The IT Nerd

Today the CRTC posted several decisions on Usage Based Billing for wholesale ISPs as well as the throttling of users connections.

On the Usage Based Billing front, here’s what the CRTC said:

“The Commission confirms the interim approval granted in Telecom Order 2009-484 to proposals by Bell Aliant and Bell Canada to introduce usage-based billing for their wholesale residential Gateway Access Services. However, the implementation date established in that order is varied.”

So in short Usage Based Billing will happen, but it won’t happen anytime soon. The CRTC (shockingly) seems to have recognized the issues surrounding Retail vs Wholesale ISPs and as a result they have delayed implementation of Usage Based Billing until further notice in order to give enough time to work through the various issues at hand. That’s a bit of a reprieve for independent ISPs who were facing the prospect of being priced out of the market because the make Bell look really uncompetitive.

In terms of throttling, the CRTC says that ISPs have to advertise the fact that they throttle and give details on how they do it and what they throttle. Plus the CRTC recommends that it be used as a last resort. If throttling is to be used, then the people doing the throttling have to give 60 days notice for wholesale ISPs and 30 days notice for end users. In this decision, there’s this little tidbit:

Accordingly, the Commission finds that use of an ITMP resulting in the noticeable degradation of time-sensitive Internet traffic will require prior Commission approval under section 36 of the Act.

That means that if Bell messes with Skype, VoIP, audio/video streaming (i.e. YouTube), etc, they will require prior CRTC approval. Notice they didn’t focus on the intent of the throttling. They only focused on the result. That’s huge and is sure to piss off Bell.

So in short, this is a victory of sorts for Canadian Internet users. But the battle is far from over. This is a window for Canadian Internet users to put more pressure on the Canadian Government and the CRTC to create a more competitive Internet space within Canada. So if you’re Canadian and you pay for your Internet access, make sure your local MP knows how you feel, and you should do it sooner rather than later.

Otherwise, your Internet will continue to suck as has been pointed out on this blog previously.

Today was the last day of the CRTC hearings into Bandwidth Management, and Bell must really be smoking some grade “A” crack. Because they made this statement to the CRTC:

Bell must slow the downloads of certain other internet providers’ customers to stop them from congesting its shared network and hurting Bell’s retail customers, the company argued Tuesday.

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, said Jonathan Daniels, the Montreal-based company’s vice-president of regulatory law.

“And if [they’re] going to do that, why don’t we just do it for them?” Daniels asked at a hearing before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in Ottawa.

Gee… That sounds like your retail business is hurting, so you decide to screw your wholesale customers to level the playing field. After all, why would you assume that your wholesale customers would want to throttle their customers? Did it ever occur to you that they may not want to do that? Of course not.

Oh yeah, Bell claims that they can’t tell the difference between their traffic and their wholesale customers traffic. But according to the article:

Bell’s testimony contrasted with that of MTS Allstream, which sells wholesale internet service similar to Bell’s in Manitoba. The company told the CRTC last week that it was able to distinguish between its wholesale and retail customers in Manitoba.

Hmmm… Sounds like Bell is at best playing fast and loose with the truth. However, Bell does have an option for ISPs who buy bandwidth from them if they don’t want to be screwed like a prison bitch throttled by Bell:

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.

Oh sure. Buy a service that prices most of these ISPs right out of the market. That’s a great plan… If you’re Bell.

So this closes these CRTC hearings. Hopefully the CRTC sees through the BS that was spread around by Bell, Rogers, Telus and other ISPs who throttle and restrict if not eliminate this practice.

From the “I can’t believe that they said that with a straight face” department, comes the result of Rogers appearance in front of the CRTC hearings into Bandwidth Management. Here’s what they had to say on the subject:

“Most carriers are trying to win customers from the other guys and try and keep the customers they have happy, so you should assume … that network management practices are for the benefit of customers,” Ken Englehart, senior vice-president of regulatory issues for Rogers, told a hearing before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission in response to questions from the commission.

You’re kidding me. A lot of my customers have dropped Rogers because they do that sort of thing. So I don’t what crack he’s smoking. Whatever it is, he needs to share as it clearly alters his perception of reality.

Rogers wasn’t the only people to appear in front of the CRTC today. Quebecor who owns Videotron made an appearance today:

Following Rogers, Quebecor Media addressed the hearing on behalf of Videotron, which said it does not throttle but relies on usage-based billing to control congestion, and said that has worked so far, and has even curbed peer-to-peer uploads to some extent.

However, the company also argued against guidelines on internet traffic management, saying they could stifle innovation.

While I’m not a fan of usage based billing, the fact that they don’t throttle and they try to control bandwidth by billing their customers for excessive usage is far preferable to what Rogers is doing. If Rogers did what they did, I’d have one less thing to criticize Rogers about.

Bell was supposed to make an appearance in front of the CRTC today. But that has been pushed to tomorrow. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say.

Cogeco, Barrett Xplore, and Telus made an appearance in front of the CRTC Bandwidth Management hearings yesterday and to the shock of nobody, they both argued that rules that govern how Bandwidth Management is employed are not needed:

Yves Mayrand, Cogeco’s vice-president of business affairs, told the commission the company had “no choice” but to use that type of network management, as their cable infrastructure has limited bandwidth for traffic uploaded by its users and some applications are designed to “hoard capacity.” The throttling applies to both Cogeco’s own retail customers and customers of other ISPs that buy network access wholesale from Cogeco.

It really sounds to me that Cogeco has capacity issues that they can’t or won’t deal with and they cover that up by throttling their wholesale and retail customers. After all, it’s likely cheaper to limit what your customers can do rather than spend money to expand your network. Telus for one has expanded their network and worked for them. But according to Telus, that’s not really the case:

David Neale, a senior vice-president who deals with the company’s technology strategy, said asking ISPs to deal with capacity issues solely by building more infrastructure as some people have advocated is not realistic, even though it has largely worked for Telus so far.

It’s interesting that Telus says one thing, but does something completely different. Then applies spin doctoring when people point out the hypocrisy.

When it comes to telling customers about what Bandwidth Management techniques are used, here’s what this trio had to say:

Telus and Barrett Xplore executives agreed that there should be some disclosure of ISPs’ traffic management practices, but details aren’t necessary, as customers are not really interested. Nevertheless, Cogeco said it plans to provide some more details to its retail customers in the future.

That’s a load of bull. The fact that these hearings exist are indicative of the fact that customers ARE interested.

Monday is the final day of the hearings. Bell, Rogers, Shaw, and Quebecor are all slated to lie testify to the CRTC.  It should be interesting to see what they have to say. As always, you can get the live audio feed here and an archive of the previous hearing days can be found here.