New Shaw BT throttling claims
p2p news / p2pnet: Charges that Canada’s Shaw cable is using traffic-shaping surfaced earlier this year, at the same time lending emphasis to the tiny but ultra-useful Rodi p2p client/host implemented in pure Java to, “serve the filesharing community with fast data delivery and serve the Open Source community by facilitating faster software deployment.
Dslreports’ Karl Bode reported Shaw had allegedly green-lighted an Ellacoya switch to limit BitTorrent traffic at various hubs on the Shaw network.
This was in British Columbia, p2pnet’s home province.
Now, “There have been reports that they are rolling it out to Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg,” says news.fudu.org.
“Ellacoya’s technology works by “deep packet inspection” which is a type of firewall that’s super-intelligent. That is, it doesn’t just know about IP and TCP or UDP ports, it can also look inside the packet and see if it’s FTP, HTTP, Bittorrent, kazaa, and etc. Therefore, it’s not affected by port numbers. This technology, while impressive, is not perfect. It can mis-identify packets, and requires constant upgrades to keep track of all potential types of data traversing the internet, of which there are many, and the possibility to create a new one today exists.”
The poster finds Shaw’s actions “completely reprehensible,” going on, “I do not pay for ‘Xtreme-I’ service because i want slow Bittorrent uploads. I pay because i want the speed they advertise. If their network is not capable of providing the service they are selling me, is would expect them to upgrade their network. Afterall, Shaw made about $160 million income on revenues of about $2.2 billion in FY2005 (see the Q4 2005 report (PDF)).
“And even if the economics are such that they must cap, lying about it is completely unacceptable. I have contacted Shaw about this issue and so far, have received completely unsatisfactory responses, which can be summarized as “The problems are definitely not Shaw’s that’s for sure. Oh, and go suck a lemon.”
If you dont have bittorrent caps now, enjoy it while it lasts, says f udo.org. “The limiter is coming.
The question now is: what can we, the Shaw customers, actually DO about this?”
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
traffic-shaping – Is Shaw throttling BT?, April 7, 2005
Rodi p2p – More help needed with Rodi, June 22, 2055
Karl Bode – Shaw Throttling Bit Torrent?, April 7, 2005
fudu.org – Shaw secretly limits BitTorrent uploads, November 7, 2005
actually DO – Shaw throttling – ‘the fix!’, April 11, 2005
November 9th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
There are several things that can be done.
1. Complain. Give them two months to provide the speed advertised and threaten to quit using their service if they don’t.
2. Make good on you threat to quit their service if they haven’t straightened out the problem.
3. Start and use FreeWan Cell for your filesharing needs. Dialup can be used for many other needs if you are not an avid web surfer or if you do not transfer large amounts of data.
4. Satelite Internet service is goo if you do not play games or chat much online. Lagging can be a problem if you do those things.
November 9th, 2005 at 8:53 pm
Don’t look to CSRs being aware of this, much less admitting to it. This is the sneaky work of upper management coming up with ‘solutions’ to save the company millions in bandwidth costs. Your paying for this bandwidth is the least of their concerns, profitability is all that counts.
November 9th, 2005 at 9:34 pm
I like this site, but stop quoting Gandhi.
November 10th, 2005 at 12:01 am
I used to have a whole bunch of different quotes but finding new ones got to be a real chore. And the Gandhi one sums it up nicely (for me, anyhow ; )
Cheers!