Canada Holds Hearings On ISP Throttling - After failing to protect smaller ISPs from Bell Canada
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Canada Holds Hearings On ISP Throttling
After failing to protect smaller ISPs from Bell Canada
01:57PM Tuesday Jul 07 2009 by Karl Bode
tags: legal · competition · business · bandwidth · Politics · world · networking · Bell Sympatico · TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
Tipped by cabana
Earlier this year, Bell Canada decided to start throttling the traffic of wholesale competitors before delivering it to them, and without telling them. While Bell claimed the move was to handle congestion, follow up inquiries showed little to no congestion -- leading to the assumption that Bell simply didn't want any competitors offering DSL service that was superior to their own, throttled DSL service.

Canadian regulators, mirroring the incumbent-friendly policies of their neighbors to the south, decided to do nothing to help smaller ISPs -- though the CRTC did promise a public hearing to discuss the issue further. That hearing started this week, and users in our Canadian broadband forums (see threads here and here) are discussing the event. Those interested can listen to a live audio stream here.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist also has a good breakdown of day one, which saw testimony from Juniper networks, Sandvine, and Canadian consumer advocacy groups.

Related:
  1. Bell Canada Seeks Death Blow For Indie ISPs
  2. Bell Canada: Throttling Aids Innovation
  3. Canadian Regulators Strangling Independent ISPs
  4. Wednesday Evening Links
  5. Indie Canadian ISPs Fight For Their Life
  6. CRTC Posts Private Data To Public Website
  7. Canadians Pine For CRTC's Destruction
  8. CRTC Blocks Canada's WIND Wireless Network
Links: New Topic
Forums »

Guspaz @ 7th Jul 01:06PM:
Better links

The real discussions seem to be split between these two threads:

»Day 2 of CRTC hearing now live
»Its the Traffic Management Super Bowl!

The one in Can Broadband is kind of dead.
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Matt @ 7th Jul 01:09PM:
Summarization?

Can anyone summarize what has happened so far? I don't have time to read through two 10+ page threads but I'd like to know what has happened.
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Ikarasu @ 7th Jul 01:11PM:
Re: Summarization?

»michaelgeist.ca/

Has a nice summary. It's still a pretty huge page... but it's far from 10 pages ;) Day 1 is summarized only for now I think (Not whats gone on today)
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Matt @ 7th Jul 01:11PM:
Re: Summarization?

That'll do nicely. Thanks!
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S_engineer @ 7th Jul 01:11PM:
Lets see....

if we can get all of North America to third world broadband status by 2015. These two regulatory bodies have completely sold out to the interests of carriers, not the citizens. With so much going wrong in the world, this was the one area we could have excelled at as a continent. What a shame!
--
BF69~~~Please stop suffocating gerbils!

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me1212 @ 7th Jul 01:30PM:
....

They can throttle all they want, but when they do it to competitor so they cannot offer better internet that is when bell Canada should face legal action and be FORCED to stop,
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n2jtx @ 7th Jul 01:35PM:
Prediction

There will be a lot of hemming and hawing but in the end, NOTHING WILL CHANGE. The politicians will have pulled off the illusion that they are actually doing something and ISP's will skate free with nothing more than perhaps a "bad puppy" statement.
--
I support the right to keep and arm bears.

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anon @ 7th Jul 01:58PM:
wow

are you listening to these people? wow, why do people who have no idea of how the internet works have the power to decide the future of ISP etc... sigh this is frustrating
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r81984 @ 7th Jul 02:27PM:
Why would they listen to...

Why would they even listen to Sandvine. All that company wants to do is make money and will say anything to protect their business. They are too biased for their opinion to be credible.

Sandvine gave examples of why we should allow restricted internet because we need Qos for Voip, emergencies, blah blah blah.

All I have to say is what gives them the right to say someones phone traffic or whatever is more important than someones video stream???
--
For those of you playing a drinking game.... MY FRIENDS!

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backness @ 7th Jul 02:59PM:
Karl, Please...

Re post this tomorrow when the transcript of what the high ups at the CRTC know about the internet is out.

There are some great headlines we are missing on this debate!

One example is the chair has no idea the difference between pppoe and IP.

The list goes on and on, and will make for some great headlines!

Edit: forgot words
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MaynardKrebs @ 7th Jul 03:17PM:
Re: Summarization?

said by Matt :

Can anyone summarize what has happened so far? I don't have time to read through two 10+ page threads but I'd like to know what has happened.

If you're getting sold a 'line' with advertised upload/download speeds, you are entitled to use that full speed in either direction. If Bell can't handle that, then they they are committing consumer fraud.

That's all the CRTC needs to know to eliminate DPI and throttle.
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adisor19 @ 7th Jul 03:44PM:
Re: Karl, Please...

I second your request. We need to show the world that this is all a political circus where the pple actually doing the "inquiring" have no technical knowledge whatsoever and therefor no clue about what impact their decisions have.

Adi
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El Quintron @ 7th Jul 03:44PM:
Anticipations...

I'm actually amazed at the amount of information getting out in these hearings.

I don't have any expectations for the outcome either way but hopefully more media attention, and better PR for NN can't hurt.
--
Working to bring you closer to a Bell and Rogers free household.

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cpsycho @ 7th Jul 04:02PM:
....

I love how the industry has their own self regulated body that handles complaints.

What is this country coming too.
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Thane_Bitter @ 7th Jul 04:26PM:
Re: ....

said by cpsycho :

I love how the industry has their own self regulated body that handles complaints.
Unfortunately the Group that handles the complaints (CCTS) has a high complaint rate for not acting on complaints; therefore a new complaint-complaint group is needed.

Someone should ask Leonard Katz if he has every tried to file a complaint with CCTS and more importantly if the CCTS every accepted to investigate it?
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sonicmerlin @ 7th Jul 04:49PM:
LoL

This person's comment summarizes the whole situation:

"Is very difficult for someone like me who is not a technician..."
And you're governing this shit, or having any sort of voice in it??

I feel terrible for Canadians. Their entire broadband industry is regulated by complete idiots with no basic understanding of how the internet actually works. The questions proposed the CRTC indicated a predisposed leaning towards the incumbents. It's sad really.

I'm curious though, who holds the majority in the Canadian Congress? Conservatives or liberals?
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mazhurg @ 7th Jul 04:53PM:
Re: LoL

said by sonicmerlin :

I'm curious though, who holds the majority in the Canadian Congress? Conservatives or liberals?
Don't have such a beast.
--
"Vision without funds....
is a hallucination"

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anon @ 7th Jul 05:53PM:
Archive of the Hearings

»techd.org/crtc/
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anon @ 7th Jul 06:21PM:
The rationale for the behaviour of our ISPs is two-pronged..

1. They want to manufacture a bandwidth crisis so that they can cap the Internet and then sell us any "overages" with an exponential mark-up. If there really is a crisis, they should be forced to prove it and be forced to open their books to the public so that we're able to regulate the rate at which they sell excess bandwidth. If they genuinely can't afford to provide us with unmetred access, they should be forced to sell us the overages at cost.

2. ISPs should exclusively be in the business of providing Internet access and running the facilities and infrastructures that provide us with our access. They should not be able to provide Internet users with content, as doing so would create an incentive for prioritizing their content at the expense of others. Content should be provided by other companies and individuals so as to prevent such a conflict of interest. Any bundles or arrangements with third-party content providers should not favour traffic pertaining to these arrangements at the expense of other traffic.

As an aside, I support regulating the Internet in Canada. But I only support specific types of regulations. Content regulations that aim to censor or to reward the cultural elites are definite no-nos, but regulations that protect customers from being gouged and that control the behaviors of ISPs wrt access and infrastructure are absolutely necessary.
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SuperWISP @ 7th Jul 09:42PM:
This article is incorrect.

Bell Canada is not throttling bandwidth "before" delivering it to competitors. It's throttling the DSL system to prevent overload and abuse.
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shoegazer @ 7th Jul 10:03PM:
Re: The rationale for the behaviour of our ISPs is two-pronged..

off topic-pandora sent me a e-mail today saying that i was now on a meter and i was limited to 40 hrs a month,or pay 1$ for overage per month or 36$ a year for unlimited and no ads,and on my credit card. i did not know i was lisening that much. i guess its going to be 40 hours a month because i like pandora.also they will warn me when i get close to max with a meter.so far its not activated yet. i guess this is the begining of the end of the world..
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nick_nack @ 7th Jul 10:21PM:
Re: This article is incorrect.

Coincidentally, its own video over IP services are exempt because they do not contribute to overload or abuse.
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cpsycho @ 7th Jul 10:41PM:
Re: This article is incorrect.

youtube has higher bandwidth consumption then p2p now. So what they throttle youtube next? Seriously! We all know Bell(the greedy bastages) are not in the tanker when it comes to load on their systems. Not showing the evidence and saying its private, we all know they are lying their faces off.

Oh, I dare them to throttle youtube, google would be so up in their face about it, it's not even funny.

The CRTC needs to get with the program, just them talking about stuff, to me seems they are un-educated, but also say they are educated.

The only thing the CRTC is educated in is, back scratching and money.
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n2jtx @ 8th Jul 07:52AM:
Re: The rationale for the behaviour of our ISPs is two-pronged..

said by shoegazer :

off topic-pandora sent me a e-mail today saying that i was now on a meter and i was limited to 40 hrs a month,or pay 1$ for overage per month or 36$ a year for unlimited and no ads,and on my credit card. i did not know i was lisening that much. i guess its going to be 40 hours a month because i like pandora.also they will warn me when i get close to max with a meter.so far its not activated yet. i guess this is the begining of the end of the world..
That is due to a royalty settlement just hammered out between the Internet radio broadcasters and the artists union (or RIAA or some other RICO type outfit).
--
I support the right to keep and arm bears.

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El Quintron @ 9th Jul 08:12AM:
Re: This article is incorrect.

Please guys DNFTT...

According to SuperWISP all ISPs are holy, and only want what's best for the consumer. Raping your pocket book, denying you access, and keeping this and our brothers down south in an IT backwater is good for us and is what Jesus would have wanted.
--
Working to bring you closer to a Bell and Rogers free household.

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