Da-Chief
03-25-2008, 14:32
http://i.dslr.net/urls/40/18340.gif (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Bell-Canada-Confirms-Throttling-92973)
Techdirt (http://techdirt.com/articles/20080324/152928636.shtml), Slashdot (http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/03/25/035200.shtml) and Canadian law Professor Michael Geist (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2782/125/) all discuss our report yesterday (http://www.corpsman.com/shownews/Bell-Canada-Throttles-Wholesalers-Doesnt-Bother-To-Tell-Them-92915) on Bell Canada's decision to start throttling traffic of their residential wholesalers before it hits their networks without telling those ISPs they were doing so. The result was a flurry of angry users, and executives at major ISPs who had to explain why they "broke" promises not to throttle traffic. Popular Canadian ISP Teksavvy met with Bell Canada today, and CEO Rocky Gaudrault says Bell is confirming the practice:They're now openly acknowledging that they are rolling out a full throttling process. They plan to have things fully throttled by April 7th. All BT and P2P traffic will be affected. They claim they are allowed to do so according to their Terms and Services under the Fair Usage Policy in the tariffed contracts... We'll be looking into this shortly.
In other words, Bell Canada is using their monopoly power to degrade the quality of the bandwidth headed to ISP partners. The move makes those competitors immediately less of a threat -- given Sympatico throttles their own customers and wouldn't want a competitor offering better service.
It's dumbfoundingly anti-competitive, and Bell is claiming it's their right under contract, which likely leaves those ISPs with little legal recourse. Our users, however, are discussing their options (http://www.corpsman.com/forum/r20223187-Update-on-throttling-issue), including a letter writing campaign (http://www.corpsman.com/forum/r20222104-Generic-Letter-to-Competition-Bureau-re-Bell-throttling-ISP) to the Canadian competition bureau.
Meanwhile, Bell Sympatico is fielding complaints from their own broadband customers about the throttling. One user offers the <a href=""/forum/r20208211-dsl-reports-blog-material-change">call center talking points Bell reps are being told to use against our forum regulars, who are calling in to claim the throttling constitutes a material change and nullifies their long-term contract:Mrs. / Mr. customer, in order to ensure a consistently high level of service for all our customers, Bell may be required to manage its network in such a way that no customer, service or application consumes excessive bandwidth which may impede the use and enjoyment of other customers. Bell has the right to manage its network to deliver a consistent and reliable experience to all its customers and doing so is not a material change to the service. Therefore, the early termination fee will apply if you wish to exit your contract before the end of your term.
Reps are subsequently told that engaging in legal discussion with the customer is "strictly prohibited." As usual with North America's largest providers, they're all too happy to box users in with miles of legalese, but they're not too keen when you try to use their own fine print against them.
See additional user discussion in our <a href="/forum/teksavvy">Teksavvy, <a href="/forum/sympat">Bell Sympatico and <a href="/forum/canbroadband">Canadian broadband forums.
digg:/tech_news/Major_canadian_ISP_throttling_P2P_Call_for_action
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Bell-Canada-Confirms-Throttling-92973">read comment(s)
More...
Techdirt (http://techdirt.com/articles/20080324/152928636.shtml), Slashdot (http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/03/25/035200.shtml) and Canadian law Professor Michael Geist (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2782/125/) all discuss our report yesterday (http://www.corpsman.com/shownews/Bell-Canada-Throttles-Wholesalers-Doesnt-Bother-To-Tell-Them-92915) on Bell Canada's decision to start throttling traffic of their residential wholesalers before it hits their networks without telling those ISPs they were doing so. The result was a flurry of angry users, and executives at major ISPs who had to explain why they "broke" promises not to throttle traffic. Popular Canadian ISP Teksavvy met with Bell Canada today, and CEO Rocky Gaudrault says Bell is confirming the practice:They're now openly acknowledging that they are rolling out a full throttling process. They plan to have things fully throttled by April 7th. All BT and P2P traffic will be affected. They claim they are allowed to do so according to their Terms and Services under the Fair Usage Policy in the tariffed contracts... We'll be looking into this shortly.
In other words, Bell Canada is using their monopoly power to degrade the quality of the bandwidth headed to ISP partners. The move makes those competitors immediately less of a threat -- given Sympatico throttles their own customers and wouldn't want a competitor offering better service.
It's dumbfoundingly anti-competitive, and Bell is claiming it's their right under contract, which likely leaves those ISPs with little legal recourse. Our users, however, are discussing their options (http://www.corpsman.com/forum/r20223187-Update-on-throttling-issue), including a letter writing campaign (http://www.corpsman.com/forum/r20222104-Generic-Letter-to-Competition-Bureau-re-Bell-throttling-ISP) to the Canadian competition bureau.
Meanwhile, Bell Sympatico is fielding complaints from their own broadband customers about the throttling. One user offers the <a href=""/forum/r20208211-dsl-reports-blog-material-change">call center talking points Bell reps are being told to use against our forum regulars, who are calling in to claim the throttling constitutes a material change and nullifies their long-term contract:Mrs. / Mr. customer, in order to ensure a consistently high level of service for all our customers, Bell may be required to manage its network in such a way that no customer, service or application consumes excessive bandwidth which may impede the use and enjoyment of other customers. Bell has the right to manage its network to deliver a consistent and reliable experience to all its customers and doing so is not a material change to the service. Therefore, the early termination fee will apply if you wish to exit your contract before the end of your term.
Reps are subsequently told that engaging in legal discussion with the customer is "strictly prohibited." As usual with North America's largest providers, they're all too happy to box users in with miles of legalese, but they're not too keen when you try to use their own fine print against them.
See additional user discussion in our <a href="/forum/teksavvy">Teksavvy, <a href="/forum/sympat">Bell Sympatico and <a href="/forum/canbroadband">Canadian broadband forums.
digg:/tech_news/Major_canadian_ISP_throttling_P2P_Call_for_action
<a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Bell-Canada-Confirms-Throttling-92973">read comment(s)
More...