A co-worker sent me this link from the Globe And Mail detailing an “extraordinary” news conference that Rogers held to explain its traffic shaping policy. Here’s the highlights:
- Their network management (as they call it) has been “misinterpreted and misunderstood”
- Rogers does not actually block peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic, nor does it target other traffic.
- They don’t use “deep packet inspection.” Instead they control traffic at the upload point by limiting the rate at which file-sharing programs upload data
- They say that expanding network capacity will not solve the issue
I imagine that they are watching the Bell Canada circus and decided to do something so that they don’t become the next target. This despite the fact they have been one of the more aggressive ISPs in terms of screwing their customers over throttling their customers. Plus their throttling methods have nasty side effects such as slowing encrypted traffic and VPN traffic. I also don’t buy the fact that they don’t use Deep Packet Inspection. Most devices (if not all of them) that do packet shaping rely on Deep Packet Inspection to do their jobs. So as far as I am concerned, this is just spin from Rogers. What really ticks me off is this statement from Mike Lee of Rogers:
“At the end of the day,” Mr. Lee said, “customer satisfaction is what matters the most.”
Total B.S.! Their customer satisfaction is miserable, as evidenced by the fact that their corporate reputation is so bad. No wonder I dumped them three years ago to go to DSL. If there was another GSM provider (Fido is owned by Rogers so they’re not an option) in Canada, I’d dump my Rogers cell phones too. Rogers cable TV is another thing that I’d dump too. At the end of the day, they really don’t deserve my money…. Or yours for that matter.