaafags who are not on the same network as you, if you are more likely to select peers among the other customers of your ISP.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:43 pm
We are now bell less, the thing is rogers is going to cap internet usage starting in june. 40 some canuck bucks for 60gig.
Time to go back to peoplepc.com!
March 31st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
You cant just jump to another ISP because between Rogers and Bell they own the network your ISP is trying to communicate across. That is the real issue because there is no real choices.
Bell has decided to reduce the internet in Canada to the lowest common denominator. Check out the 5 year satisfaction numbers on DSLreports.com. You will see a consistently bad numbers that get even worse.
March 31st, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Bell claims it needs to throttle to satisfy the the non-p2p users who supposedly have slow web page loading during peak hours, yet when I first inquired about DSL I was told that, unlike Videotron cable, there is no slowdown due to neighborhood bandwidth hogging.
I am paying for a promised transfer rate with no prior agreement that certain usage may be throttled, so in my opinion they are in default of an implied contract. I am sure there is a clause in the fine print that allows them to get away with this.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:23 am
Robert Soul Says:
“I was told that, unlike Videotron cable, there is no slowdown due to neighborhood bandwidth hogging.”
Thats Bells false advertizing that industry Canada allows!
I’m w/ videotron and I can sum it up in one word, FAST! Make the move, you won’t be disappointed.
I had the same fear, but its “shared”, slow, I never had peak time usage speed problems. ever. With their docsis 3 they have more than enough.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:44 am
When I called up Bell to find out why my Bell ISP-line is being cut off sometimes and why the slowness at times when it finally comes back, they gave me all kinds of mumbo jumbo and that a technician has to come around to fix it for me, and that it will cost me over $70 extra for the repairs - till I saw an article about it…. and figure it out that it wasn’t my house connection or any faulty wires as they proposed… why are they denying it, do they really think that people are so daft and never read the news? This sounds like we’re getting controlled in some way or the other. Since I’ve got a contract for a couple of years, apparently I can’t get out of it unless I pay up to the end of the contract… time for a class action suit for false advertisement!!