Did a charity fundraiser get throttled?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 | 05:39 PM ET
Filmmaker Brad Fox told the CRTC Wednesday that he believes an online fundraiser for the Toronto Sick Kids' Hospital may have been throttled by Bell because it resembled peer-to-peer traffic.
The 30-hour online "telethon" put on by Fox and a group of Canadian comedians in November 2008 was streamed online using Bell internet services, but was forced to reset four or five times because its connection speed was so slow around 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., Fox said. Each time, he told CBC News, he lost up to 10 per cent of his audience.
Fox suggested that perhaps the telethon was mistaken for a peer-to-peer file transfer, and was therefore throttled. After all, he said, like a P2P transfer, it involved small packets sent at a regular rate over a long period of time.
He added that Bell did not explain the situation, but said it would have been able to ensure better service had it known about the event in advance.
A Bell spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that only "P2P traffic that uses up a large amount of bandwidth is slowed down…and only during peak hours." The company has long said the practice is needed to reduce internet congestion by putting the brakes on a few "bandwidth hogs," improving service for everyone.
The company did not respond directly when asked how it ensures that other types of traffic aren't throttled by accident, but did specify that it "does not look at content."
Interestingly, Fox wasn't the only person to complain of inexplicably slow internet speeds, including non-P2P traffic while using Bell's service.
Advocates for people with disabilities also told the CRTC Wednesday that some of their peer-to-peer traffic was being throttled even during low-traffic times - like during early morning hours.
Meanwhile, internet service for some of their non-P2P applications for people with disabilities was also inexplicably slow, they said. (I should note that they also reported throttling during non-peak hours by Rogers).
After hearing several similar stories on the same day, some people may suspect that Bell has a funny definition of "peak hours."
But even if its definition is the conventional one, it appears two conclusions can be drawn:
- Bell offers no guarantees that it throttles only P2P traffic.
- Bell's internet service doesn't consistently approach its advertised speeds even during non-peak hours.
I should mention that a number of people have made the latter complaint about ISPs in general throughout theCRTC hearings this week.
The hearings are looking into how ISPs manage internet traffic and congestion, and whether practices such as throttling should be allowed.
At first the question of real speed versus advertised speed doesn't seem within the scope of the hearings, but IT consultant Jean François Mezei suggested Tuesday that forcing ISPs to disclose their true speeds could do a lot to improve congestion and internet traffic management practices.
"If they were forced to advertise that," he said, "you might find throttled speed would go up and the congestion problem would disappear."
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Comments
Dwight Williams
Disgusting. No other word for it.
If legitimate charity fundraisers can expect this sort of treatment, we're going to have ongoing problems. Lots of them.
Posted July 9, 2009 11:41 AM
James Fitz
If only consumers could PAY for an internet connection which Shaw or Rogers or Bell or Telus or Sasktel didn't have control over.
We're being held hostage by a cabal who doesn't internet video to supercede their video on demand offerings.
Posted July 10, 2009 09:37 AM
300baud
Bell's throttle is known to be "quirky". I often find all my traffic is throttled, even with no P2P. If disconnect and reconnect several times, I'll eventually get an unthrottled connection.
Of course, that's a residential DSL connection. It would be shocking if that's what the charity was using to serve its streams, which makes it all the more surprising that they would be subject to the throttle.
Posted July 10, 2009 10:31 AM
Ami
Lloydminster
I don't know what is going on with North American cell and internet providers. It's like you can feel their grip slowly tightening on everyone.
Yeah Bell, those 3am-4am peak times must really be killing you.
Posted July 10, 2009 12:23 PM
Jeff M
London
Throttling any specific application is always a bad idea because who knows what legitimate purpose it might be used for.
Posted July 10, 2009 12:39 PM
Hugh Wish
Toronto
Bell are nothing but thieves.
They sell you highspeed internet at a certain Mbps and then based on arbitrary circumstances intentionally do not provide the service paid for. They'd all be in jail for fraud if the government worked for us.
Posted July 10, 2009 04:26 PM
Mark Wentzell
If the CRTC does not get behind the principles of network neutrality then it will show itself to be nothing more than an out of touch puppet for big business. And if thats the case then Canada has no need for it.
Posted July 12, 2009 02:20 PM
Simon
Toronto
Weird. If I suspected throttling every time I experienced slow speeds, I'd have to assemble a VERY long list of throttling complaints.
I still have yet to see any edvidence that convinces me that a) Throttling interferes with time-sensitive apps or b) that somehow the ISPs stand to gain from throttling.
How can angering customers EVER be to one's advantage?
Posted July 22, 2009 04:52 PM
David C
Toronto
@ Simon:
Well, one problem that customers have is the fact that there is basically no competition in Canada, for telecommunications service provision, so they may not be worried about angering customers. You do make a good point about the variability of the speed online though. It can vary, simply because of traffic over a given segment in the network. How many people understand this? I don't know. But a little honesty in advertising might go a long way.
Posted July 25, 2009 02:44 PM