Sympatico begins traffic shaping (ie. throttling) for many P2P applications

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http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/284761

[balogna pogna]

Anyone have any suggestions in SoOn for internet providers other than Bell or Rogers? My Bell internet is now $75.00 a month as they keep tacking on extra fees and my torrent speeds are horrible.

[Kanada Kev]

TekSavvy!

Awesome reviews from all the research I did. I spoke to them on the phone as well and they are super helpful.

[phishtaper]

My Bell internet is now $75.00 a month as they keep tacking on extra fees and my torrent speeds are horrible.

i dont see how this is legal.

[balogna pogna]

i dont see how this is legal.

I called them a couple months ago to ask why my bill was $10.00 higher. They told me the reason was that I had an old internet package and they would switch me to the new package and it would be cheaper.

When the new bill came the bill was $20.00 higher & I called again & they said I had switched services part way through the month so the bill was higher as I was paying a month & a half of services on the new plan.

When the next bill came there was an extra $30.00 charge because I had exceeded the bandwidth allotted to me (I had an unlimited plan before so I had never exceeded any limits...what they didn't tell me was that they no longer offered an Unlimited plan and the new plan they switched had bandwidth capped).

So I called again as now I'm getting $146.00 phone bills every month (just phone and internet) and I don't even use long distance. They put me into a new "Unlimited" plan for $25.00 a month but gave me $30.00 off for the next 6 months. Considering they no longer have Unlimited usage I am curious to see what my future bills will be but I have 6 months to find a new provider.

After all this nonsense (and I'm already furious with Bell) I find out on this board that the reason my bit-torents are so slow is the Throttling issue. When I called in to ask why the torrents were so slow they rebooted my server a few times & made me install upgraded software etc. None of the 5 or 6 technicians and managers I spoke with mentioned the Bandwidth Throttling.

[Kanada Kev]

When I called in to ask why the torrents were so slow they rebooted my server a few times & made me install upgraded software etc. None of the 5 or 6 technicians and managers I spoke with mentioned the Bandwidth Throttling.

It's a ruse. And, they won't ever admit to the throttling even though it's blatantly obvious.

Seriously, you've already got the Bell line in your house. Call the kind folks at TekSavvy and ask what they can do for you:

http://www.teksavvy.com/

You can get the Premium service for $29.95 with 5M/800K and a 200Gig cap

Additional Bandwidth - $0.25/GB/month

Pre-Purchased Blocks - $10/100GB/month

Or, if you need more than 200Gig, go completely unlimited for $39.95.

Here is a forum with tons of reviews of their service;

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/teksavvy

I'll be switching over when Bell upgrades the lines in my neighbourhood and I'll start supporting TekSavvy!

[bouche]

I don't understand why our provider Videotron in Quebec is so different. We have unmanaged bandwidth and the fees have not risen since we got an account 5 years ago. I get incredible speeds on everything and when things fail, they fix it.

I'm with Ollie on all of this. You can't complain too much over bandwidth throttling without knowing more facts. It is quite possible that bandwidth is really affected by the amount of torrents constantly being transferred.

The goal of most torrent sites is to have the most transfers/month over another and they encourage their members to do so with ratios, points and rankings.

There is a finite amount of bandwidth out there, and the quote suggesting that bell would rather throttle than "Upgrade equipment" is an uneducated and unresearched GUESS at best. You can't just upgrade equipment to gain more bandwidth. The analogy with the ferrari on the road is no more of an analogy than walking a dog and picking your ass.

Basically, everyone has to manage their own bandwidth or the companies will end up managing it for you. Unfortunately, if you're already doing that and other people are abusing bandwidth, everyone gets micromanaged.

I think that they do need to do this on an account by account bases. If someone is using Torrents as the majority of their bandwidth, then maybe they need to be throttled or capped.

I download dvd's a couple of times a month, a couple of shows, and any TV shows that I've missed and I would consider myself a power user. Yet, I don't even cross over 60 or 70 gigs each month.

Until you're downloading HD content, 100 gigs/mth should be plenty and it shouldn't be throttled. The deal for 200/mth with the company Blane posted about sounds amazing, but how long will they be able to offer that level of service?

[c-towns]

everyone has to manage their own bandwidth or the companies will end up managing it for you.

How does one manage their own bandwidth? By limiting downloads? I'm with Rogers, so would this mean that all of Rogers clients are "throttled" or just those that abuse downloading?

[larry_llama]

I'm with Ollie on all of this. You can't complain too much over bandwidth throttling without knowing more facts. It is quite possible that bandwidth is really affected by the amount of torrents constantly being transferred.

Then they need to be clear about their policies up front, before they take your money. That is the main point here.

the quote suggesting that bell would rather throttle than "Upgrade equipment" is an uneducated and unresearched GUESS at best. You can't just upgrade equipment to gain more bandwidth.

Perhaps it's not entirely accurate, but what is accurate is that:

a) clearly they have bandwidth problems now and

clearly they have no moral trouble adding all of your neighbours to their service if they all called up tomorrow to join. they advertise aggressively in the hopes that this will happen!

So something is not right here... they see a problem, and their immediate solution is to throttle existing users to that they can fit more... without telling their existing users. That's wrong.

[phishtaper]

walking a dog and picking your ass.

good times

[badams]

CRTC sides with Bell in throttling complaint, for now

Globe and Mail Update

May 14, 2008 at 12:49 PM EDT

Bell Canada can continue to slow down certain types of Internet traffic flowing on the wholesale networks it provides to smaller Canadian Internet service providers after federal regulators denied a request for interim relief from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers.

Last month, CAIP brought forth a complaint which alleged that Bell's “traffic shaping†policies are illegal and called on the Canadian Radio-Telecommunications Commission to issue a stop order against the telecom giant.

At the time, CAIP said Bell's practices were a part of a larger plan to implement a tiered Internet pricing system.

The CRTC's process for making a final decision on the matter will be set out in a letter due to be issued tomorrow.

Canada's largest ISPs – including Bell and Rogers Communications Inc. – employ shaping techniques to manage the flow of data flowing on their networks.

Shaping involves slowing down certain kinds of Internet activity – usually peer-to-peer and torrent-based traffic, used for large file transfers – while giving priority to other data. The companies say the large files clog their networks, which leads to slow connection speeds for other customers.

In its application to the CRTC, CAIP charges that Bell has plans to do away with its “unlimited Internet usage plans†which bill users a set fee for access to the Internet, and that the company will begin charging users based on how much bandwidth they use in a month.

Because many of its 50-plus member companies offer access packages with no bandwidth limitations, CAIP claims Bell is worried it would lose customers to those competitors.

In order to grant a cease and desist order, the CRTC must be satisfied that there is a serious issue to be determined, that the group seeking the interim relief will suffer irreparable damage if it isn't granted and that “the balance of convenience†favours the public interest.

In this case, the CRTC determined that Bell's throttling policies represent a “serious issue.†However, the decision states that CAIP did not provide sufficient evidence to prove that its members will suffer irreparable harm as a result of the throttling.

[Kanada Kev]

Bullshit. F-Bell. F-CRTC.

[mattm]

http://easynews.com/

$10/month for 20 gigs download, you can use port 81 (never throttled) or port 80 or the nntp port if you go through that (I just use the web-based version and port 81.

It sucks what the big companies are doing and it's wrong. They make soooooooooooooooooooo much money, it's a crime as far as I'm concerned but then we live in a capitalist society. You do whatever the hell you can to make money and fuck anyone that gets in your way. This is in regards to overselling of the bandwidth, hijacking of pages, etc, not traffic shaping.

Also, 60gigs/month (my plan) is plenty, who needs to download more than that anyway and I'm a nerd. That's not to say I don't think what they are doing is wrong but I mean most torrent traffic is illegal and downloading more than the limit of illegal stuff, I can see how they might want that bandwidth back. I have rogers and really, I don't want my bandwidth to be sucked away by the guy beside me who's too cheap to pay for cable to watch his favorite shows. I pay for an HD PVR, I record my shows and sorry but fuck those that are too cheap to do this (and yes, I'm looking at all of you). Once in a while it's ok to download movies and such if you can't afford them, they aren't out yet, etc, etc, but man, people are obsessed with downloading all the tv they missed and until we have networks that can handle the traffic, I want my fair share. Borrow the dvd's or rent and burn them if you want entire seasons of shows.

Now, it sucks about music and sites like bt.etree.org but what about the archive, it's straight download, http and ftp. Unfortunately, BT just isn't the best way to go...

Best thing: Make sure to work for a company that has mad bandwidth and doesn't mind you using it for personal, maybe not so legal endeavors and you're good

PS: This may hurt but you guys need to read this blog -> http://mattroberts.com/2007/04/13/lets-ask-ourselves-what-is-net-neutrality-really/

Edited May 15, 2008 by Guest

[AdamH]

Ha ha ha, find me a company that doesn't mind me hogging bandwidth for downloading and I'll fix up my CV!

I doubt that the CAIP will get their way but I support them in trying to ensure fairer competition than what we have with telecommunications in Canada.

I would also prefer that pricing structures be built around the amount you download rather than limiting download speed. That would be a more "net neutral" policy and those people who want/need to download hundreds of gigs a month would be able to pay for it.

[Kanada Kev]

The thing that is a drag is the propaganda that the big ISPs are putting out that it is all the P2P action that is clogging bandwidth. The documentation that funkybeats linked to were interesting. They, along with some other articles i've read, state that torrenting is not the root cause of bandwidth clogging. Video streaming is supposedly one of the biggest hogs.

So, if they are convincing the CRTC that they should be able to shape specific protocols and that this validates their argument, then it opens up their NEW pricing policies that they will be rolling out.

To keep the "high speed" aspect of what they sell to their customers, they will operate on a tiered pricing scheme. Sure, those who use more pay more, but the price will be astronomical I am sure. Didn't somebody post here that their ISP had a meter that showed how much they "could" be paying for extra bandwidth (in the hundreds of $s).

The situation is much like what happened with cell phone plans over the years. Minutes = Bandwidth.

The way I see it, they can start a new plan/pricing scheme as they choose. The problem is that there is no room for reasonable competition when wholesalers' hands are tied by the big ISPs.

All I want is the advertised speed that the ISP states I should be getting more than the 60Gig/month cap on combined up/download.

[phishtaper]

The thing that is a drag is the propaganda that the big ISPs are putting out that it is all the P2P action that is clogging bandwidth.

CRTC has just said to Bell, "prove it."

[Kanada Kev]

^^^^^

Good ...

And let's hope that whatever their "answer" is gets carefully scrutinized to determine validity.

[mattm]

video streams do hog a lot of bandwidth but you have to go right down to the packet to really see why BT is a huge hog (and other p2p applications).

The way they work is that when you send a packet to someone via routers you have to first ask if they exist, get a response, then send the packet and then confirm that you sent it. This happens through each hop.

When you stream video there is one source which means one handshake (it will re-handshake a few times but not every packet, it's not needed). After that it's pure downstream. With BT's and other p2p there are many clients involved and they are constantly changing, the client is constantly re-handshaking with them. This means that lets say you have a video stream at 300kbps and a torrent running at 300kpbs. That's what the application tells you. What it doesn't tell you is that there's probably another 200kbps involved in torrent handshakes since it has to constantly make sure the other computer is there, still in the same location, etc. This causes a lot of overhead and it's why most large networks will throttle BT and other p2p apps. On top of this, the handshakes go in both directions so not only is there more downstream overhead, the downloading also has upstream overhead involved (and that's not counting the upload you're actually doing with the torrent which also needs to do handshakes, also consuming more up/down bandwidth).

What's bad is that they don't say this when you get the package. In other words, they should mention that you will get great speeds, yes, but only through protocols such as http. If you need to do things like BT, then you need to have an ISP that doesn't throttle this. There have been a couple lawsuits to this nature (false advertising or promoting something that isn't entirely true) in the states but I don't think there have been any in canada. The fact that they won't tell you about it when you call is pure bullshit and that's what makes me mad.

The other thing that's bad, if they do it, is to favor their own stuff. A voip call using rogers should have the same priority as a voip call through anything else on the network, they should not throttle those things, that's unfair.

Edited May 15, 2008 by Guest

[FunkyBeats]

The CRTC's plan is as follows:

CRTC Letter

Only time will tell...

FunkyBeats.

Edited May 15, 2008 by Guest

[Kanada Kev]

Hmm. The CRTC letter seems very reasonable to me. It seems to show that they truly understand the allegations of current activities and practices. It also shows that they want clarification, from both sides, on totally relevant data and assertions.

As you said, only time will tell. I'll be interested in seeing the results.

[FunkyBeats]

IMO the information that Bell has to supply is much more serious and in depth compared to what they have asked of CAIP. I think it will be hard for bell to spin the numbers on this one. In the mean time MLPPP can bypass the throttle which is supported by Teksavvy ([color:red]for any Bell customers who would like to switch to an ISP who actually takes care of it's customers).

Let the market speak.

FunkyBeats.

[mattm]

Tell me, 100% honest, how many of you use p2p for legal purposes and how you use 60gigs or so per month of it?

Ok, there might be some folks on here that use bt.etree.org and actually download that much (I have). And maybe, just maybe, there are some people that are using it to download countless linux images.

Something tells me that most of the p2p use will be for things you should be paying for...

Now, if people get their way and the throttling must stop, don't you think Bell and Rogers and such will use already implemented technology, deep packet inspection, to see the illegal activity and just shut you down? That's what I see happening. They can do it now but instead they ignore it and just slow it down but why back a giant monster against the wall...

Just go with another provider.

Fun Info: We just implemented a traffic shaper here at algonquin to limit the bandwidth used by p2p applications as they were hogging all the bandwidth and it was getting too expensive. And yup, it was because of the few people that just leave their torrents running all day slowing down the network for everyone else the might actually want to do research and stuff...

Edited May 15, 2008 by Guest

[FunkyBeats]

Good for you Matt, you should be proud of yourself.

You can rain on my parade any day.

FunkyBeats.

[Freak By Night]

thanks for your posts matt.... very informative.

[mattm]

Any time I say the word "you", I don't necessarily mean you the reader, I am using it as a general term. It only applies to those that the text applies to.

Without incriminating myself, I've been "doing things" since before windows and when the internet was still in bbs form. I remember the days of waiting multiple days to get the 3mb program. The internet got faster, more people started "doing things" but that was still ok, it was kept on the down low. Then p2p came in and tonnes and tonnes more people starting "doing things" but you know what, it was still somewhat ok, the ISP's still mostly ignored it. Then came torrents and everyone started "doing things".

Now, people are going so far as to complain about the fact that they can no longer "do things" because the ISP's have finally clued in or at least it's gotten so out of hand that the ISP's have had to react, be it from pressure due to other organizations or plainly being sick of people doing things on their networks.

The next step is to start banning/suing people for "doing things" and I don't want to be banned or sued so quite frankly I'm sick of all the people that can't shut up and enjoy a good thing, or ruin a good thing for those that really like and enjoy said good thing.

Now, if you look above, I put up a link. That link and $10/20gig will get you almost all the "things" you want if you take a couple minutes to learn how, and through http at full speed. If you need the music, you are stuck with BT's. Do it at night. Do it in the morning. Don't do it at 5pm, the ISP's will start blocking that sort of thing or throttling. Have some patience and wait that extra bit instead of complaining and ruining it completely. Bell, Rogers, they will win when it comes to throttling and that is a good thing, the topic should then be dropped or ignored and not brought up again.

On another note, I pay Rogers $250/month for services. HD cable, faster internet, phone service, cell phones, the whole shabang. I'm a good customer and they will ignore some things. For this reason, I also don't like hearing people complain that their free or next to free phone service that sucks away my bandwidth is not working properly. You want tv, pay for tv, don't steal my bandwidth downloading tv and then complain when it's not working out for you. You want phone, pay for phone, don't steal my bandwidth with cheap or free phone. I'm not rich, hell, not even close, just about to move above the poverty line. I do work hard and I earn the right to my services that I pay for and the reason I pay for them is that it provides a level of security. My voip won't go down, even if the network does, they'll direct what's left to mine cause I pay them to do that. Do companies like Vonage pay rogers and bell and whatnot to have that security or do they piggy back on customers like me that do pay and then complain?

Rogers and Bell are evil monsters. I don't agree with their policies. I don't like throttling, deep packet inspection and all the new technology. I know why it's there though and the more people talk, the worse it will get.

There, I said it.