Bell Canada ‘throttling’ submission: CBC
p2pnet news Freedom:- | P2P:- The CRTC expects to rule in September on whether or not Bell violated wholesale requirements under the Telecommunications Act.
Meanwhile, a larger probe into net neutrality is inevitable, CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) chairman Konrad von Finckenstein says, according to the CBC.
Bell was ordered by the CRTC to publicly reveal levels of congestion it says ultimately resulted in its bandwidth throttling practices by June 23.
p2pnet reported the full submission on Tuesday and now, “The data, made public on Wednesday, showed that between 2.6 and 5.2 per cent of the links that make up Bell’s network in Ontario and Quebec experienced congestion between March 2007 and April 2008,” says the story.
It goes on Bell maintains, “while these numbers may seem low to the average lay person, they are significant to network traffic engineers such that it is important to consider the number of congested links in the proper context.”
If only a single link in the network is congested, “end users may still experience slowdowns or dropped connections, the company said, because the situation is similar to the road system – where if one major artery is backed up, all connected roads will also have problems,” it says.
The attempts at justification for bandwidth shaping, which amounts to online censorship and a full frontal attack on net neutrality, followed complaints to the CRTC by CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) which represents 55 smaller ISPs who are Bell clients and who buy portions of Bell’s network so they can supply their own customers with services.
Bell has been using its chief of regulatory affairs, Mirko Bibic, as the front man in trying to blame alleged congestion on P2P file-sharers who, the company says, comprise only 5% of its consumer base.
But as Ottawa Gal pointed out in April, quoting Danny McPherson, CTO of Arbor Networks which makes network-management and traffic-shaping tools used by more than 70% of the ISPs around the world:
- 20% of traffic comes from P2P applications
- During peak-load times, 70% of subscribers use http.
- Only 20% are using P2P
- Http still makes up most of the total traffic, of which 45% is traditional web content including text and images.
- Streaming video and audio content from services such as YouTube account for nearly 50% of the http traffic.
- Streaming content such as TV shows and YouTube is on the rise.
Bell started bandwith throttling in November, “during peak hours of peer-to-peer programs used by subscribers to its Sympatico internet service,” says the CBC, continuing:
“The company then extended the process to its wholesale internet customers in March. The company said it needed to institute the throttling because a small number of users were causing congestion on its network.”
In a May 29 filing, “Bell provided documents that said about 700,000 of its customers would have faced slow-downs or dropped connections if it hadn’t instituted throttling. Citing competitive reasons, Bell filed much of the data in confidence with the CRTC.
“While the CRTC ordered some of those figures be made public, there is still too much left secret for observers to be able to come to any definitive conclusions about the level of congestion on Bell’s network, said Tom Copeland, president of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers. The figures still do not show where there is possible congestion or at what times of day.”
Interested parties, other than Bell and the association of internet providers, now have until July 3 to file submissions on the issue with the CRTC, says the story, adding:
“So far, the internet providers association has attracted support from a broad range of parties, with submissions made by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Association of Voice Over IP Providers, Quebec’s l’Union des consommateurs, Skype Communications, the University of Western Ontario, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, internet content companies TCPub Media and Kaboose Inc., and service providers Wireless Nomad and Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc.
“Bell, on the other hand, has found support in the form of a filing by network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc.”
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.Stumble It!
CBC – Bell still hasn’t proven need for internet throttling: critics, June 25, 2008
full submission – Bell Canada response to CRTC throttling probe, June 24, 2008
trying to blame – Bell Canada tries to justify throttling, April 11, 2008
pointed out in April – Bell Canada’s ‘5% of users’ claim trashed, April 25, 2008
bandwith throttling in November -Bell Sympatico P2P Black List, November 3, 2007
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June 26th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Actually the CBC is wrong. Bell started throttling in October.