Bell Canada: ‘It’s MY ball ! So THERE!’
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- “Check this out,” says Edgar_man_boy on dslreports. www.bce.ca/en/news/releases/corp···111.html …”
“Thanks for the joke,” says early squirrel, “Needed one this morning !” going on to quote from BCE appeals CRTC decision that discourages investment in next-generation networks, the title to the ‘press release’ the url leads to.
Put out by Bell Canada on March 12, it states »»»
BCE asked the cabinet yesterday to address its request on an urgent basis in order to avoid putting a damper on innovation and productivity by interfering with the very investments needed to foster economic recovery, such as those being undertaken by Bell and other telecom companies.
“If anyone still thought the CRTC was an independant regulator and didn’t believe that government would influence CRTC decisions, then the above paragraph should set you straight,” says early squirrel, adding »»»
It is very sad to see Bell stoop so low. It is even sadder to know that the Harper-Ignatief coalition will just accept BCE’s arguments as fact and not even debate them.
Whether a node (DSLAM) is in a CO or on some street corner should not make any difference on a legal level.
And whether a DSLAM is connected via Fibre, or just two strings (need full duplex !) between 2 tin cans makes no difference.
And the biggest irony is that logically, Bell should want all independants on the newer technology to help pay for it.
The real story here is that Bell is underprovisioning DSLAMS, and it knows it. One way to reduce the loads (and keep some ports available for sympatico customers) is to prevent competitors using the better equipment.
Says Electronista »»»
Bell may refuse to upgrade to next-generation networks if the Canadian government does not concede to demands, a statement from the company proposes. The country’s telecommunications regulator, the CRTC, recently issued a ruling that would require the company to open up its next-generation networks to competitors. Bell is only one of two national Internet service providers in Canada however, and would likely gain no more than diminished profits if forced to cope with competition.
The company is currently in the process of upgrading its network with “fiber to the node” technology, which may significantly increase the speed of its Internet access. But by “regulating who can sell our next-generation network services and how,” claims Bell Residential Services president Kevin Crull, “the CRTC decision alters the financial case for the $700 million we are investing in accelerating the deployment of our next-generation fibre over the next three years and puts further investment at risk.”
The ISP further argues that the CRTC risks creating a “new urban digital divide,” and harming the Canadian economy by instigating a slowdown. Critics of Bell charge that unless competitors are allowed to gain a foothold in the market through existing infrastructure, it may be impossible for them to afford the cost of building their own separate networks. More competition may also be necessary for customers looking for services without bandwidth caps or throttling.
’It’s my ball and no one can play with it!! Whhaaa!!’
That’s how p2pnet’s Ottawa Gal summed the situation up, and at this point I have to publicly apologise to her. She sent this when the news broke, but I missed the email.
Sorry, OG. 
She went on »»»
Around June 19, 2008, a Canadian ISP by the name of Cybersurf filed with the CRTC to force the big Telco’s, ie Bell Canada et al, to give the small wholesale ISP’s access to the faster tiers to sell to consumers.
Refer to http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2008/8622/c122_200808785.htm
The big telco’s more or less have a monopolistic lock on higher speed tiers that people can get by only dealing with and changing ISPs to the bigTelco’s. A few small wholesale ISPs have their own equipment in place, in small or isolated areas, but costs are prohibitive to reach out.
The CRTC decided Bell et al are to submit pricing for these speed tiers.
On December 11, 2008, the CRTC said (Telecom Decision 2008-117): http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2008/dt2008-117.htm
“Conclusion: The Commission approves Cybersurf’s application in part. The Commission directs that the ILECs subject to this Decision, namely Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, MTS Allstream, SaskTel, and TCC, consult with their aggregated ADSL customers and file, within 45 days of the date of this Decision, proposed revised tariff pages to include any matching-speed with respect to existing retail service speeds offering where there is demand by any such customer. The Commission also directs that upon the introduction of a new retail Internet service speed by any such ILEC, the ILEC in question is to file at the same date proposed revised tariff pages for wholesale aggregated ADSL services at the same speed.”
Bell et al filed with the CRTC and basically said the agreement to give access and pricing to the small wholesale ISPs was based on copper facilities not fiber.
But Bell et al don’t not have pure fiber (FTTH) in place. Rather, it’s fiber to the node (FTTN) and the balance is all copper. Bell argued this small section of fiber allows them to not give access or even pricing.
Basically, ‘if we have fiber anywhere, we don’t have to give pricing and access since it’s not 100% pure copper’.
On March 3, 2009, the CRTC again told Bell et al they have to file pricing and speed matches for wholesale.
Cybersurf’s application related to the implementation of Telecom Decision 2008-117 regarding the matching speed requirement: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-111.htm
“Commission’s analysis and determinations: The Commission considers that Bell Canada’s interpretation of Telecom Decision 2008-117 is unduly narrow and would render the requirements of that decision virtually meaningless.
The Commission’s reference to “copper facilities” in paragraph 22 of Telecom Decision 2008-117 means that to the extent the service is provided over a path that includes copper facilities, it’s subject to the requirements of the decision.
“In light of the above, the Commission directs the ILECs to comply with the requirements of Telecom Decision 2008-117, having regard to the clarification set out in this order. With respect to existing retail service speeds, where there is demand by a competitor for a matching wholesale aggregated ADSL service from an ILEC, that ILEC is directed to file proposed revised tariff pages for that service speed pursuant to Telecom Decision 2008-117 within 10 days from the date of this order.”
Ottawa Gal goes on to quote the March 12 Bell puff piece, adding »»»
So in other words, if this decision stands, and if Bell can’t control who they will grant access to their faster speeds (instead of equal accesss), Bell will be looking at slowing down the installation of faster speed teirs all together.
Sounds like a threat to the CRTC in my opinion.
Will Bell get to keep a tight monopolistic type lock on Canadian internet structure and speeds?
Will the CRTC force them to comply?
Will Bell go to court over this?
Will the small home-grown ISP wholesalers (that the people are running to) have a chance to offer higher speeds to Canadians?
Will Canadians have access to the ISP of their choosing with the speed and price they are comfortable paying for?
Stay tuned.
dslreports – Bell appeals CRTC decision, March 12, 2009
Electronista – Bell threatens to withhold network upgrades, March 13, 2009
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March 14th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Surely, it’s time to get out the placards and the molotov cocktails now?!
For more than a decade, Bell has been staging nothing short of a war against the Canadian consumer, and the competition that would level the playing field. They’ve wasted public money, breached customer contracts and broken every (supposed) law imaginable, and successfully sabotaged the development of Canada’s broadband to a point that it can’t even compete with most third world countries!
The time has come.
We need to burn this company to the ground.
Period.
March 14th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I would love to know how much of Bell’s network was funded by them and how much was funded by various tax breaks, incentives and other Government handouts? Just how much of Bell’s network was paid for by us via our taxes?
Certain services should not be run by private, for profit corporations that have shareholders to answer to. Anything that can be seen as a utility should be either government owned or run by a non-profit org that is watched by the public. This is the only way that the public can be reasonably sure that it is being served properly and fairly.
I live across the street from the CO in my little town. Well, it’s a couple big brown boxes, but that is neither here nor there. The techs that work on the box have shown me in the past that the box is provisioned for and has the needed hardware for DSL and the only thing that needs to be done is for some peon in a corner office to say “Flip the switch.”
I’ve been waiting 5 years, the entire time paying $70 a month (CDN) for wireless service that is, at best, 1Mbit and has latency issues that make VoIP and online gaming all but useless.
March 14th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I also have to deal with sadly diminishing speeds at work where we have a VLAN DSL (think a DSL line with no PPPoE that is plugged straight into to provider’s core router). We were provisioned for 6Mbit and had that for a number of years, but it has dropped to 3Mbit on a good day (1.5Mbit if the kiddies aren’t in school). The problem is certainly capacity. This one I took straight to the office of the VP and was assured that, unequivocally that Bell was very interested in my story and the problems I was having. It’s been a year and nothing has been done, not that I was expecting anything.
At least he was nice to me as he was lying to me.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Je me souviens
@ Devil’s Advocate:
“Bell has been staging nothing short of a war against the Canadian consumer” “Theyâve.., breached customer contracts and broken every (supposed) law imaginable”.
Go to Bells own forum at http://forums.bell.ca Look in the “General” forum or use their search for “instinct”.
Its not just internet they fucked people on. They fucked the poeple on internet, phone and mobile.
=====================
@Tinfoil:
“At least he was nice to me as he was lying to me.”
Je me souviens.
Not to me.
When I had issues, both phone and internet, and then a real life crisis occurred needing hospitalization (my phone failing while calling for help multi-times after me asking Bell to fix my phone and internet for weeks), I blasted the VP (Kevin Crull, kevin.crull@bell.ca) and tossed their CRTC statistics that “used” to be on the BCE corporate site (2-days to repair, 99.9% uptime) in their face when I was out of the hospital.
I was told by the Bell VP, “You are just a statistical outlier and not included in the stats”.
This was the last time. The time before that I had issues from about September till they fixed it in December.
Remember me Bell?
I remember YOU Bell. Je me souviens. Bein.
March 15th, 2009 at 1:36 am
wheres the favourite bell customer on this travesty?
March 15th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
AND IM gonna add
as i worked for 8 years paying a 1100 $ in taxes a MONTH
that means DUMASS ive paid for 16 years a welfare
so be warned i know you and heres your famous quote that will send him crazy
“bell is not going ot honor your contract, PERIOD”
ya know the guy that i taped ….
March 15th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Time to nationalize Bell’s infrastructure.