Canadian Regulators Won't Stop Bell Canada's Traffic Shaping
from the shape-away dept
Back in March, Bell Canada started traffic shaping the internet traffic that passed over its network without telling its reseller partners. This was a pretty big deal, as many of the ISPs who resell Bell Canada DSL promise to their customers that they don't do any kind of traffic shaping. Those resellers complained to Bell Canada, who responded by saying too bad, recognizing that those resellers had nowhere else to go. Some of the reseller ISPs complained to Canadian regulators who have now sided with Bell Canada, allowing the company to keep on traffic shaping. The regulators basically said that the ISPs have been unable to show how they're being harmed by this move, which is required for them to step in. One would think that a boatload of customer complaints and threats to move to any other internet connectivity (not that there are many choices) would be enough to show harm to the ISPs. Once again, it's nice to have near total control over your market, isn't it? Update Some good details provided in the comments. The matter is still being investigated by regulators. This ruling was just about interim relief.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: canada, regulations, traffic shaping
Companies: bell canada
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Um Yeah
"One would think that a boatload of customer complaints and threats to move to any other internet connectivity (not that there are many choices) would be enough to show harm to the ISPs."
That statement is not the same harm that the regulators are talking about. The harm that regulators are looking for are thing that will potentially cause harm or damage to a the network which is what ISP's like Comcast say copy right infringement is doing. By people constantly downloading songs, movies, etc... across their network is essentially degrading the performance so that others who are not file sharing are not able to fully enjoy their limited 3meg service... To be honest if ISP's would stop using outdated transmission mediums like copper and move over to a fully fiber network we wouldn't see any bandwidth problems. But then again that's just my view.
That statement of harm to the ISP is only from a financial standpoint that they are just basically driving away customers that don't want big brother meddling in their internet useage, and telling them how long they can be on, how much they can download, where to surf, basically what to do for a service that they are paying a premium for. If we wanted that we would just the let government run the internet just like China. Being told what we can read, what we can say, what we can view of the outside world, etc... I can see why people would want to leave a shitty ISP for degrading the performance of their own network by forcing people to do what they want for a service they pay for. It's their right to change network service providers even if their is a limited number of them in an area.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Crooks
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Off topic, but related
Ya gotta wonder about these guys.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
slightly inaccurate post
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2927/125/
The CRTC this morning denied CAIP's request for interim relief blocking Bell's throttling practices. The Commission ruled that CAIP did not meet the standard for interim relief. It acknowledged that there is a serious issue to be determined, but it was not convinced that there will be irreparable harm if the relief was not granted. While CAIP is undoubtedly disappointed, I don't think this decision is much of a surprise. The standard for interim relief is very high and given the ability to provide monetary compensation at a later date, the CRTC took a pass on stopping the throttling practices based on the limited record of evidence. The CRTC has left the door open to addressing throttling and net neutrality in a serious way, however. First, it ruled that there is a serious issue to be determined. Second, tomorrow it will release the details on how it plans to address the substantive issues of the throttling complaint. Combined with the draft new media document, there is a real possibility of hearings in the fall on throttling and net neutrality in Canada from both a broadcast and telecom perspective.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: slightly inaccurate post
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2930/125/
The CRTC this morning issued its promised plan for addressing the substantive issues raised by the CAIP complaint over Bell's throttling practices. The plan has an aggressive timeline with all submissions in by June 26th and a decision promised within 90 days. Bell and CAIP have been asked to respond to a series of questions, with the CRTC giving Bell two weeks to provide much more detail on its network congestion claims and its network management practices. Interested parties - ie. the public and other businesses - will have the chance to file comments by June 12, 2008. Combined with the new media discussion document slated to be released later today, CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein wasn't kidding when he told an industry conference in a speech earlier this month that the throttling issue "will have wide-ranging consequences and will lead to a much wider debate. This will undoubtedly occupy much of our time this year."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not Really
All the CRTC did was say that the ISPs had not met the one of the legal tests required for the "interim relief" they had requested - an immediate cease and desist from the practice. It's functionally the equivalent of a court denying a request for an immediate stay or an injunction but then reviewing the full case on its merits.
The bar for getting immediate relief is very high, and the fact that the CRTC did not grant it does not mean that they endorse the practice, nor does it mean that the ISPs will not win once the CRTC does a full review.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Update Needed
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I use Shaw. Many people got up in arms when they heard they were doing some short of traffic shaping. I have no idea in what way they are shaping the traffic, but it hasn’t affected me negatively in any way. I can select many gigabytes of information and have received it all by the next morning.
Their traffic shaping could be benign. I wouldn’t mind if they needed to throttled back bittorrent traffic during peak times to avoid excessive lag when my kids and I are paying World of Warcraft. So long as they open it all up during off times. Traffic shaping could be used in a negative way, but they don’t seem to be doing that. As long as we have a competitive marketplace, they will continue to try and improve customer satisfaction, not degrade it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]