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Legitimate BitTorrent users face traffic jam

MATT HARTLEY

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 1:03 PM EDT 29/11/07

A growing number of users who use BitTorrent for things other than downloading pirated movies are getting caught in ISPs' efforts to stem file sharing ...Read the full article

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  1. A Yu from Barbieston, Canada writes: Bandwidth hoggers undermine the Internet experience for the rest of us regular users. If my ISP does not restrict access by peer-to-peer software, I would like that to change. People using BitTorrent and other high volume file sharing software should either pay more for their Internet service, or be moved to a slower lane. Net Neutrality is a nighmare to the majority of Internet users.
  2. erich finchley from Canada writes: I think it's pretty simple: you use more bandwidth, you pay more. Traffic shaping is a slippery slope - look at Telus restricting access to anti-Telus union sites.
  3. Alexander Slimnich from Canada writes: The solution: Completely block all illegal uses of the bittorrent by the ISP, and allow unrestricted, full speed access to legimitate content using bittorrent. That will cut about 90% of the bandwidth useage of bittorrent..
  4. one thinker from Canada writes: using the example on the article, if i use the highway more then i have to pay more or do i have to pay the same as someone who use it less than i do. Seems to me that the principle stands, if you pay to connect to the internet then you should be able to use it any way you want. Imagine if they tell you that since you've been using the highway to much then you cant use it for the next month unless you buy another car from which you can star your milage from scratch.

    If you let coorporations charge extra on things that you dont use sooner or later they will find something that will apply to you and you wont have anyone else to back you in your complain. Either put the internet providers on a leash now or suffer the consequenses later.
  5. Absolutely Right from Canada writes: This is the slippery slope to more 'traffic shaping'. Shaw Cable was caught meddling with VOIP traffic on their internet service because they didn't want internet subscribers to use 3rd party VOIP services such as Vonage. Shaw though this was a-ok and was content to keep on 'shaping' this traffic. Fact is there are very few high bandwith service providers that actually own most of their network infrastruture. Cable providers and exisitng Telcos in most of Canada have the rights to put up poles and string cables and no other's do. The intention was good, don't have multiple poles and cables on every street. Because of this they were permitted to carry on business protected from competitors. The incumbent providers with this infrastructre in my opinion, don't have the right to 'shape' traffic. I purchase a given amount of 'bandwidth' from my ISP. I fully expect to be able to use in un-incumberd by 'traffic shaping'. If they cannot provided the bandwith why are they permitted to sell it. This is aken to fraud. The agreements the major ISP have is in most cases, changeable without notice to the subscriber. Even their agreements are in a state of flux. Imagine if your bank could change your mortgage at will and without notice to you. I see Shaw Cable is agressively trying to buy out Campell River BC's CRTV. This is a society owned by the people of Campell River for the last 50 years that provides cable service to that city. The current amount offered for every subscriber was a $3000.00 buy out. Existing Shaw Cable customers are likely funding this purchase. There is big money in owning the 'license' to have cable infrastructure. Instead of investigating Chocolate manufacturers for price fixing they should be looking at ISP's. But then that would be treading on the rubber stamping CRTC's turf.
  6. Joseph Whistle from Canada writes: There isn't really a problem at all, except for the problem for people that are using Rogers for their (overpriced) internet.
    Rogers is the grand master overlord of traffic shaping. Transfer speeds plummet to near zero levels once Rogers figures out you're sharing files. They go even further: they hamper your connection if they even think you're exchange any kind of bulk encrypted data. That went too far for me, and I switched from their $45 per month service to one of the 35 DSL companies to choose from, at $30 per month. Haven't looked back, works like a charm.
  7. Glen Pearce from Winnipeg, Canada writes: There really is a simple approach, have a pay by GB of transfer each month system. Just make it easy for customers to check how much they've used (on a per IP adress and live basis) so they can manage their own use within their package limit or pay the overage if it's worth it to them. After all a GB of data is a GB of data, it doesn't matter if it's web, FTP, torrent, VOIP, something else, inbound, outbound, encrypted or in the clear. The only time there might be an exception is within network and out of network traffic. After all it is probably economically better for Shaw if I get 20 GB of data from annother Shaw client than if I get the same amount of data from someone where they have to pay to get data to or from annother network. This could be recognized in the rate structure. I remember a few years back there was a big hullubalo about people running home servers. I run a web and FTP server but since it's mostly 'niche' content, big in total size but less frequently accessed I probably use less than the average user when my other uses are taken into account. That does include some torrent use, but I moderate it.
  8. Mark _ from Canada writes: I don't understand why regulators are not addressing this. ISP's advertise 10mbps speeds, you buy the service, and then they say, 'Whoa, you want to use 10mbps of bandwidth?? Sorry, we're capping you to 2mbps'. What if you bought a car with 250 horsepower and and the dealer delivered and engine with 150 horsepower? What if you bought a 2L carton of milk and when you got home it was only half full because the seller reasoned people were drinking too much? What the ISP's are doing is criminal bait and switch. Breach of contract. I wish those over zealous Toronto lawyers would finally take this on.
  9. Mike - from Waterloo, Canada writes: New versions of Linux are typically distributed by bittorrent these days ... that's one example of perfectly legal download.
  10. LostInSpace Forever from Canada writes: Permitting ISPs to charge by the bandwidth used would be a spectacular benefit for the ISPs. The potential for price gouging would be incredible. If this is permitted buy Rogers stock! If you think that this would be a problem with Bittorent users, you are sadly mistaken.

    Bandwith choking based on traffic and packet type should be part of the up front information people get when they use an ISP. I, for one, would choose my ISP based on this information. Let's face it, highspeed internet access is now a commodity, just like long distance phone. I don't care if Rogers or the Zimbabwe Internet Providers are my ISP. I just don't want to pay more than I have to.

    Does Sympatico control the flock of packets? If not, and Rogers apparently does, I'm switching.
  11. Johnny LaRue from Second City, Canada writes: I just recently left Rogers for this very same reason. How can they get away with selling you 'hi-speed' internet that is anything but? Rogers sells you internet packages that they claim will deliver something that they don't. There are many DSL companies out there that will deliver speeds consistently faster than anything Rogers promises, without traffic shaping, at a fraction of the price. I just signed up with Acanac and am paying $19/month for a service that is faster than Rogers' hi-speed. You don't even need an active phone line. Please don't buy into the BS that your internet is slow because of Torrent users. Your internet is slow because Rogers is shaping your traffic and charging you a premium for it. Enjoy!
  12. Frank N. Stein from Canada writes: This is what the internet is for - file sharing, buying online from the USA and playing online games. I hate it when they crimp my speed after downloading 100 movies. I was thinking of upgrading to Lightning speed, but now I see it is just a rip off if they cut the speed.
  13. Frank N. Stein from Canada writes: PLUS - add in the effect that Rogers rents movies, so Rogers has a motive behind crimping speed of movie downloaders.
  14. Andrew Skujins @ www.skuj.com from Aurora, Canada writes: Alexander Slimnich from Canada writes: The solution: Completely block all illegal uses of the bittorrent by the ISP, and allow unrestricted, full speed access to legimitate content using bittorrent.

    Ah... censorship... the most dimwitted of all responses.

    I suppose we should be monitoring local phonecalls too?

    Join the information revolution:
    http://isohunt.com/
    http://azureus.sourceforge.net/download.php?os=1
  15. Private Person from Toronto, Canada writes: Blocking (or slowing) BitTorrent traffic is like fighting terrorism by pulling all white cars off the road. Studies show that more terrorists use white cars than any other colour.

    BitTorrent is just a protocol for file transfers. It's a tool that can be used for good or 'bad'. Like a photocopier.

    I use BitTorrent all day and night, in Canada, without any traffic shaping. How? I don't subscribe to Bell or Rogers. Oh yeah, and my bill is lower than it would be on Bell or Rogers.

    Duh.
  16. Trevor Armstrong from Toronto, Canada writes: Glen Pearce wrote: ... After all a GB of data is a GB of data, it doesn't matter if it's web, FTP, torrent, VOIP, something else, inbound, outbound, encrypted or in the clear.

    If only it were that simple. Unfortunately, when Rogers built their network the Internet was much more download intensive. They quote download speeds WAY higher than their upload speeds. The problem Rogers is facing with Bit Torrent is that BT chokes up all available upload bandwidth, and the Rogers infrastructure is set up such that this ends up 'destroying' the Internet speeds of everyone on the block.

    Alexander Slimnich wrote: The solution: Completely block all illegal uses of the bittorrent by the ISP, and allow unrestricted, full speed access to legimitate content using bittorrent. That will cut about 90% of the bandwidth useage of bittorrent.

    Maybe you should move to China if you want censorship?

    More seriously, though, it's actually impossible. There's absolutely no way for your ISP to know if your traffic is legitimate or not. Especially with encrypted traffic: Rogers is now 'shaping' ALL encrypted network traffic.

    Some collateral damage? It's become virtually impossible to do any work from home with Rogers, and it's become very difficult for researchers at major universities from sharing data with their colleagues accross the country and internationally.

    Rogers should be allowed to do whatever they want with their network. Based on their infrastructure, they have hardware constraints that limit the traffic they can handle. BUT, Rogers should be required to fully disclose any traffic shaping they do, and they should be required to show this information to any/all clients when they show up.

    As an interesting aside, Rogers own VoiP traffic isn't shaped at all. Interesting, since they shape all their competitors' VoiP products...
  17. bylo selhi from Waterloo, Canada writes: Your story fails to point that recently Bell Sympatico has begun
    1. throttling all BT traffic by 'up to'() 95%, i.e. to under 30kB/s, during the evening (although some allege that more than just BT is being throttled.)
    2. capping what they sold as 'unlimited' bandwidth at as little as 30GB per month
    3. gouging those who exceed their caps an egregious $1.50/GB
    4. banning paying subscribers who Bell, at its sole discretion, deems to be bandwidth 'abusers' and removing their phone numbers from its DSL availability database so that they can't obtain broadband, at any price, from Bell's third-party DSL competitors.

    In addition, their throttling is indiscriminate. They throttle light users. They throttle users who have contracts that entitle them to 'unlimited bandwidth usage.' They throttle all BT, legal or not. And they throttle everyone by 'up to' 95% of the download speeds that Bell sold them.

    This is the Canadian telecommunications scandal of the year. Where are the G&M's investigative reporters on this story? (Could it be that their coverage of this story has been, er, throttled by their BCE owners?)

    (    ) those who have been affected by Bell's deceptive 'up to' speeds advertising will appreciate the irony ;)
  18. Gnarly kanuck from Ottawa, Canada writes: Perhaps all the Government money that was given to the Carriers to build out the Public Internet should be returned if the Carriers plan to impede the flow of information.
  19. Omnibot 2000 from Canada writes: Omnibot sez:

    Legitimate uses of BitTorrent... LOL!!! I'd liken that to a guy walking around with a lockpick and claiming it has a 'legitimnate use' as a great toothpick. Or that handguns have legitimate use for hunting.

    Funny that the 'legitimate' filmmaker in question made a doumentary about - piracy! Well no surprise then that he chooses the distribution channel that will reach his audience.

    What a sham.
  20. M Spiker from Ottawa, Canada writes: What we need is a consumer version of the SLA. Before you sign-up, the ISP needs to spell out what it's bandwidth management policy is and give you tools to verify that they are delivering the agreed-to-service.

    Currently there is too much small print in your end-user agreement (you basically give up all your leverage/rights) and way too much behind-the-curtain technology in place. Their advertised 'speeds' have no bearing on your real-world experience.

    This problem needs to be resolved before the rollout of 100M to the home services. These networks will provide consumers with lots of new services (e.g., the GDRIVE) if they are not sabotaged by the ISP with vested-interests. If Rogers and Bell can control the bandwidth, they can tilt the playing field.

    P.S., anybody else p***ed off with Rogers stopping support for W2K...I wonder how much marketing funding they received from Microsoft for that.
  21. Mark _ from Canada writes: I've been repeated trying to respond to LostInSpace Forever from Canada, but my post don't seem to be appearing on this board. The answer is yes, Sympatico has been proven to employ traffic shaping technology. Do a google search for 'bad isps' and the first hit is a page from the azureus wiki. It will provide a list of service providers which are known to limit bandwidth.
  22. Stir The Pot from Toronto, Canada writes: If people read the fine print BEFORE signing their contracts they would have known that Its been happening for years now. I pay less for more and signed a contract NOT with mainstream providers BECAUSE of Bandwidth limits 6 YEARS ago.
    As for all of you 'pay per GB' peeps, you're all talk until you are forced to drive on a toll highway. Imagine every highway a toll road...
    What about Home office workers; people who HAVE to have personal accounts to do their job? Their bandwith is chewed up by legitimate work efforts, and then they watch streaming video of their favourite NFL team (Go Patriots!) and it chews up some more, watches W-Five online, and then Marketplace?
    Voila! all the GB in your little 'package' is gone and you get ripped in overages fees?
    YEAH, you all think it'd be great until YOU get burned!
    Most of you probably dont know what your Bandwidth limit is anyway, or that you even had one!
    Jump on the bandwagon blindfolded. When you get to where you're going and they let you see what has happened, don't be surprised you're not happy with it.
    and DUH! that was the point of distributing a film about piracy on BitTorrent. Ironic, eh?

    This gives new zeal to the sport of Wardriving...and if you don't know what it is, then Google it and then be afraid......HA HA HA!
  23. Jason Shim from Waterloo, Canada writes: Mark _ hits the nail right on the head. If customers are paying to transfer 100 GB a month they have a reasonable expectation that they should be able to use it all if need be. With packet-shaping, it's difficult to even get up to that number if something like BitTorrent is left on all month. If people go over, charge them extra, but at least give people what they have paid for.
  24. Remain Nameless from Ottawa, Canada writes:
    Two words: user pay.
  25. A. Nonymous from DRMVille, United States writes: First of all, Bittorrent does have legitimate uses. Every try updating certain games (Half Life 2, etc). They use a protocol for their updates based on Bittorrent.

    How about downloading the latest Linux release, at 3-4Gb, BitTorrent is the only way to go.

    Traffic shaping is a great idea though, you see, I do it too. I have my router basically reject anything to do with advertising, shaping it to zero.

    My Linux based MythTV 'shapes' my recordings, eliminating any commercials.

    It's MY money, MY bandwidth, MY computer, I will do with it as I please. Want to restrict my bandwidth with technology; fine then, I will use any and all legal measures to prevent anything from stealing it, including YOUR [ISPs] ads.
  26. Billy Bob from Saskatchewan from Canada writes: User pay. Pretty simple really. Or cap and make them pay for more. If only 10% of the users are using 50-90% of the bandwidth then whats the problem? We use cell phone with 250 minutes a month whatever for each additional minute. I fail to see why this is such a huge problem for people to get their head around.

    Of course then Rogers and Bell shouldn't have any problem with Comcast rolling on into Canada :).
  27. Timothy Nessus from Somewhere, Canada writes: Yet another piece of.... journalistic irrelevance.... PROPAGANDA!!!
    Where did the journalists in G&M got their training??? In PRAVDA???
  28. Billy Bob from Saskatchewan from Canada writes: Personally I think this has much more to do with ISP's wanting to shape traffic to give their products, or the products of their partners preferred support on their networks using the big bad scary torrent users as an excuse.

    If it was REALLY about traffic they would be happy to milk the torrent users for more $$$ each month on their statement. Instead they shape traffic. Ask yourself why they would do that when they could just change their user agreement and quietly bill their users for their heavy bandwidth use.
  29. john setta from van, Canada writes: Simple we need a faster internet like internet 3 that is in development.
  30. Timothy Nessus from Somewhere, Canada writes: OK, another wrench in the machinery. Did you know that in Canada, there is an EXCESS of banwidth???? This is, if you are a company, you CAN buy lots and lots of cheap bandwidth, fiberoptic, at really, really cheap prices?
    What is NOT cheap is the last mile, which is mainly controlled by Bell.
  31. Joe Liberali from Canada writes: Alexander Slimnich from Canada writes: The solution: Completely block all illegal uses of the bittorrent by the ISP, and allow unrestricted, full speed access to legimitate content using bittorrent.

    The problem is determining what is legitimate and what is not. The second problem is, where does it stop? If child pornography slips through the network and the carrier doesn't catch it, are they culpable?
  32. Joe Liberali from Canada writes: Glen Pearce from Winnipeg, Canada writes: ... it is probably economically better for Shaw if I get 20 GB of data from annother Shaw client than if I get the same amount of data from someone where they have to pay to get data to or from annother network.

    Actually it's not. The bandwidth available to you is a significant portion of the bandwidth available to quite a few other users on that same segment (for cable networks, for DSL this isn't necessarily true). A higher fee for more usage would have little impact on the damage done for other users on that segment by the congestion.
  33. Allen Tough from Ottawa, Canada writes: The ISPs want to have their cake and eat it to. They only offer 'large bandwidth' packages at inflated prices to gouge small users, then bawl like branded calfs and renege on their commitments when people actually come up with ways to use what they are paying for. As mentioned, a pay as you use model would work for all, but then they would only get to charge for what they provide, and where is the fat extra profit in that?
  34. Joe Liberali from Canada writes: Omnibot 2000 from Canada writes: Omnibot sez: Legitimate uses of BitTorrent... LOL!!! I'd liken that to a guy walking around with a lockpick and claiming it has a 'legitimnate use' as a great toothpick. Or that handguns have legitimate use for hunting.

    More nonsense. Lots of legitimate uses for BitTorrent, several cited already suched as Linux ISOs. Secondly, poor analogies. Lock smiths use lock picks, police officers use hand guns. Both legitimate.
  35. slapdash dapoint from Canada writes: i'm with the majority of people on here: i don't mind paying $55/month if it means i'm getting my 5mpbs, or close to it, most of the time

    what i don't appreciate, and the reason i've cancled my rogers internet, is i don't like being told how i will use my net access when that wasn't a part of the original deal.

    who would rent a home if the landlord controlled your power and turned it off and on depending on what suited them best?
  36. R M from Canada writes: As far as I'm concerned, it is not up to the ISP to decide on what is and what isn't legitamate traffic. When you pay for a service, it should be provided without exception. Period. No shaping, throttling..etc...

    If the ISP in question cannot deliver the speeds they promote and sell, they should invest in their infrastructure to be able to deliver the promised service, not breach their contract and mis-lead the consumer.
  37. Eric the Red from Canada writes: The first three posters expertly reveal how to toe the party line and regurgitate otherwise generic replies to this article's formulaic pitch (apart from mentioning Geist in the last paragraphs) to have you think of the supposedly dire straights ISPs are in. They aren't.

    This article wants to evoke your wrath re: the illegality of file sharing and online piracy. What it utterly fails to mention is the corporate finger in everyone's pie: the majority of you posters with broadband connections - a) Do you even USE the broadband as it is intentioned? Emailing and surfing can easily be done on dial up b) are you even getting the advertised speeds your ISP is marketing? I'd bet everyone posting today has not been affected by BT users, and if there have been interruptions, it's most likely your ISP's fault.

    Bell Sympatico blatantly leads the pack of false advertising - very few people get the full 5mbps. My rogers upload is limited 512 k, yet I get a whopping 850 k/s download speed. Broadband is expensive, but the companies offering it have PLENTY to go around and charge exorbitant rates (50$ a month for sympatico users who probably get 2-3 mbps at best, whereas in Europe you can get 10mpbs, VOIP, cable, phone, etc in one package for nearly 90 euros a month).

    Rather than let this issue (made convoluted by misinformation spun by MPAA, RIAA, and other interest groups), realize that by paying 50 a month for mediocre speeds (and only for internet) the one getting screwed is you.
  38. M j from Canada writes: There are some industry shills here posting specious claims that net neutratily is teh evil. In fact, it was the very openness of the 'net that led to the development of the myriad new connected applications we use: VoIP, Valve's Steam software delivery service and similar services for MS XBox and Sony PS3, anything Web 2.0 based, streaming video, Internet radio, etc. None of these would have been created had the 'net been a closed, controlled system. An example of what a closed internet might have become is the old AOL. Kinda useful, but clunky, restrictive, and subject to the whims of the corporate controllers for updates. Traffic shaping is an unfair and arguably illegal response to consumers using the bandwidth they've contracted and paid for. When you pay for a net connection, you are buying the right to transfer data at a certain speed over the Internet. An ISP should have no right, nor reason, to tell you what sort of data you are allowed to transfer. They also should have no right, nor reason, to restrict your speed. That is patently consumer fraud and treated as such by government regulators. The government will sit on its corporate-controlled hands, however, until consumers make this an issue. A previous poster has it exactly right: the ISPs are selling bandwidth they don't have, but are hoping most people won't actually use. As their networks are start to creak, they should be simply increasing their bandwidth to cover peak usage. Instead, they're illegally and unfairly restricting use. Capped usage would be fine if they simply charged a flat rate for all service, but they also enjoy charging more for 'premium' service to unwary customers more concerned with having the best than understanding what 'the best' really means. This hypocritical business model should be outlawed.
  39. Eric the Red from Canada writes: Read the fine print for new Bell Sympatico users: there's a 2 gig monthly cap, which is pathetic. Enjoy watching youtube vids for 2 weeks.

    Bell Sympatico:

    Here's your brand new car, sir/madam. There's the highway. Btw your car gets mediocre fuel efficiency, the engine is bound to seize every six months, there are toll booths every 2 km and when you need help, we'll provide you with horrible outsourced help.

    Enjoy the ride.
  40. Joseph Whistle from Canada writes: People should be aware that there isn't just ROGERS and SYMPATICO ! ! !
    There are 35 companies to pick from!
    Check out canadianisp.com and you'll see. Pick the ones with high ratings (eg. not Primus, and also not that one that offers $19 highspeed !)
    I recommend TekSavvy, but that's just my choice, pick whatever you like.
    But don't be stupid thinking that Sympatico is better, it's not.
  41. Oliver Dueck from Fredericton, Canada writes: In response to Joseph Whistle, that may be true in Ontario and some other places but here in New Brunswick we are pretty much limited to Rogers or Sympatico/Aliant. The latter requires a phone line, which I do not need. My friends who do have Aliant are very happy with their performance in terms of Bittorrent traffic.

    Interestingly enough, I downloaded a bunch of stuff the other night via Bittorrent on Rogers and was averaging about 600 KB/sec down and 40 KB/sec up. That has never happened before.
  42. D K from Canada writes: ' Alexander Slimnich from Canada writes: The solution: Completely block all illegal uses of the bittorrent by the ISP, and allow unrestricted, full speed access to legimitate content using bittorrent.'

    That's fine as long as I get to determine what is a legitimate download.

    ' erich finchley from Canada writes: I think it's pretty simple: you use more bandwidth, you pay more'

    I agree, and those who use more local phone service, cable, satellite, should pay more as well.
  43. foo foo from Toronto, Canada writes:
    I use http://www.ca.inter.net.

    Their customer service is run out of Montreal (I think, Canada, anyway) and it's excellent.

    They may no longer be the cheapest, but I've never found their service to be too slow.
  44. H C from Toronto, Canada writes: Let us not forget that when you want to read an article from the G & M site that the words you get to read are about 1k of data while the advertising takes up another 30-50k. I didn't ask for the advertising but it seems to be a necessary evil. I hope Bell is charging the G & M for the big uploads, but I question why someone's advertising should be charged to my download limit.
    Whereas I did request to download the entire TV episode.
  45. H C from Toronto, Canada writes: AND I should only pay for the Rogers channels I actually watch and for the time that I actually watch them.
    If I am on vacation for a month, my cable, phone and internet bills are not zero. And if I leave the TV on 7/24 and talk on the phone 7/24 my bill is no higher. Why should it be for internet?
  46. R M from Canada writes: I just came across this, from an article on cbc.ca (http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/11/29/tech-eff-traffic.html).

    Apparently this organization provides software to determine the degree (if any) of traffic shaping etc by an ISP -> Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/)

    I haven't used it yet, but will shortly.
  47. Johnny LaRue from Second City, Canada writes: @Joseph Whistle: What's the deal with Acanac? I just started using them a month ago and so far, so good. I download/upload more than the average but everything has worked OK, other than some setup issues. I did notice that they don't even appear on canadianisp.com. My friend has been using Acanac for over a year and he's still happy. He's also a heavy net user so I trust his opinion. So, what am I missing? Gimme the dirt! I would switch ISPs at the drop of a hat if I thought I was getting ripped off.
  48. jeremy debeer from Ottawa, Canada writes: Though some might argue that deprioritizing p2p traffic on university campuses is especially appropriate given the demographics of people who download copyright infringing content, I would argue the opposite. To the contrary, it is especially problematic to shape traffic on university networks, given the role universities plays in society. Campus networks, like classrooms, should be as open as possible in order to facilitate experimentation with new modes of sharing knowledge. See
    http://www.jeremydebeer.ca/content/view/191/2/
  49. Geriatric Personage from NB, Canada writes: erich finchley from Canada writes: ' I think it's pretty simple: you use more bandwidth, you pay more' I absolutely agree but only if the ISP delivers the speed claimed. As an example Aliant in NB advertises and charges a significant premium for (Ultra) 5meg but the maximum actual speed, at any time of day, is never more than 1.2meg.
  50. Raffi D from Toronto, Canada writes: (This second post is an attempt to fix the lack of formatting from the first post. Sorry if it has removed formatting again).
    ' A Yu from Barbieston, Canada writes: Bandwidth hoggers undermine the Internet experience for the rest of us regular users. If my ISP does not restrict access by peer-to-peer software, I would like that to change. People using BitTorrent and other high volume file sharing software should either pay more for their Internet service, or be moved to a slower lane. Net Neutrality is a nighmare to the majority of Internet users.'
    Congrats Sir, you have been officially brainwashed by the ISPs. Tell me, do you actually know for a fact that somebody who was using bittorrent was the reason for your decrease in speed? How would you even be able to tell? Did it ever occur to you that maybe the cause of your connection problems was the ISP itself, and their lack of quality service? Probably not.
    If you think that your problems will be solved with getting rid of net neutrality, you're in for a world of disappointment.. Unless you are the ISP of course. ;) This issue does not stop at torrents. It goes far beyond to topics that would make you take back everything you just said.
    ' Alexander Slimnich from Canada writes: The solution: Completely block all illegal uses of the bittorrent by the ISP, and allow unrestricted, full speed access to legimitate content using bittorrent. That will cut about 90% of the bandwidth useage of bittorrent..'
    And how would you manage to accomplish that? Do you even know how the Internet works? Do you know what bittorrent is?
    It's amazing how some people go on around these forums declaring their 'genius' ideas and opinions, when in reality all their perceptions are incorrect. Do us all a favour and research the topic you are about to discuss instead of spitting nonsense out into the open so that people can openly see how little you know about the matter.
  51. Jeff Lee from Ontario, Canada writes: mmmm bit torrent - porn, video games and movies has never been so easily accessible...
  52. Some Guy from Ottawa, Canada writes: Traffic shaping that has an advserse effect on my VOIP service is unacceptable. Those ISPs that offer digital voice telephone service, who also 'shape' VOIP network traffic are in a conflict of interest situation.
  53. Sam Snead from Canada writes: The bandwidth is oversold. The bandwidth provided is intended for burst traffic which gives much better "oversell" abilities. Unfortunately, ISPs sell the bandwidth as "upto" X bandwidth giving users the idea that the bandwidth is fixed. The "upto" qualification was originally meant to indicate line quality etc. was a factor, not the number of users.

    In terms of downloading large data, bittorrent actually distributes the load quite well through out the net. However if bittorent users max their upload speed rather than setting limits on upload to say 10 or 20 for popular torrents, bittorrent efficiency is much worse.

    Data volume for application type has increased significantly. The problem is the network itself cannot handle these new type applications. Traffic shaping is important and useful, but right now there is not enough headroom to use it well.

    Let's not forgot the data volume of all the fancy advertising. This eats up a lot of bandwidth as well ... AND if you are on a capped plan, you're paying money just to read advertising. That's like having advertisers call you on a cell phone. You pay to hear the pitch.

    In the end though, it is all part of the spin to have government yet again pony up dough for another built out. There is a fair amount of corporate welfare in provisioning the net infrastructure. Of course ISPs believe it's all their network.

    We should change the rules. ISPs are more like time share condos gone bad. Change the rules. Force ISPs to guarantee a service level to the individual end user NOT the collective. ISPs sort of does this now ... BUT ... you are paying for more than they provide.

    The future will be .. more bandwidth for everyone WITH shaping as that is beneficial for some apps.

    THE key issue however remains that ISPs should only ever be gateways not gatekeepers. That's really the net neutrality issue.
  54. wawa dave from regina, Canada writes: Many isp,s in Canada are actually owned by microsoft.
    MS has been slowly closing posts to any traffic they don,t like. Weather we want them to or not!!! You heard of the great firewall of china?
    Well MS is doing the same in the name of Cor-pirate greed.
    China firewalls their people for politics.MS for money.
  55. Raffi D from Toronto, Canada writes: "wawa dave from regina, Canada writes: Many isp,s in Canada are actually owned by microsoft.
    MS has been slowly closing posts to any traffic they don,t like. Weather we want them to or not!!! You heard of the great firewall of china?
    Well MS is doing the same in the name of Cor-pirate greed.
    China firewalls their people for politics.MS for money. "

    Can you provide a source for that claim? Because I don't believe a word you're saying.
  56. I M from Canada writes: Why not "shape" traffic during the day, and then have it unrestricted at night.

    Most people who use BT leave things to download overnight anyway, as they can take a few hours.

    Solves the problem for everyone!
  57. D K from Canada writes: "wawa dave from regina, Canada writes: Many isp,s in Canada are actually owned by microsoft."

    You're wearing a tin foil hat right now aren't you?
  58. Nick Bibassis from Toronto, Canada writes: "Depending on the study, peer-to-peer traffic accounts for anywhere from 50 to 90 per cent of online traffic, but emanates from as few as 10 per cent of all users."

    Show me the proof. I don't believe it personally. If the studies were proven accurate, Rogers and Bell should be sued for deceiving people into purchasing a service they don't need. "Saints" that only use the internet to check mail and visit the G&M should only pay a fraction of the listed high-speed price. Just like most people don't need the computing power being sold to them at computer shops, ie. a gamer rig for homework and Quickbooks usage.

    A more interesting study I'd like to see is one that documents how much bandwidth capacity has increased at the major players. Exclude new home subdivisions and I'd bet the increase is negligible.

    Why believe Rogers, Bell or Telus when their past actions speak so loudly. It's a proven fact that Canadian consumers pay some of the highest rates in the world for cellular phone use. Imagine, 1gb of download over a cell phone used to cost over $2,500 back in July, regardless of carrier. With the iPhone threat looming, the price has crashed down to less than $70, or even less. Same network is in place today as it was in July. So why the sudden drop?

    It all comes down to how much the major players think they can gouge Canadians for cable, internet, home phone and cellular.
  59. Paul Sweeney from Canada writes: Certain Internet service providers have begun to interfere with their users' communications by injecting forged or spoofed packets - data that appears to come from the other end but was actually generated by an Internet service provider (ISP) in the middle.

    This spoofing is one means (although not the only means) of blocking, jamming, or degrading users' ability to use particular applications, services, or protocols. One important means of holding ISPs accountable for this interference is the ability of some subscribers to detect and document it reliably.

    We have to learn what ISPs are doing before we can try to do something about it. Internet users can often detect interference by comparing data sent at one end with data received at the other end of a connection.

    So, get yourself a program called 'wireshark' and follow the links here to test your own connection:

    http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/11/28
    http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
  60. Major Pain from Canada writes: Bittorrent and other P2P systems are a cancer on a corporate network. I had an employee who had it running for months on his machine and slowed my corporate T1 connection to a crawl. After investigation, we caught the perpetrator, and he had no idea what a bandwidth hog this system was to our network. This software sounds good in theory, but in reality penalizes all other users of a shared network (yes, this includes cable modem subscribers). Hunting down and throttling back connections used by people running this software has my vote.
  61. Raffi D from Canada writes: "Major Pain from Canada writes: Bittorrent and other P2P systems are a cancer on a corporate network."

    Of course it is, because your corporate network is allocated a certain bandwidth before things start to crawl. Once you start capping your upload bandwidth, your down/up speeds across the network will jam and things will start losing connections. What the user should have been doing (aside from not torrenting from work) is set an upload cap. Just because this happens on your work connection doesn't mean it happens to the ISP overall. They have much more bandwidth to play with than they want their customers to think.
  62. wawa dave from regina, Canada writes: D K from Canada writes: "wawa dave from regina, Canada writes: Many isp,s in Canada are actually owned by microsoft."

    You're wearing a tin foil hat right now aren't you?

    NO i do see you speaking out your butt!!!

    Sympaticos owned by MS. google it!
  63. Private Person from Toronto, Canada writes: Johnny Larue, I have had extensive experience with Acanac. If you have a working Bell home line, then acanac is an okay choice. As you already know, they're the cheapest price, by a wide margin. If you have no home line and you want internet service ("dry loop service") then don't order it from acanac. they simply can't successfully process such an order and they will tell you they can. They might even believe it when they tell you. But you'll spend two weeks phoning and waiting at home for appointments with people who don't show up to "connect" your new internet service.

    They're fine for a simple order from their website but anyspecial handling, go to someone else like teksavvy, which gets everything right and talks intelligently to clients.
  64. Eric the Red from Canada writes: Major Pain:

    I'm curious: what kind of network does your business have? For one user to bog your network down to the degree you've described makes me think your network wasn't that big to start off with...
  65. Raffi D from Canada writes: "wawa dave from regina, Canada writes:
    Sympaticos owned by MS. google it!"

    Ooooh I see what you're thinking about now. Unfortunately you are wrong on so many different levels. The Sympactico MSN deal is a partnership to bring content from MSN to Sympactico customers. All they are doing is taking msn.com and adding the Sympatico name to the portal so that Bell doesn't have to go and create their own information portal for their customers. It's essentially a shortcut for them.

    It's the same thing as Rogers and their partnership with Yahoo (Hence the name of the service: Rogers Yahoo! Hi-speed Internet).

    I can't stress enough that these are partnerships for content distribution, and nothing more. Bell doesn't own MSN, MSN doesn't own Bell.

    Please stop spreading your fud. Do some research, since you seem so eager to tell others to "google" things.
  66. dee jay from Calgary, Canada writes: Thank you globe and mail for being 2 years behind on this story. Tomorrow I'll expect to see the results of the OJ Simpson murder trial. Does anyone know . . . did he get away with it?
  67. doctor business from vancouver, Canada writes: For an article about a movie reporting to be balanced on this issue it sure regurgitates a lot of myths! "Legitimate users"? Nice 'balanced' slogan. And just plain historical accuracy: BT was connected with piracy by thepiratebay. It was a 'legit' tool for OS/linux sharing by design. Only later was it popularised and adapted to piracy. So the history is backwards. The current 'new' legitimate uses are simply paid services for what should be free - something hard to call legitimate, but then I guess corporate media will never tell the truth about this kind of issue. As for the movie, I'm surprised that this supposedly expereinced BT user is distributing the file as a RAR... Something that even Bram Cohen was complaining about in the early versions. I'll reserve judgement on the film til after it is downloaded (2 seeds on isohunt!!??? the piratebay original tracker torrent is down for maintenance... Wait now Azureus is showing 0 seeds and 10 leechers stuck at 19% all from Canada... probably all G&M readers) Something smells here!
  68. Socrates speaks from Canada writes: Bell is already doing it.......
  69. Bryce Richards from Calgary, Canada writes: Yes create a new domain called ' highspeed.tor ' and put all peer to peer networks on this service. Charge a higher price / gB of download and let the rest of us have fair access to the rest of the internet. Or cap the usage at at set volume based on the isp service plan.
  70. Johnny LaRue from Second City, Canada writes: @Private Person: I am on their dry loop service and it's fine, so far. When I signed up, they sent a Bell tech out to connect and test the line. I did have some issues using their modem with my router but I sorted those out using instructions on their forum. Some documentation might have helped me out in that case but everything's been OK since.
  71. brian bishop from Brantford, Canada writes: Sympatico's been throttling BT traffic for about a year now, I've had enough & will be ditching my last two Bell services next week, Sympatico & my landline phone. I'll be getting a virgin mobile phone & my Internet from a smaller provider. Even today when I fired up Utorrent my speeds went up to 150 kB/s then dropped within a ten minutes to less than 30 kB/s & is stuck there. A far cry from just a couple years ago when I was downloading torrents from Elite Torrent & getting 300 kB/s or better all the time, to bad the FBI shut them down. It's pretty tough for Sympatico to justify throttling when you can go through a smaller provider & actually get the 5 MB/s speeds they advertise, after all your still using the same telephone lines! Make no mistake this isn't about bandwidth or speed, there's no shortage of either. It's about providing content & the telcos want in on it.
  72. Mickey Hickey from Toronto, Canada writes: Some people seem to thing they have choices. One mentions 35 suppliers of Internet service. Fact of the matter is that there are 2 suppliers of Internet in the Toronto area, namely Bell and Rogers all the others lease their service at wholesale rates from Bell and Rogers. Do you seriously think Bell and Rogers cannot control the erosion of business to the companies that are leasing from them. The same throttling and shaping tactics are and will apply to all of them. The duopoly rules the roost. Cell phone is similarly tightly controlled Bell, Rogers, Telus with a dozen or so imaginary competitors controlled by the terrible triplets. The Federal Gov't allowing Rogers to buy Fido was the atrocity of the decade.
  73. Joseph Whistle from Canada writes: Mickey Hickey: an alternative company might lease from Bell, but Bell doesn't control any of the packet or packet filtering. Bell provides just the low level part, the part that takes it from the house to the network, from which point it's all up to the other provider to connect it to the internet.
    So what you're saying is WONG. NOT "same" throttling and shaping tactics AT ALL. WRONG WRONG WRONG.
  74. brian bishop from Brantford, Canada writes: Mickey Hickey writes - The same throttling and shaping tactics are and will apply to all of them.

    Actually your right only where cable providers are concerned.

    As for DSL providers, they all can & most do provide the speed they advertise to customers. You need to realize Sympatico leases from Bell also, it's not Bell throttling the customers it's Sympatico, two seperate company's!

    Sympatico has to operate under the same CRTC rules as every other DSL provider, which means they have to lease the lines from Bell & buy their bandwidth the same as everybody else.

    There's more than enough speed & bandwidth available, Sympatico has chosen to throttle their customers because they want to sell content along with highspeed Internet, although the regulatory aspect of doing so hasn't been approved yet by the CRTC.

    There's several other reasons why their throttling, one has to do with the over-subscription business model they use. They maintain a higher profit margin by subscribers not using their connections to their full extent. Your paying for a specific amount of bandwidth each month which few ever use, the more people they prevent from using said bandwidth is profit in their pocket!
  75. The Neocynic from Botswana writes: I get 250 to 300 kb/s with utor/onion routing via Bell. Can't complain.
  76. LostInSpace Forever from Canada writes: This has been most enlightening. I have contacted Acanac, and will look into it. Any other suggestions? Currently I use Rogers, but it seems like this may change real soon.
  77. brian bishop from Brantford, Canada writes: Another thing, bandwidth & speed are two separate things & are being confused by most people

    Bandwidth is the amount of data being sent or received

    Speed is simply that, the speed by which that data travels

    There's no shortage of either bandwidth or speed where DSL is concerned. Sure if all 1.25 billion Internet users on the planet ran a bit torrent client at the same time it would cause problems. The same would happen if all 1.25 billion were surfing the web at the same time!
    http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

    Now consider the bandwidth required to send & receive 90 billion emails per day.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam

    Let's also look at the bandwidth used by the 100's of millions of people accessing the Internet every single day, they load a webpage, but that's not all they load, there's a ton of ads attached to said webpage which get loaded as well from different servers all over the world.

    Emails, webpages & ads all take bandwidth, far more bandwidth is consumed by these things every single day than by people using bit torrent.

    I've been surfing off & on for the past three hours & have used 154 MB's of bandwidth not including ads which I block. You multiply that by several 100 million people per day & compare it to the bandwidth bit torrent users consume everyday & you'll see bit torrent isn't the hog it's being made out to be, far from it!
  78. Jake Richardson from Kingston, Canada writes: The ISPs own the networks, and thus have the right to offer access to their networks under the conditions they choose. Unfortunately, the contracts are deliberately made out to be complex and tough to comprehend. Thus, while they may in some cases have the legal authority to do things such as 'shape' traffic, it is clear that many customers do not expect it and are less than pleased with the results.

    Capitalism gives us an easy answer: when one company screws you, switch to another one.
  79. Paul Hume from oakville, Canada writes: I would love to see some comparison's between what the various providers operations.

    I was on Cogeco in Oakville and liked it quite a bit. My roomie has his cell and tv hooked up with rogers so we went with rogers to bundle everything. I found cogeco cheaper and a much better service. As a gamer I need a good connection and cogeco was far and above much better than rogers. We did use Bell for a while and I have to say that I felt like my internet connection was about the same as using two paper cups and a string.

    So I go to switch back to cogeco and find out that I can't get their service in Mississauga. Can anyone let me of a better provider that can sell in Mississauga?

    Here is my experience as a gamer,
    Bell, had at least one connection problem a week. Ping of around 150.
    Rogers, about one connection problem a month, pings for 250 on average(not acceptable)
    Cogeco, did not have one connection problem and my game pinged around 75.

    Cogeco FTW!!!
  80. Joseph Whistle from Canada writes: Pinging Google from my $30 TekSavvy DSL account gives me under 50 ms.
  81. D K from Canada writes:
    "wawa dave from regina, Canada writes: Many isp,s in Canada are actually owned by microsoft."
    You're wearing a tin foil hat right now aren't you?
    NO i do see you speaking out your butt!!!
    Sympaticos owned by MS. google it!"

    You are right... you are speaking from your A$$. Apparently your reading skills are appalling. You CAN buy MSN services from Sympatico...MS doesn't own Sympatico Bell does.
    Way to go scarecrow!!
  82. Joseph Whistle from Canada writes: Oliver Dueck: I looked at canadianisp.com and indeed the choices are very bad over there. Hopefully the new upcoming wireless internet technologies will become available in your area. (wimax).
    There's also two way satellite internet (really two way - no phone line required at all). Expensive to install, fairly expensive per month, speed not that great, long lag times. But still better than dialup.
  83. Sean Martin from writes: Sounds to me like people should make the switch to a more useful and also Free service like www.digitalfastball.com

    Intraware, the company who created it, also using what they learn with Digital Fastball to create more user specific sites. For instance, hooking architects up with engineers, or independant media creators up with an audience.
  84. Some Guy from Ottawa, Canada writes: I am curious to know. How does on test whether or not their ISP is traffic shaping? Are there tools that will tell me that they are deliberately adjusting my bandwidth?
  85. Joshua er from Canada writes: its quite funny how they split their plans, rogers and bell both have an "extreme" plan where you can download between 75-90 gigs at 15-16 Mbps all for a mere 99 dollars.

    And undermining the experience for other, love it when people believe this tripe.
  86. robert F from Toronto, Canada writes: Yes well, if you only pay for your pathetic regular service then too bad so sad. I pay mega bucks for LOTS of bandwidth, and like those that can fly first class would say to those that fly steerage....let them eat cake!

    Now I can't afford first class, but the whole reason one pays for more bandwidth is for downloading big files. So limiting it, kinda defeats the purpose doesn't it?

    I mean if you're just surfing websites and sending email, christ you don't need highspeed!

    It's funny because if they limit bandwidth to me, when I'm paying for it, then I may as well get a slower speed and not pay them as much.

    Quite frankly the only reason for ultra high speed is piracy,