Butterflies, Bell Canada and Google
p2pnet news view | P2P:- The Net makes the difference.
Have we said that before? Then it’s worth saying again: Online People2People Power is where it’s at.
At the end of the last century, Chaos Theory was all the rage, epitomised by the Butterfly Effect, a, “phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory,” explains the Wikipedia in a post accompanied by the illustration on the right.
“Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system,” it says. “So this is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.”
Another way of putting it might be: when a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the world, the accumulating repercussions might be dramatically felt on the other side.
What does that have to do with P2P? People are the butterflies and thanks to the Net, they’re now able to flap their wings in unison, a reality that’s having a marked effect on the Powers that Used To Be.
One example of this was the post from Ottawa Gal, an ordinary mother who in November last year became angry at the way in which Bell Canada was throttling the accounts of hundreds of thousands of its customers.
She wrote a story and I ran it.
p2pnet is by no means a major news outlet. It’s a tiny, one-man blog struggling to stay online. But the butterflies flapped their wings and months later, Ottawa Gal’s story was picked up by the mainstream media with the direct result Bell Canada, a staggeringly huge conglomerate whose revenues are in the billions of dollars, is now engaged in a battle not only for business, but for its credibility and, ultimately, its survival.
And it’s thanks to Ottawa Gal and all those other butterflies ………
Google maps and Blackberry maps
Yesterday, “I was given a few Email contacts at Google to see if I could get a comment for a news article I am doing for p2pnet.net, an online media site,” she said in an email, going on »»»
I was hoping someone within Google would take the time to respond for an article we wish to do, in relation to what is currently happening with Bell Canada wireless, and in relation to the comments made by Google’s CRTC intervention into Bell Canada’s throttling of wholesale internet providers.
Bell Canada employee’s have leaked information that Bell Canada plans on throttling free and 3rd party GPS applications on certain late-model Blackberries. This includes Google maps and Blackberry maps.
Needless to say the online community is raising a bit of a fuss about their preferred Google maps/GPS apps being throttled by upto 10-minutes for a GPS lock.
Bells new plan is to throttle all free and 3rd party GPS/map apps except for their own, which you have to buy separately and which will perform GPS locks in 15-20 seconds in order to make their product appear better and faster.
As the Wellington Financial website blog said (reference link below): “This is all but guaranteed when you rig the system such that no other application (free or otherwise) has equal access to the freely-available GPS signals floating through the air.”
Now this quote struck me because when I was following and reporting to p2pnet.net the events of the Bell Canada internet throttle and proceedings taking place, I recalled Googles reply to the The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) found here: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/public/partvii/2008/8622/c51_200805153_1/923481.pdf
Google said: “This proceeding offers the Commission an opportunity to start to draw a line against telecom measures that are not technologically and competitively neutral — protecting consumers, competition and innovation.”
Now this is precisely what is happening here with people preferred GPS apps being tossed into the slow lane.
Obviously with Google maps/GPS apps being throttled in favor of Bells own “GPS Nav” software, Bell Canada is more or less disregarding every one’s concerns in favor of selling their own product on the fast lane.
The method by which this throttle will occur is not very yet clear. Unlike in the United states where Telco’s have disabled GPS features at the software level (ref: http://forums.crackberry.com/f61/rim-says-8830-gps-autonomous-1921/), this doesn’t apparently appear to be the case with Bell, yet. For now it appears to be model specific that will be going in the slow lane.
It should be noted that Bell offered its employee’s (according to http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1435850) GPS Nav “free of charge for four months in order for them to try it and to be able to tell customers its the better/faster GPS app with locks in about 20-seconds, as opposed to 2-10 minutes for Google apps and other GPS apps.”
Does Google have any comments/statements on this current happening with Bell Mobile/wireless and the slowing down of Google maps by upto 10-minutes for a GPS lock that we can add to the online media website (p2pnet.net)?
Thanking you in advance ……………
References:
Source of the Leak by a Bell employee: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1435850“Confirmation” of the Leak by a Bell employee: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21152131-Mobile-Bell-will-be-throttling-free-Blackberry-GPS-Apps
A customer directly asking Bell about the GPS throttle in Bells own forum (no denial, no confirmation):
http://forums.bell.ca/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=97&sid=b8dc881f151c2ba99d4b2a210eb77f86Other sites carrying the news of the “confirmed” leak:
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/17098
http://www.wellingtonfund.com/blog/2008/09/23/bell-to-blackberry-users-pay-us-or-get-lost-literally/
http://wirelessnorth.ca/2008/09/24/yay-for-evil-bell-to-take-back-your-gps/
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3405/125/
http://www.neutrality.ca/index.php?option=com_extcon&task=view&eid=1&cid=3405
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Los Angeles Times – , September , 2008
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September 26th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Yeah, when I first read about this “strategy”, I was shocked.
I thought, “After everything that has happened, why would the new owners dive into something so blatantly anti-competitive?”
Then, I reminded myself of who was doing this. End of shock. (Lasted about 10 seconds.)
Bell.
New Ownership.
Same “FUCK YOU!” methodology.
September 26th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Well, there’s one app never to buy.