Last Updated: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 | 5:44 PM ET Comments254Recommend154
By Emily Chung, CBC News
Bell's Suzanne Morin, Peter Vandenengel, Jonathan Daniels, Carl Condon and Denis Henry, left to right, provided suggested guidelines on internet traffic management to the CRTC on Tuesday. (Emily Chung/CBC)
Bell's Suzanne Morin, Peter Vandenengel, Jonathan Daniels, Carl Condon and Denis Henry, left to right, provided suggested guidelines on internet traffic management to the CRTC on Tuesday. (Emily Chung/CBC)Bell Canada slows certain types of downloads to as little as 1.5 to 3 per cent of their advertised speed during 9½ hours of the day, but not to the same extent during the entire period, company executives revealed to Canada's internet regulator Tuesday.
The details of the way the company throttles — selectively slows down — peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfers will soon be posted on the company's website, Jonathan Daniels, Bell's vice-president of regulatory law, said at a hearing Tuesday before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
The hearings, which started July 6 and ended with Bell's testimony on Tuesday, are intended to help the CRTC develop guidelines for ISPs on acceptable ways to manage internet traffic and congestion.
Like other ISPs that testified previously, Bell said expanding its network and using pricing methods alone are not enough to deal with congestion. In addition, the company targets P2P file transfers because they are not time-sensitive and tend to hoard bandwidth.
The company suggested that the CRTC's guidelines allow all "reasonable" methods for managing internet traffic, so long as:
He said Bell's proposed guidelines should be applied to all ISPs, including DSL, cable, and wireless wholesalers and retailers.
CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein asked why Bell is the only ISP in Canada that throttles P2P downloads, while most other ISPs only throttle uploads. Daniels responded that downloads are the main problem for Bell, most other ISPs that throttle use cable technology that poses different challenges, and that some ISPs in other countries also throttle downloads.
10 hours of throttling per day
Von Finckenstein then asked why Bell throttles P2P file transfers during a 10-hour period of the day, instead of only during periods of congestion as many other ISPs do.
Carl Condon, Bell's vice-president of network technology and planning, said it isn't possible to manage links in Bell's network individually due to technological issues, and at any given time, some might be congested while others are not.
Len Katz, the CRTC's vice-chair of telecommunications, asked about Bell's throttled speeds.
The CRTC's Len Katz, left, and Konrad von Finckenstein asked Bell about the details of its throttling practices and why they were different from those of other ISPs. (Emily Chung/CBC)
Daniels said peer-to-peer file transfers are reduced to a speed of 256 kilobits per second between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m. in Ontario and Quebec. That is a 98.5 per cent reduction from the maximum advertised speed of 16 megabits per second that Bell uses to sell its Internet Max 16 service.
Between 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. and between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., the company slows downloads to 512 kilobits per second. Daniels added that the numbers would be posted on its website soon.
Bell Canada's sister company Bell Aliant, which operates in Atlantic Canada, does not throttle traffic any time, as congestion is not considered a problem there, the CRTC was told.
Wholesale internet
Much of the infrastructure underlying the internet in Canada was built at taxpayer expense. Because of that, corporations such as Bell that own the lines are required to sell wholesale network access to other internet service providers at regulated rates.
Bell's regulated gateway access service (GAS) starts at $19.50 per month per customer for a five-megabit-per-second connection. Wholesale customers must also pay for a "door" or "on-ramp" from their own network with a specified amount of bandwidth. However, Bell says that comprises only two per cent of the total price for GAS.
Bell also sells wholesale high-speed access (HSA) to its network starting at an unregulated rate of $40 per month per customer for a six-megabit-per-second connection. That requires the ISP to install additional equipment, and reduces the amount of network shared with Bell.
For both GAS and HSA, the part of the network closest to the customer's home is shared with Bell's own retail customers.
The CRTC received a complaint from Bell's wholesale customers in 2008 that Bell was throttling those ISPs' retail customers. In November, the commission ruled such throttling was allowable in Bell's specific case, as the practice was applied equally to Bell's retail and wholesale customers. However, it decided to launch a probe into internet traffic management in general, culminating in the hearings that ended Tuesday.
Bell defends right to throttle other ISPs
One of the issues that had come up repeatedly during the hearings is whether companies such as Bell should be allowed to throttle the customers of other ISPs that buy wholesale network access from the larger ISPs.
Representatives of those smaller ISPs, such as Execulink, had argued that they should be able to manage their own customers' traffic and deal with their own problem customers directly in order to distinguish themselves and allow for true competition.
But Daniels said the only way Bell could allow those smaller ISPs — which buy network access wholesale from Bell — to manage their own internet traffic is if they used exactly the same method as Bell, as other methods would conflict.
"And if [they're] going to do that, why don't we just do it for them?" Daniels asked.
Daniels said there is already plenty of competition and allowing its wholesale customers to manage their own traffic is not possible on Bell's network, because:
'They're only paying for the door'
On Tuesday, Bell also countered arguments made earlier by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), which represents many smaller ISPs, that:
"They're only paying for the door."
In addition, ISPs that don't want to be subject to throttling also have another option, Daniels said. They could buy Bell's high-speed access (HSA) wholesale service, which uses the same shared network and costs roughly twice as much, but is not subject to Bell's traffic shaping. For example, Primus has purchased that service in some parts of Ontario.
Earlier in the hearing Primus said it had introduced its own traffic shaping in those areas, which prioritizes certain applications during periods of congestion at specific areas of the network where congestion is happening.
Bell's Condon said he wasn't sure how Primus manages to detect and deal with congestion at specific times and areas of the network, as Bell cannot.
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Story comments (254)
Sort: Most recent | First to last | Agreed
CyberWolf23 wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 8:00 PM ET>>Why in the hell are all of you people thinking that P2P is exclusive to illegal sharing of files? What do you make of linux and all its applications? All the online games and their patches? Or independant film makers and musicians
Because although there might be some small amount of "legal" P2P traffic, the overwhelming majority has been shown to be illegal time and time again. Why do P2P users seem to be unable to accept this well-documented fact?
______________________________________________________________
Really? i can bet you i could download....at full speed....for a year, just P2P.....and all legal stuff, and not even be through 1/4 of all the legal P2P thats legal. And i'd like to see those facts....and not endorsed by the mpaa,riaa and the likes....please....stop getting you info from biased sources....you might sound more intelligent
9 3
9Agree 3DisagreePolicy Report abuse
DJMASACRE wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 4:16 PM ETplease people... stop thinking this is about illegal filresharing or any of that crap.
this is about Bell and the way they are trying to fool you right now
please please please
I urge all of you mis or uninformed people to read up on your stuff properly ..
Lost in a forest.. - dslreports.com is filled with great threads with intelligent discussion. you will find all the debates and real facts as well as mythbusting false stuff, like many of you still believe .....
I urge you to do this, and just help fight for what is right right now.....
12Agree 0DisagreePolicy Report abuse
scjet123 wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 1:10 PM ETNetwork Congestion ? what network congecture ?
I am spending regularly more on my Bell Cell/Internet/Express VU rates per month than I am on gas for my car per month !
10 years ago it was the other way around by a long shot. !
Canadians are paying these "exhorbetant" Internet rates to the likes of Bell and Rogers so that they, in fact, CAN and SHOULD
keep their/our network hardware,... upgraded -and if they(Bell) had done this since 2000 then they would have never needed to
"illegally" throttle us in the first place !!! Instead, they are now wasting our money for expensive "throttling, DPI, ..."
techniques that could have just went into upgrading "our" canadian network infrastructures.
Nortel may be gone, but Bell Canada needs to once again re-assert and pool they're R&D resources, (create another BNR Ma, you did it successfully before),
and become the corporation with innovation that it used to be. Innovation is the real "competition".
Let technological development and innovation, as you said, " ...improve the overall experience for the vast majority of
users..." and forget that "3 pronged" fork that your trying to ram up my _____.
14Agree 0DisagreePolicy Report abuse
Stampy wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 11:23 AM ETWow...I knew I was getting ripped off, I just didn't know how much.
18Agree 2DisagreePolicy Report abuse
Timothy Klaas wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 7:15 AM ETI hate Bell. What a terrible company...
26Agree 6DisagreePolicy Report abuse
By Emily Chung, CBC News
Bell's Suzanne Morin, Peter Vandenengel, Jonathan Daniels, Carl Condon and Denis Henry, left to right, provided suggested guidelines on internet traffic management to the CRTC on Tuesday. (Emily Chung/CBC)
Bell's Suzanne Morin, Peter Vandenengel, Jonathan Daniels, Carl Condon and Denis Henry, left to right, provided suggested guidelines on internet traffic management to the CRTC on Tuesday. (Emily Chung/CBC)Bell Canada slows certain types of downloads to as little as 1.5 to 3 per cent of their advertised speed during 9½ hours of the day, but not to the same extent during the entire period, company executives revealed to Canada's internet regulator Tuesday.
The details of the way the company throttles — selectively slows down — peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfers will soon be posted on the company's website, Jonathan Daniels, Bell's vice-president of regulatory law, said at a hearing Tuesday before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
The hearings, which started July 6 and ended with Bell's testimony on Tuesday, are intended to help the CRTC develop guidelines for ISPs on acceptable ways to manage internet traffic and congestion.
Like other ISPs that testified previously, Bell said expanding its network and using pricing methods alone are not enough to deal with congestion. In addition, the company targets P2P file transfers because they are not time-sensitive and tend to hoard bandwidth.
The company suggested that the CRTC's guidelines allow all "reasonable" methods for managing internet traffic, so long as:
- They have made a "reasonable" effort to limit the negative impacts on users, services, protocols or applications.
- They disclose the "general nature" of the methods, such as the kind of traffic affected, the times of day and the privacy implications.
- They don't break privacy laws.
He said Bell's proposed guidelines should be applied to all ISPs, including DSL, cable, and wireless wholesalers and retailers.
CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein asked why Bell is the only ISP in Canada that throttles P2P downloads, while most other ISPs only throttle uploads. Daniels responded that downloads are the main problem for Bell, most other ISPs that throttle use cable technology that poses different challenges, and that some ISPs in other countries also throttle downloads.
10 hours of throttling per day
Von Finckenstein then asked why Bell throttles P2P file transfers during a 10-hour period of the day, instead of only during periods of congestion as many other ISPs do.
Carl Condon, Bell's vice-president of network technology and planning, said it isn't possible to manage links in Bell's network individually due to technological issues, and at any given time, some might be congested while others are not.
Len Katz, the CRTC's vice-chair of telecommunications, asked about Bell's throttled speeds.
The CRTC's Len Katz, left, and Konrad von Finckenstein asked Bell about the details of its throttling practices and why they were different from those of other ISPs. (Emily Chung/CBC)
Daniels said peer-to-peer file transfers are reduced to a speed of 256 kilobits per second between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m. in Ontario and Quebec. That is a 98.5 per cent reduction from the maximum advertised speed of 16 megabits per second that Bell uses to sell its Internet Max 16 service.
Between 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. and between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., the company slows downloads to 512 kilobits per second. Daniels added that the numbers would be posted on its website soon.
Bell Canada's sister company Bell Aliant, which operates in Atlantic Canada, does not throttle traffic any time, as congestion is not considered a problem there, the CRTC was told.
Wholesale internet
Much of the infrastructure underlying the internet in Canada was built at taxpayer expense. Because of that, corporations such as Bell that own the lines are required to sell wholesale network access to other internet service providers at regulated rates.
Bell's regulated gateway access service (GAS) starts at $19.50 per month per customer for a five-megabit-per-second connection. Wholesale customers must also pay for a "door" or "on-ramp" from their own network with a specified amount of bandwidth. However, Bell says that comprises only two per cent of the total price for GAS.
Bell also sells wholesale high-speed access (HSA) to its network starting at an unregulated rate of $40 per month per customer for a six-megabit-per-second connection. That requires the ISP to install additional equipment, and reduces the amount of network shared with Bell.
For both GAS and HSA, the part of the network closest to the customer's home is shared with Bell's own retail customers.
The CRTC received a complaint from Bell's wholesale customers in 2008 that Bell was throttling those ISPs' retail customers. In November, the commission ruled such throttling was allowable in Bell's specific case, as the practice was applied equally to Bell's retail and wholesale customers. However, it decided to launch a probe into internet traffic management in general, culminating in the hearings that ended Tuesday.
Bell defends right to throttle other ISPs
One of the issues that had come up repeatedly during the hearings is whether companies such as Bell should be allowed to throttle the customers of other ISPs that buy wholesale network access from the larger ISPs.
Representatives of those smaller ISPs, such as Execulink, had argued that they should be able to manage their own customers' traffic and deal with their own problem customers directly in order to distinguish themselves and allow for true competition.
But Daniels said the only way Bell could allow those smaller ISPs — which buy network access wholesale from Bell — to manage their own internet traffic is if they used exactly the same method as Bell, as other methods would conflict.
"And if [they're] going to do that, why don't we just do it for them?" Daniels asked.
Daniels said there is already plenty of competition and allowing its wholesale customers to manage their own traffic is not possible on Bell's network, because:
- The network is completely shared between Bell's own retail customers and the smaller ISPs' customers in the area where congestion is the biggest problem.
- Bell's retail customers cannot be distinguished from the other ISPs' customers.
- All those customers affect the others.
'They're only paying for the door'
On Tuesday, Bell also countered arguments made earlier by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), which represents many smaller ISPs, that:
- Their internet traffic is an insignificant portion of total network traffic.
- They buy a certain speed and a certain amount of bandwidth from Bell, which its throttling prevents them from using.
"They're only paying for the door."
In addition, ISPs that don't want to be subject to throttling also have another option, Daniels said. They could buy Bell's high-speed access (HSA) wholesale service, which uses the same shared network and costs roughly twice as much, but is not subject to Bell's traffic shaping. For example, Primus has purchased that service in some parts of Ontario.
Earlier in the hearing Primus said it had introduced its own traffic shaping in those areas, which prioritizes certain applications during periods of congestion at specific areas of the network where congestion is happening.
Bell's Condon said he wasn't sure how Primus manages to detect and deal with congestion at specific times and areas of the network, as Bell cannot.
- This story is now closed to commenting.
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Story comments (254)
Sort: Most recent | First to last | Agreed
CyberWolf23 wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 8:00 PM ET>>Why in the hell are all of you people thinking that P2P is exclusive to illegal sharing of files? What do you make of linux and all its applications? All the online games and their patches? Or independant film makers and musicians
Because although there might be some small amount of "legal" P2P traffic, the overwhelming majority has been shown to be illegal time and time again. Why do P2P users seem to be unable to accept this well-documented fact?
______________________________________________________________
Really? i can bet you i could download....at full speed....for a year, just P2P.....and all legal stuff, and not even be through 1/4 of all the legal P2P thats legal. And i'd like to see those facts....and not endorsed by the mpaa,riaa and the likes....please....stop getting you info from biased sources....you might sound more intelligent
9 3
9Agree 3DisagreePolicy Report abuse
DJMASACRE wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 4:16 PM ETplease people... stop thinking this is about illegal filresharing or any of that crap.
this is about Bell and the way they are trying to fool you right now
please please please
I urge all of you mis or uninformed people to read up on your stuff properly ..
Lost in a forest.. - dslreports.com is filled with great threads with intelligent discussion. you will find all the debates and real facts as well as mythbusting false stuff, like many of you still believe .....
I urge you to do this, and just help fight for what is right right now.....
12Agree 0DisagreePolicy Report abuse
scjet123 wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 1:10 PM ETNetwork Congestion ? what network congecture ?
I am spending regularly more on my Bell Cell/Internet/Express VU rates per month than I am on gas for my car per month !
10 years ago it was the other way around by a long shot. !
Canadians are paying these "exhorbetant" Internet rates to the likes of Bell and Rogers so that they, in fact, CAN and SHOULD
keep their/our network hardware,... upgraded -and if they(Bell) had done this since 2000 then they would have never needed to
"illegally" throttle us in the first place !!! Instead, they are now wasting our money for expensive "throttling, DPI, ..."
techniques that could have just went into upgrading "our" canadian network infrastructures.
Nortel may be gone, but Bell Canada needs to once again re-assert and pool they're R&D resources, (create another BNR Ma, you did it successfully before),
and become the corporation with innovation that it used to be. Innovation is the real "competition".
Let technological development and innovation, as you said, " ...improve the overall experience for the vast majority of
users..." and forget that "3 pronged" fork that your trying to ram up my _____.
14Agree 0DisagreePolicy Report abuse
Stampy wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 11:23 AM ETWow...I knew I was getting ripped off, I just didn't know how much.
18Agree 2DisagreePolicy Report abuse
Timothy Klaas wrote:Posted 2009/07/16
at 7:15 AM ETI hate Bell. What a terrible company...
26Agree 6DisagreePolicy Report abuse
