This morning, Nora interviewed Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada’s Chief of Regulatory Affairs:
Play audio:
You can listen above, or download the mp3. A shorter version of this interview will air on the April 16 & 19 episode of Spark. Special thanks to everyone who left questions for Mr. Bibic on the What would you ask Bell? post.
Alright, throttling is fine then? I’ll be sure to throttle my last bill to Bell over the period of a year.
Nice interview. You gave BS 8+ minutes to state his side of the issues.
Question, when are you going to allow an inde ISP like TekSavvey or even better let CAIP (http://www.cata.ca/Communities/caip/) represent the other side of the issues?
Santo
5% of their users user 50% of the available bandwidth, and 60% of what they use is p2p…
100% * .5 = 50%
50% * .6 = 30%
Ergo 5% of users use 30% of the available bandwidth on p2p.
Thats a far cry from the 5% using 95% of the bandwidth that they quoted 2 weeks ago.
Throttling itself isn’t evil. If you’re congested it’s better to slow down a download than to let VoIP stutter.
The problem is these wholesale ISPs have the capacity to handle both, and had no congestion problems, and have throttling imposed on them.
I’m disappointed that there was no explanation of why these particular wholesalers were throttled. And no explanation why wholesalers were throttled at all, since they provide their own transit. Some sort of explanation of the load conditions at the DSLAMs would have done.
@Lance,
Thanks for taking the time to listen to the whole extended interview. I certainly understand your interest in the independent ISP question. I considered delving into it more, but our feeling was that CBC’s flagship daily current affairs show, The Current, has already done an extensive piece on this issue, which is available online at
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2008/200804/20080411.html
Mr. Bibic also addressed the throttling of independent ISPs himself in this Montreal Gazette article/audio:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/story.html?id=eaa844f4-97b4-4b8e-be36-6228b302a192&k=96997
Considering that prior coverage, and considering time constraints for the interview, we thought it was better to focus on some of the broader policy issues around net neutrality and conflict of interest, particularly since they have the potential to affect a very large part of our audience.
Again, thanks for listening. ny
The real issue is that Bell is a PRIVATE corporation. Thus it will always act in its own interests, the interests of its shareholders. Not the PUBLIC interest. This is recognized fact, and is the reasoning behind the CRTC regulatory agency. Accept that the regulatory agency is observably, useless.
Bell has received massive government subsidy over the years because it is recognized that they provide an important maybe even an ESSENTIAL service.
Perhaps we should do what we’ve done with other essential services. Make them public. Nationalize them. It worked for SaskTel didn’t it? They don’t pay nearly what we pay here in Ontario for the vast majority of communication services. Cut the profit out of the equation. Leave the share holders high and dry, and the internet free and clear.
Here’s a little hypothetical… What if all the money that Bell made in Profit went into upgrading their internet infrastructure, every quarter? Do you think we’d have the same issues here?
We should be the ones deciding what a “reasoned approach” is… Not Mr.Bibic
Who is Bell or Rogers to decide what traffic should or shouldn’t be shaped? The “network management issue” should be resolved by the users of the network, who ought to have some say in how that network is run.
Mr Bibic, and his “balanced approach” are elitist solutions, made in the interest of Bell, and not in the interests of the Canadian Citizens who use Bell services. Again and again, the institutional tendencies will be toward a less free internet as long as corporations are at the helm.
Property of all kinds is based on the idea of exclusion. What is mine IS NOT yours. It is the legal/social distinction between what is MINE and what is YOURS that forms the basis of our capitalist society. The internet can and should be a refuge from this, but that can never be as long as corporations like Bell are allowed to treat the internet like it’s THEIRS and not OURS!!!
The internet can only truly be ours, if these corporations are ours. It’s that simple. When Bibic says “the market has done a good job” he means that it’s done a good job for HIM and HIS COMPANY, not for US, the users.
I think Bibic is right about two things; we do need to have a broader public policy debate about these issues, and we can’t “regulate our way there”. Where we probably differ is that I, and many others, see companies like Bell as the problem. Would Bell respect that spectrum of opinion? or would they shape the packets so to speak?
Equal access to the internet, and equality of the internet experience should be a right of Canadian CITIZENS. As long as Bell is in charge, we’ll be treated as “customers”, not Citizens of a democratic country. As long as Bell is in charge it will be FIBRE before FARMERS just like Nora talked about.
I know these solutions are radical. I know they require challenging the neo-liberal hegemony that allows people like Bibic to make fucking us over sound like common sense. But really people, if not now? When? How far are we going to let them take this?
I have gone on far too long… I had better click POST before my ISP figures out what i am writing and shapes me right out of existence.
Users buy a private dsl line at a specified bandwidth rate. Why does their usage have any effect whatsoever on me if my line is supposedly private too?
Also, how do consumers convey their wants and needs when there is no choice of providers? In the West we have Shaw and Telus, in the East we have Bell and Rogers. As long as they implement restrictions slowly what choice is there?
No, the ISPs have control, not consumers.
you know, I had a whole long post prepared, then I heard the last bit.
Bibic said that some, not all of their wholesale isps are being “managed”. As a customer of one of those Isp’s, I’d like to know if I’m being subjected to bells practices.
My issue now is that I pay a small ISP for services as outlined in our contract. Then you force your policy on me.
I am not your customer, and you should have no right to break the contract made between me and my ISP.
A list of ISPs you are meddling with (provided it wasn’t just PR lies)must be provided if you are to allow differentiation in the marketplace. How can I make an informed decision if you’re back room policies are preventing me from being informed?
I dont agree with your policies, but should CAIP’s complaint to the CRTC fail, and you do decide to muck with our infrastructure(correct, ours, not bells, they can own it if they decide to pay back all the government subsidies they’ve gladly taken over the years)the least you can offer the public is a full list of ISPs being throttled.
sincerely,
part of that 5%.
you know, I had a whole long post prepared, then I heard the last bit.
Bibic said that some, not all of their wholesale isps are being “managed”. As a customer of one of those Isp’s, I’d like to know if I’m being subjected to bells practices.
My issue now is that I pay a small ISP for services as outlined in our contract. Then you force your policy on me.
I am not your customer, and you should have no right to break the contract made between me and my ISP.
A list of ISPs you are meddling with (provided it wasn’t just PR lies)must be provided if you are to allow differentiation in the marketplace. How can I make an informed decision if you’re back room policies are preventing me from being informed?
I dont agree with your policies, but should CAIP’s complaint to the CRTC fail, and you do decide to muck with our infrastructure(correct, ours, not bells, they can own it if they decide to pay back all the government subsidies they’ve gladly taken over the years)the least you can offer the public is a full list of ISPs being throttled.
sincerely,
part of that 5%.
Wow, it’s so clear the interviewer doesn’t understand the questions she’s asking. Bibic feeds her answers that don’t make sense, which she accepts unchallenged, and even corrects her questions so that he can give his canned answer without opposition. Sorry to say it, especially with such great questions posted by the community, but Bell made it out of this interview unscathed that’s thanks to the gentle CBC interviewer. Investigative journalism R.I.P.
Hey, you may also want to allow, I don’t know, a counter-point interview from someone who knows what Bell’s really up to and is opposed to it.
@ Keith,
You’re entitled to your opinion, of course; however, I do understand the questions I’m asking. I wrote them myself.
So much for that interview, it looks like the CBC has partnered in some way with Bell, either that or Nora doesn’t know jack about technology!
Guess the only option will be a lawsuit by users against Bell’s throttling.
Nora, I know you tried to get him his pants down .. but he just went on and on with his own thoughts …
otherwise, you would have been arguing with him .. and thats not what you were doing .. just an interview.
Thats ok though .. you should have asked him what they are going to do once the CRTC orders them to stop their throttling and they have no choice to improve infrastructure on their lines..
simple and real ….. =)
Oh well its better than nothing, its something ..
You should be following up on this with other people … get rocky interviewed ( the head of teksavvy ) .. although i doubt hell speak while hes involved int he legal matters with Bell right now.
Thanks though .
You let Bell try to “Convince” everybody that they are doing nothing wrong how about you let some ISP’s like Teksavvy that are being throttled for no good reason when they have no issues on their network because they upgrade their network so they dont have problems like this.
Bells reason to throttle everybody is because they are using MANY MANY customers to smaller ISP’s because they dont throttle anything so the only way bell can fight back is by doing this and making up BS stories.
Go to Teksavvy.com and get them on the show so you can hear the truth. Dont allow Bell to manipulate everybody and bring Canada even farther back in broadband then they already are.
Also if you need more info about any of this, just read some of the posts here.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/teksavvy
This was a good interview. Despite what Keith says. Nora got to a lot of the issues in a short amount of time.
It is up to us to recognize that what people like Bibic are really saying when they use all that “market” jargon.
I think it’s simple.
When bell wants to expand their infrastructure so they can gouge people in rural areas too… well they require government assistance of course.
but when they are under any scrutiny from the public or regulatory agencies “the market has done and will continue to do a good job”
All believers in market theology yap on about “competition” and the value of consumer preference. But turn around and stomp out the little ISPs, maintaining the rogers/bell oligopoly.
Noras question about the “responsibility of Bell to fill in “the last mile” was eloquent, and hit the key part of the issue. Bell doesn’t have the “responsibility” and has indeed asked the government to force/fund it to cover rural areas. If we are paying for the infrastructure as citizens/taxpayers we should have a right to access it, in a manner we choose.
Customers VS Citizens
Market VS Democracy
Traffic Management Vs censorship
We need to use the right language to illustrate the clear divide between those who believe in a free internet for all, and those who want to put up the barriers to that freedom.
Tell people you know that if we don’t act soon we might be remembering the way things used to be with fondness and nostalgia not long from now.
The internet should truly be a medium by, and for the people!!!
When you look at it this way… Ted Rogers rights to private property don’t seem very valuable do they?
Please, Nora, The more you focus on fundamental issues of justice like this the better off we’ll all be. Thank you for giving air time to such an important issue. Keep it up.
I love the numbers bell quotes.
Problem with them is awhile back a few companies decided to question those numbers.
When the facts didn’t add up the finally got bell to admit they made them up.
Now this itself could have been made up by other people but bell basically proves the truth of it for you.
Notice how one moment its 95% and then the next it 50%.
Add this to the ever changing contract and the speeds that we never get and its plain who is bullsh*ting to who.
A couple phrases could have been sprinkled throughout the interview to make it a lot more satisfying. “Since you are avoiding the question, I will proceed to the next one.” “How can I verify the figure you just mentioned?”
Up front, I work for a bell company as a slave, but my ISP is not Bell (for technical reasons). I, in principle, have no problem with shaping traffic as long as its done fairly across the board equally to Bell customers as well as ISPs for hire. Network management is a natural and sensible process to reduce otherwise anticipated capitol expenditures. The internet is not an ‘infinite’net. It’s no diffeerent financially than the power company, who sells you power, asking you to reduce consumption. Why? Because it is not feasable to rebuild the entire system…its not ‘infinite’ power.
Managing in this way, for me as a consumer, is better than moving into a ‘metered service’ realm in which I pay for every bit I download.
Granted, I can see and agree with the concerns as many stated above, and I don’t know of a silver bullet, only to say that there may have to be regulatory rules addressing the issue. If someone knows of the silver bullet (that won’t cost me as a consumer more – BOTTEM LINE), speak up. Still issues to keep an eye on, though. Naturally, VOIP carriers/consumers will have to be hands off…pretty fair there.
As a note, even customers who by data service only get a best attempt of getting data through. It costs a lot of money to get guarenteed data throughput.
I don’t care when I get P2P or other types of downloads. Would rather wait for data in a non peak period than have a metered service…then I wouldn’t download anything….so I’ll take what I got now!!
Well, this was essentially a forum for Bibic to release corporate propaganda. None of his assertions were challenged, specifically regarding VoIP problems with throttling. You touched on it in one segment, then did not even follow up on the statement made by Bibic that throttling didn’t effect these services. It is becoming quite clear that throttling on third party isp’s is hampering any encrypted traffic, P2P, IRC, NNTP, and VoIP as well as Virtual Private Networks. You could have done the internet community a great service by calling this spin doctor out on his lies, or by having someone such as Michael Geist on to counter his statements. Shameful.
@Nora,
Thank you for the consideration in any case.
I have many issues with the Gazette’s interview, but the one in The Current answers most of my concerns.
“Networks evovle, consumer preferences evolve”….yes they have, Networks have evolved to data transfers via p2P and consumer preferences have evolved to want these applications unhindered by corporate manipulation. What Mr. Bibic is stating here is that consumer preferences will evolve to what Bell Canada tells us they should be – namely, limiting our access to content which is considered more profitable to Bell.
Furthermore, the user comment in the show regarding that if peer to peer is throttled, his broadband access would be useless is quite true. What Mr. Bibic did not tell us, is that Bell throttles p2p from 4pm to between 2 and 4 am…that’s half the day!!!! And I might add, half the service we’re paying for.
This is of course, not to mention the fact that as a third party isp user, I have NO CONTRACT WITH BELL, but now I have to abide by Bell Canada’s rules. I am not their customer, so why should I be affected by their policies.
Nora, I’d like to thank you for providing us what amounts to nothing more as an advertisement for Bell Canada. This interview served absolutely no other purpose, other than to allow Bell to explain their point of view. One sided and uninformative to the mass public who are affected by these shady business practices.
Mr Bibic is lying thru his teeth. He claims that he doesnt have the letter infront of him and doesnt now what the customer was talking about. BS ! We all received that letter. Bell found the only way to back out of a contract that they dont want to honor is to accuse all users of abuse. There is no unlimited customers anymore. We all got the boot.
I still have my letter and my download stats, just incase there is a class action launched.
I posted earlier, whereas I should not have posted at all…ever. Too quick at the mouth again. I was somewhat off topic and SHOULD HAVE READ MORE, which makes me a self proclaimed idiot at this point. Sorry. FYI I do not know the inner workings of Bell and was not speaking for them or to defend Bell. They are big enough to do that on their own, which is where I missed the point of this blog. I was only referring to the pracitces of what ANY ANY ANY ISP can consider to reduce growing pains of the internet, not specific to the interview. In fact, though the CBC don’t have to, I would appreciate if they would remove both my posts. Sorry again. Signing off from my last post ever…
Bell is the biggest rip off company ever. They don’t care about their customers, AT ALL.
@Nora
I would like to rephrase Keith’s comments, insofar as I believe you understand the questions you’re asking but you don’t understand the issue at hand. A few posts up someone mentioned the 3rd party isp issue, which is really what the problme is here.
Bell Canada provides phone and internet service, as two separate companies – Bell Canada, and Sympatico all under the same banner of BCE. BCE then leases the last mile, ie the copper phone lines from your home to the bell Central Office so that the third part isp can access the customer. As soon as Sympatico began implementing traffic shaping on their clients, a mass hemmorage of customer from Sympatico to 3rd party isp’s began. Now BCE is implementing traffic shaping on all 3rd party isp’s. Does that not reek of anti competitive business practice? So now a customer, who is displeasd with Sympatico’s service, can’t choose to go somewhere else because Bell has decided to level the playing field by screwing everyone? In your interview you’ve taken one aspect of a larger issue, namely net neutrality, and forgotten about the real serious issue – the fact that bell is squeezing out the competition in order to maintain their hegemony over the market.
I encourage you to research what people are saying at the forums at dslreports.com and see what is really going on.
Nora,
I’ve been blogging this issue at http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/insights/
Read: “More Bell Canada misinformation and misdirection in attempt to justify questionably lawful throttling”
Unfortunately, by discussing Internet “Net Neutrality” issues, we are missing the critical issue which is that Bell is throttling traffic that can’t legitimately be called “Internet” traffic yet because they are inspecting and manipulating the private connections between the customer premises and the ISPs. It is only the traffic between ISPs that can be analyzed in a “Net Neutrality” context, and what Bell is doing is manipulating before then.
The congestion he speaks about is artificial. While it is sometimes legitimate for congestion to exist on the Internet, and there needs to be competition between ISPs that are resolving that congestion in a variety of different ways, this isn’t the case for the connection between the customer premises and the ISP. This is a wire from the customer to a Central Office (CO), and sometimes digital traffic between COs (ISPs are not allowed to put equipment in every CO), which then connects to an ISP.
Congestion on that internal data network between COs must be treated as damage and repaired, not claimed legitimate and “managed”. We wouldn’t tolerate this damage if it were the voice rather than data packets that were being inspected and manipulated (And neither is *Internet* traffic yet until it reaches the ISP).
If the Bell representative were talking about management choices made at Sympatico, then there would be no problems. Those who didn’t like their choices could easily switch to another provider. It is because Bell is (most likely illegally) inspecting and manipulating the contents of a regulated non-Internet data service that everyone is up at arms!
The interview was all spin. CBC, you did your job, Bell on the other hand…
“We are not slowing any of these sites.”
Well, I’m downloading a movie right now, wait, let me check…
29kb/s for about 4 hours.
BELL SUCKS!!!
Both Bell and Rogers use the same physical plant/cable to deliver Internet and TV, Bell has IPTV and Rogers has Cable TV. These co-exist on the ‘wire’. Bell has trouble getting IPTV bandwdth to a level where they can broadcast HD. Rogers wnats to transmit more HD. Thus they need to free up overall bandwidth on those wires. This is not a purely ISP centric issue. Bell late last year put IPTV expansion on hold for a while, presumably waiting for Sympatico capcity to catch up to the needs of IPTV.
These ISP’s know who the ‘excessive’ users are. Chase them and don’t punish us with these broad brush strokes. If they spent some $ on actual research then they could accomplish this without a lot of effort.
“Managing in this way, for me as a consumer, is better than moving into a ‘metered service’ realm in which I pay for every bit I download.”
The problem is, this is exactly where Canadian internet is going. I don’t know enough about Bell’s policies since I have never subscribed to Sympatico, but Rogers has already implemented hard caps on all of their accounts (at lower allowances than were “unenforced” last year), and is now charging per gigabyte for going over this cap. (This goes hand-in-hand with a monthly rate increase – so this year alone they have raised the basic rate by several dollars, lowered the monthly allowance, and started charging up to $25 more on top for moderate-to-heavy users).
The limits are extremely low on discount accounts (ie. 2gb per month) and not very high on their “extreme” accounts (95gb). It is true that Rogers currently has a maximum $25 cap on overage fees, however there is certainly no guarantee that this cap won’t be removed in the future. With these companies nothing is guaranteed, except knowing that we’ll constantly pay more for less unless something is done about it.
Nora,
Above you referenced a CBC show and a Montreal Gazette article. Neither of these articles adequately address the actual issue at hand.
Bell has been trying to merge two different services: an unregulated Internet service that they operate (Sympatico, etc), and the regulated “last mile” service which is a natural monopoly (and thus there is no way for competitors to build their own).
The critical part of the story is that they are inspecting and shaping a generic *DATA* service which is a regulated natural monopoly (much like the road, electricity, or other distribution system — which are more often government owned rather than simply government regulated), not Internet traffic.
ISPs must have the ability to manage their own networks to solve any congestion and other problems that might exist on the Internet. In order to do this, companies managing that “last mile” connection cannot be allowed to impose their own network management services on all providers.
The interview on The Current of Jay Kerr-Wilson completely sidestepped the issue. He spoke as if we were talking about *INTERNET* traffic shaping (IE: What Bell might do with Sympatico), when in fact the issue is throttling of that regulated last mile monopoly. He was asked to respond to the comments from Tom Copeland, and then said absolutely nothing about those complaints.
What Bell is doing on this regulated service is *NOT* a technical response to a network management problem, but a technical manipulation of a political/regulatory problem. The problem is that the more than we (the public, and many regulators) merge this regulated last mile service with the “Net Neutrality” debate, the more Bell will be able to wipe our all competitors and we will no longer have choice in management policies.
P.S. Phone and cable companies are two sectors least interested in offering true Internet services. It isn’t surprising to those of us who have been involved in this area of technology policy for years that this problem is resulting.
@ Russell,
Thanks for that insightful comment. I’d be happy to talk/learn some more about it. Let’s set up a time to chat via email.
Keeping the most people happy is the best way for Bell to make money. Yes there are the 5% heavy users who are up/downloading gigs and gigs per month but does keeping them happy at the expense of most of the regular users make any sense? Is there a way to make everyone happy? Not yet. I think Bell is doing what it needs to do in the fairest way possible to ensure a decent online experience for all.
Now I realize my next statement goes a bit offside to the issue at hand but try and tell me that if there were an effective way to police legal up/downloads that 99% of the 5% heavy users wouldn’t disappear. Problem solved.
I think it would have been very easy for Mirko to bring something like this up but wisely he did not as that opens up a whole other debate. I feel he did a great job of keeping to the direct issue and explaining Bell’s stance on it. I personally don’t have any problem with what Bell is doing and in fact I support it.
I think it’s clear that Bell gave its profits to shareholders when it should have been investing in the network.
Bell thought it get could away with hooking up 20 people with 5Mbps plans to a 30Mbps cable for example. It just assumed people weren’t using the full extent of their connections.
With the rise of P2P, people ARE using the network fully, and that 30Mbps cable is NOT enough. Bell has dug itself into a hole. But is it Bell’s problem? No it’s our problem… Bell cut corners and yet we are paying the price, and that’s not going to change unless Bell suddenly becomes a non-profit organization. Can I stop holding my breath yet?
With traffic shaping, BitTorrent is slow but without traffic shaping I’d get “crowded out” and everything else would be slow. So it’s a no win situation.
If anything this has convinced me that I have to get a leased line that isn’t shared. And I don’t mean that bullshit “Sympatico’s always fast and never shared” line that Bell played on its commercials for years, I mean like a T1 or something. The only problem is, it’s so damn expensive. Does anyone know a T1 provider that offers it for less than $500/month?
@Nora,
You have my email, and from my website you have my home phone. I’ll also send you my cell phone so you can catch me offsite.
A few people have spoken about the third party ISP issues. I’m wondering if the larger story here is what might be called “Engineering a political issue”.
Someone representing a company offering technical services (IE: Bell, Rogers, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, etc) offer up enough plausible techno-babble to confuse policy makers and the general public when they are trying to make critical policy decisions.
Take this issue as only one example (“DRM” is another I deal with all the time). Under the full interview for Bill St. Arnaud I have tried to break down the different pieces of the puzzle for the Canadian DSL situation. By misdirecting you into the Net Neutrality debate, Bell is able to give you plausible answers. All the technobabble is in place, and at one level (if you had asked a different question), the answer would be correct. It just isn’t correct for the actual question you asked.
Using technobabble they are able to convince people that “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”.
Yes, ISPs need to manage their networks — but in the most recent case that brought this issue to our attention Bell is not the ISP. Allowing ISPs to manage their networks means that Bell can’t be allowed to manipulate it.
Yes, there is congestion on the various connections that together comprise the Internet, and a wide variety of ways to solve that congestion (not the “one true solution” that Bell offers). Choosing management policy is what individual ISPs need to be allowed to do.
Yes, the market should be allowed to decide what the future Internet should look like. A free market (that “invisible hand”) requires that consumers have full information (so full transparency is required, possibly mandated through government regulation), and that there are competative choices. While Bell spoke as if they supported that market, they are in fact the greatest barrier against it in this case.
P.S. Sorry if a few of us get quite involved and emotional in this. I have many friends (as well as my brother) who have worked at (or owned) independent ISPs over the last decade and a half. I have run some of my own networks, offering hosting solutions. Many of these were killed by the questionable business practices of Bell which have very often pushed smaller companies out of business.
I agree with Russell that it is in Bell’s best interest to confuse the issues of Net Neutrality and the current use of local traffic shaping, then throw in technobabble responses.
The issues must be stated more simply so that the general public can understand. It seems to be difficult, however, to rephrase the debate so that those unfamiliar with the technical issues can really grasp what’s going on (and how they’re losing out).
In terms of local traffic shaping, my attempt would be something like the following: Bell advertises unlimited internet usage at a particular speed. They can’t actually provide unlimited usage at that speed since they overbook their network so much (which is their fault, NOT the customer’s). If we put this in terms of their other (more traditional) offering, it’s like Bell saying that you have Unlimited Local Calling on your phone line. However, they find out that you call your mother every day for an hour or two, and that 5% of people do that, too, when 95% of people only talk for a couple of minutes a day (and Bell only built enough lines to service a few people at a time). Bell then says that you’re a bad person for talking so much, that these 5% of people are using up too much of the lines, and so they start watching who you’re calling and dropping words out of every conversation with your mother (or putting you on the worst lines with the most static). This is said to be done “for the good of the network”. When it is pointed out that Bell is reneging on their “Unlimited” agreement, that if they don’t have the capacity to support these people talking to their moms then they should build more capacity (which they are fully capable of doing, but that might cut a bit into their profit) or they should stop making promises they can’t keep, Bell responds by saying that talking to your mother every day is above and beyond what they expected you to do, and so they reserve the right to change (unilaterally, at their leisure) the terms of your agreement. If you don’t like it, then you can use a competitor. The only problem is that there’s only one true competitor (Rogers in most of Ontario) and they do exactly the same thing. Every other “competitor” is forced to use Bell’s services, too. This is plainly selling services under false pretenses, making promises they can’t keep, and invading your privacy by watching who you’re calling in order to try to squeeze people who are doing something they don’t like, even though it is well within their agreement. This doesn’t seem fair, does it?
The Net Neutrality side would be more like Bell saying that they’ve partnered with a few select companies, and any calls you make to those companies go through the first time with crystal clear quality. If you call anyone else (especially one of the companies they don’t like), then they’ll start randomly dropping your calls. Don’t even try to call your cable company, as Bell provides TV services, too, and you should only be using their services. There’s huge conflict of interest issues with this, and Bell is caught trying to say that this is in their customer’s best interest and there’s plenty of competition when in fact it’s in Bell’s best interest and there’s no real competition. Again, lots of lies, deceipt, and spin.
Concerning data content shaping:
The cost of sending a letter-size envelope anywhere in the country via Canada Post is 52 cents + tax. They don’t care how much or what type of data is in the envelope, as long it fits in the envelope.
The same should be true for moving data in Canada, especially when the cost of transporting data requires no mail carriers or manual sorting. Once the backbone is installed and the community is served, there is minimal cost to the service provider. Upgrades once every 5 years should be planned. The envelope of a given data-ca in GB is provided for monthly fee. The minimum quality of service should be the same across the board. Dialup should be eliminated.
For rural broadband info see:
http://broadband.gc.ca/ (will be shut down end of July)
http://www.hiltonbeach.com/broadband/
Concerning Broadband Internet Service in rural Canada:
As Canadians in rural areas wise up, the CRTC must step up.
Governments have promised “broadband everywhere” six years ago. They lied.
For example, Broadband is not available in my neighbourhood and I live in a city of 80,000. The fibre-cable has been coiled up on pole 2-kms from my community for over two years now.
I heard from an ex-Bell tech that the Bell Canada corporation had installed hidden and unexplained fees to cover rural expansion and there was a backlash from large city dwellers, in effect stopping the work literally at the pole.
Internet access in the home is becoming a necessity. People need it in their home to be a part of society, if they so choose. Parents need to show their young ones how to deal with it and how to use is safely, since it is almost everywhere, outside of the home.
Companies expect customers to have broadband access for the products they sell.
We need legislation to keep it a service and not just privilege for the rich or city dwellers.
Bell should not “own” the internet.
We need to protect small ISPs to that when they set up Bell doesn’t steam-roll over them.
The Internet is a symbol of true democracy. Should only the rich have access to the new high BW content essential to science, education, health, mapping information, video-teleconferencing, multi-media, entertainment, and future new age telecommunications. Access to these options should be a public service or provided by a crown corporation that accountable to the public that relies on it.
Consider for a moment that the Internet is the neural network of World. Each personal computer connected to this network is like a single neuron capable of sending or receiving any form of digital information. In Canada, we have allowed a large company known as Bell Canada control public access to this neural network. The time has come for the public to take control of this national service. It’s our children’s future we should be considering.
Regarding the throttling, shaping and other forms of interference, I’m pretty sure there is more to this than simple P2P bad-guys and bandwidth ‘management’. What’s at stake here for both Rogers and Bell is potential loss of control over entertainment media distribution. That’s where the big bucks are. Consider the following…
#1. These days we can watch full-length movies and TV programmes streamed from websites for free (66stage, etc). We can watch some TV stations online. The trend is growing. This threatens Rogers’ and Bell’s cableTV and movie businesses.
#2. Rogers has pretty much maxed out its footprint and can’t really grow the customer count. They’re greedy and always on the hunt for new radio stations or sports – media acquisitions, to expand their commercial advertising, which has grown to a level bordering on harassment. They’ve conditioned the customer base to accept exhorbitant rates which they use to fund their acquisitions of properties like ‘SkyDome’, which is particularly annoying since we already paid for that one from our tax dollars, and to fund the harassing advertising. Rogers’ approach is to squeeze as much of the existing customer base as they can. I can’t believe the amount of red Rogers adverts that come through my front door.
#3. If there were really technical capacity problems on the networks driving the caps and throttling, one would have expected to see a lot of noisy complaints. I haven’t seen or heard of any. I seriously doubt there is such an issue. I believe it’s a smokescreen.
#4. Rogers sent out a notice a few months ago, telling us they were capping their customers’ hi-speed service. I called to inquire what my usage history had been so I could assess any potential impact to me. They didn’t have any usage information in their systems to share with me. I’ve been with Rogers since 2001; same house, same account. If this is a general observation, then how can they claim to know X% of the people consume Y% of the bandwidth or that P2P is the problem. P2P everyone knows is used for media-sharing. Rogers, Bell, Sony etc all feel entitled to get revenue from that and since they can’t find a way to get it, they simply cut off the P2P-connections (well, maybe not cut them off, just reduce them to a slow-drip so they’re useless).
I’m already using Primus VOIP – works well for me. Rogers Home Phone is overpriced crap. I’m now looking at Acanac for DSL Internet and VOIP. From what I’ve read, even with Bell’s interference in the wholesale market, I should expect substantially better performance than I get with Rogers HiSpeed Express. If it works out for me, I’ll be saying ‘bye-bye, bye-bye’ to Rogers.
I’ll probably drop Rogers cable too because I’m really sick of being overcharged for stations I never look at, and very sick of seeing their stupid profile and pushy advertising everywhere I go. Their arrogance became visible to a great many people this week with the introduction of the new iPhone. Imagine the humiliation of having to back down from 100$ to 30$ per month and having it widely publicized.
You know, theatre companies started with their approach towards massive greed and big theatre 15-20 years ago, eliminating decent paying jobs and the little guys along the way. Today it’s a struggle for them to stay alive because they trimmed everything that made the movie experience good and turned it into something completely lousy, coupled with horrible productions they keep pumping out. The reason: Greed. The lust and desire for money always blinds any sense of reason. This is a trend that has been going for countless years and very few people are ever able to break the cycle… How unfortunate.
If Bell and Rogers are ever going to listen to us, their customers, we have to communicate in the “only” way they will ever understand: Money! If we are not customers supporting their greedy policies, then the issue of an open internet will once again be on the table! It may take years, but companies who make bad decisions are always slow to rectify a situation.
When a company needs to reduce the quality of their service instead of adapting to serve customer needs, you know they do not have the right goals. I will switch provider as soon as my contract is up. Hello videotron.
Ich bin zwar nicht ganz ihrer Meinnung zum Thema dsl providers in my area aber weiter so.Full Interview with Bell’s Mirko Bibic | Spark | CBC Radio
Well, this was essentially a forum for Bibic to release corporate propaganda. None of his assertions were challenged, specifically regarding VoIP problems with throttling. You touched on it in one segment, then did not even follow up on the statement made by Bibic that throttling didn't effect these services. It is becoming quite clear that throttling on third party isp's is hampering any encrypted traffic, P2P, IRC, NNTP, and VoIP as well as Virtual Private Networks. You could have done the internet community a great service by calling this spin doctor out on his lies, or by having someone such as Michael Geist on to counter his statements. Shameful.
Users buy a private dsl line at a specified bandwidth rate. Why does their usage have any effect whatsoever on me if my line is supposedly private too?
Also, how do consumers convey their wants and needs when there is no choice of providers? In the West we have Shaw and Telus, in the East we have Bell and Rogers. As long as they implement restrictions slowly what choice is there?
No, the ISPs have control, not consumers.