Bell Throttling Internet Traffic
Have you ever tried to view a favourite web page and noticed that it was taking a really long time to load? Or maybe sometimes it just won’t load at all? If you’re really unlucky your internet connection may just shut down sometimes.
Customers of the bigger internet service providers have been complaining recently about not getting what we’ve been promised from their high-speed connection packages. CBC’s Marketplace did an exploration of these providers and determined that the country’s biggest ISP’s (Bell Sympatico, Rogers Yahoo, Shaw, and Telus) were not necessarily providing consumers what they promised.
Here at the Freehold, we chose our ISP because they claimed not to be throttling traffic, and they had no protocols in place that would censor content or limit our access to specific web services. We feel that it’s our job to decide how the internet is used in our home.
Companies like Bell and Rogers began throttling the bandwidth of their own customers some time back. Now we hear that Bell is forcing that throttling onto smaller ISP’s, re-sellers who buy bandwidth wholesale from Bell and compete with the company locally by selling an alternative ISP service. What does this mean? Well, they call it “shaping.” It’s kind of like putting a traffic cop on a busy street corner during rush hour instead of relying on the traffic light that’s already there. In theory it allows for fine tuning the use of bandwidth so there aren’t any traffic jams. Bell claims these jams are caused by heavy peer to peer (P2P) usage by 5% of the population, and this errant bunch are causing congestion or “net lag” for everybody. If you look at it this way, shaping sounds pretty reasonable.
The flip-side of shaping is that the same throttling processes can be used to limit or even virtually eliminate access to certain services or web sites. An ISP that uses throttling can decide that they will slow the loading of a specific search engine like Google™, for example. It can develop its own search engine that it allows to load much faster and more reliably, effectively using its control over the internet traffic to limit access to the competition. An ISP can also accept fees from companies in exchange for allowing faster access to their web sites.
The video below explains how throttling can effect our access to the net and introduces the concept of net neutrality, a way to be sure everyone competes on an even playing field.
Net neutrality could be defined as a network “free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, on the modes of communication allowed, that does not restrict content, sites, or platforms and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.” (Wikipedia)
Essentially, the idea is leaving traffic to direct itself. Keep the stop signs and traffic lights where they are, and don’t have the corner traffic cop. Especially, don’t have a traffic cop who will decide that minivans can move on through but SUV’s are going to be held back or not allowed through a crossing at all. Don’t have a cop that will give preference to blue cars because he has shares in a company that manufactures the pigment used in blue paint. Don’t have a cop who decides that irresponsible speed demons usually drive red, black or yellow sports cars, so all vehicles of these colours should be made to wait longer at the street corner.
Some people argue against net neutrality, most vociferous among them the larger ISP’s and groups such as the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) in the US. This gentleman makes an interesting argument that net neutrality laws could be used to limit freedom of speech. He uses the analogy of a newspaper. With shaping the newspaper can put the focus wherever it wants, devoting a larger space to international news if it wants and maybe less to sports. Under net neutrality he suggests that all newspaper will be forced to offer the same percentages of content. It summons up thoughts of Big Brother, doesn’t it?
The argument presented to the public by the NCTA, by contrast, is much less informative.
Bell and other big telecommunications companies say they throttle with an aim to providing the best service to consumers. What they aren’t telling consumers is that some of their representatives have been heard to say things like, “They’re my pipes,” (meaning that the phone company paid for the wiring and hardware, so they should have more compensation and more say in who gets access to what on the net.)
Bell Canada’s chief of regulatory affairs was interviewed in The Gazette this week, and in my opinion he was less than convincing when it came to talk of improved service. Actually, he seemed evasive at times and defensive at others. In one place he was asked about throttling the white label services, and he seemed almost whiny. He said that if the re-sellers had bothered to install a piece of hardware they wouldn’t be effected by the throttling (that didn’t answer questions about why re-sellers only began to be throttled after Bell’s own customers, nor about why Bell introduced re-seller throttling without notice - despite a promise to the CRTC that it wouldn’t….) Seems like maybe he’s on the “they’re my pipes” bandwagon too…
For more information on net neutrality check out NetNeutrality.ca and Save the Internet. In Canada net neutrality is supported by the NDP and Green parties. I couldn’t find any mentions of it on the web sites of either the Bloc Québecois or the Liberal parties.
The Conservative party has a very glitzy web site with no signs of a search function, and pretty much serves up to you what they want you to read. No mention of anything even vaguely related to internet technology was on that list, but in the House of Commons the Industry Minister was questioned about internet throttling. Concerns were expressed for the protection of consumers and free access to information, and also for the preservation of competition between internet providers. The Minister’s response was simply that internet is not regulated in Canada, and that the government would “continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and internet service providers on the other.”
“Bell targets ‘bandwidth hogs’” (Roberto Rocha, The Gazette)
“CRTC urged to probe ‘discriminatory’ Internet traffic shaping” (Matthew Coutts, National Post)
“CYBERLAW: Plan to limit bandwidth is threat to competitive ‘Net” (Michael Geist, Vancouver Sun)
“Network neutrality” (Wikipedia)
This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Public domain graphic courtesy Wikipedia. Thanks!
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