Pretty Much All Canadian ISPs Are Slowing Down P2P

from the often-without-congestion dept

Tue, Jan 20th 2009 11:09pm — Mike Masnick

A new study up in Canada suggests that pretty much all of the major ISPs are now throttling P2P activity -- with some admitting they do so even if there's no sign of actual congestion on the network. Of course, if there were enough competition (don't laugh) this would be an opportunity for a smart ISP to highlight and promote the fact that they don't throttle any kind of traffic, and aren't lying when they tell their customers what kind of bandwidth they sell.

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Filed Under: canada, traffic shaping

22 Comments

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Rekrul, 20 Jan 2009 @ 11:56pm

Any ISP that says that it needs to limit bandwidth or cap usage to keep its network working well is a liar.

Every broadband account has both bandwidth and usage capped by the speed that they sell you. I don't care what you do, if you have a 6Mb connection, there's no way you're going to be able to get 7Mb. The speed you can use also limits the amount you can download each month, which is, in effect, a usage cap.

The ISPs are liars because they sell you an account that is already speed and usage capped, knowing full well that they can't support that level of service.

Gee, maybe I need to start throttling, or capping my monthly payments...
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Bob Jonkman (profile), 20 Jan 2009 @ 11:57pm

Bell also throttles resellers
Of course, smart Canadian ISPs don't throttle their customers' traffic. Unfortunately, Bell will do it for them -- Bell throttles all bandwidth of third-party wholesale resellers, so it's not possible for any Canadian to get unthrottled service.

The cable providers are just as bad. From DSLReports.com I've heard that there is only one third-party ISP brave enough to resell Rogers wholesale broadband, and that gets throttled too.

There won't be true competition until the third-party providers have their own tubes into their customers' premises. After digital TV is enabled in Canada (2011) I hope all that surplus TV bandwidth gets auctioned off to independent ISPs.

Wireless will be the salvation of us all.

--Bob.
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Michael Long, 21 Jan 2009 @ 12:21am

TANSTAAFL
You're right. It might be an opportunity for a smart ISP to highlight and promote the fact that they don't throttle any kind of traffic... and charge triple for the privilege.

I still say ISPs should move off the current flat rate system and let users pay for bandwidth used.

You want to run a torrent system 24/7/365 at 7Mbps? Fine. That'll be $500 a month please. Next customer.
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Bob, 21 Jan 2009 @ 1:20am

I hate R0gers!
How can an ISP even begin to THINK of trying to get customers in Canada? I'm actually from the UK, but I know that in Canada the only 2 main comms suppliers are Bell and R0gers! R0gers just seem to have a monopoly in the the more inner city areas! Also why is the broadband speed in Canada so slow? the R0gers cable network is capable of providing an easy 20mbit.. It's like they are just keeping the speed low and milking customers because the only competition to them is Bell!
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Ben, 21 Jan 2009 @ 3:19am

Not seeing it.
Rogers has been my broadband provider for a while now and I regularly hit my 8 Mb/s speed cap while downloading torrents. Please don't think this makes me a fan of Rogers as there are plenty of other reasons to hate the company. From their unbelievably shitty customer service to the most expensive iPhone plans in the industrialized world, Rogers takes every opportunity to show that they despise their customers.
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Nuffyfluts, 21 Jan 2009 @ 4:03am

ISP Throttling
I subscribe to Cogeco and have no complaints of throttling.

I check my DL and UL speeds first thing every time I log on and get consistent results that are as promised.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:19am

Re: ISP Throttling
1) Unlikely you actually do test that.

2) Throttling and Shaping kicks in after a period of time so:
a) speed tests are useless (and ISPs have been known to crank up the rates when you go to sites such as www.speakeasy.net/speedtest)
b) You would have to test for approximately an hour in most cases before you would notice a hit.

3) I wouldn't be surprised if you actually get slightly better than you pay for initially. I suppose that's the alleged "speed boost" with Comcast. Too bad it kills my download rate after 20-30 minutes to about 5kb/s. Makes buying Steam games a little rough.
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Long Term Test ?, 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:19am

Re: ISP Throttling
How do you check ?
Many of the speed checkers out there only run for a limited time, measured in milliseconds, prior to producing a result. The throttling, typically, is delayed - for whatever reason. The end result is that you may not be geting what you have measured.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:19am

Re: Bell also throttles resellers
How will Wireless be saving you? It's the Internet connection that's the issue, not the medium to get there.
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ScytheNoire, 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:35am

Misleading
You make it sound like ISP's have a choice here. The big problem in Canada is that there is no choice.

DSL providers are being forced throttled by Bell. It's an extremely anit-competitive maneuver that should be illegal, and is most places.

Cable is a localized monopoly in most places in Canada, so once again, no choices, because none are allowed.

This is just the government giving big corporations the right to screw over the people. And with conservatives in charge, that won't change.
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anon (profile), 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:36am

Re: Re: Bell also throttles resellers
a savvy company could theoretically set up a network primarily on wireless connections, thereby bypassing all of the current throttling going on in the copper medium. just set-up a series of towers that not only provide wireless Networking over a large area, but also act as routers and relay the traffic all the way to the border.
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Charles (profile), 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:36am

Re: Re: Bell also throttles resellers
Wireless will save us because they can use those channels to hopefully put up a 4G networkish thingy and have a modem that connects to that.

@Bob: Don't forget, Canada is huge. That's why it costs so much for us, because they compensate for people living in the middle of nowhere. Unlike Hong Kong, where a building has 8 units per floor x 40 floors. That's 320 customers in a building. Therefore, less cabling = less costs, = higher speeds.
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Dave, 21 Jan 2009 @ 6:13am

Re: Re: Re: Bell also throttles resellers
It would take a company with very deep pockets to do that. Much of the throttling is being done at the wholesale level so you'd have to create a new wireless backbone network to run it on.

And with the few people who would notice the difference, its not likely to be a profitable venture.
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kitkat, 21 Jan 2009 @ 6:22am

speed throttling
And dont forget that our stupid comminications minister in Australia is Stephen Conroy and he is going to filter all internet traffic and outlaw any data that is copyrighted by the music industry. This will slow our broadband speeds to dial up or less. You gotta love an idiot politician hey.

All terrorists please come to australia and kill this twit.
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charlie, 21 Jan 2009 @ 6:24am

idiot policiticans
STEPHEN CONROY is an IDIOT politician.

Every one in the world please make a point of laughing at him all day every day forever. He is the biggest idiot of idiots.

I hate stephen conroy. he is an idiot. i hate this twit.
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STOP FUCKING WITH ME, 21 Jan 2009 @ 7:01am

Leave me alone
What pisses me off is everytime we ask not get abused some jerk comes along and complains about his porno/illegal movies torrents. It makes the rest of us look terrible.

Look I use my VPN to get access to my research on my home computer, this capping and "filtering" has affected me in the past by interupting any SSH session I had, and IRC session I had, randomly disconnecting ANY encrypted connection. So I switched from Rogers, because they didn't seem to care if I could stay connected to a host for an hour or not. I switched to teksavvy who has been great but then Bell came in, my speeds dropped significantly and my normal NON-ILLEGAL traffic to get shaped or capped.

I just want an ISP who won't fuck with me. I'll pay for it!
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Vincent Clement, 21 Jan 2009 @ 7:37am

Re: Re: Re: Bell also throttles resellers
@Charles: Hogwash. The majority of Canadians live in urban areas and the majority of those Canadians live within a 100 miles of the US border.

It costs so much because competition is minimal.
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Leave everyone alone, 21 Jan 2009 @ 7:42am

Re: Leave me alone
"What pisses me off is everytime we ask not get abused some jerk comes along and complains about his porno/illegal movies torrents. It makes the rest of us look terrible."

I don't know why it makes the rest of us look terrible. In fact the point is : ISPs are service providers, they have no fucking business knowing or caring about what you do with your connection, unless they have a court order to wiretap you. Period.
Last time I checked porn was not illegal in Canada, and illegal downloading, if done on an industrial scale, will most likely give someone a reason to get a wiretap order against you. Treating ordinary people like criminals doesn`t deter crime, it encourages it.
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Elliot, 21 Jan 2009 @ 7:54am

Not Just P2P throttled
Bell also throttles FTP transfers as well -

As in my business I do a lot of data transfer via FTP it sucks ...
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 8:36am

The problem with ISPs is that the big ones, the ones with all of the power aren't content with simply charging you to drive your car down the highway. They don't want you driving too fast since it might incur too much stress on their roads, you might bump heads with other drivers since they oversold the availability and haven't provided enough lanes. Furthermore, they have their hands in the pockets of the food and beverage companies.. you aren't allowed to brew your own beer, to bring in your own soda or to make your own sandwiches in any quantity.. not when they have concession stands along the way you could or should buy-from. Especially if they can get the highway patrol on their side, claiming even though they were paved with public funds - it's their road and by-god they are going to toll it.
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Darryl, 21 Jan 2009 @ 8:36am

If you are lucky enough to live in Yaletown, part of downtown Vancouver BC. You can get Novus, they don't do any throttling that I have noticed. On my 10mbit connection I can pull down content at full speed, assuming the other side is just as fast.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 12:06pm

I think I am safe for now
I use shaw, and so far I get as promised. I can dl a 4GB linux iso at a range of 1-2MB per sec. depending on seeders.

I feel everyone's pain though, as I would hate it if it got slower.
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