Bell advised the CRTC yesterday that it plans to drop all peer-to-peer traffic shaping (often called throttling) as of March 1, 2012. While the decision has been described as surprising or as quid pro quo for the usage based billing ruling, I think it is neither of those. The writing […]
Post Tagged with: "traffic shaping"
Sandvine Report Should Raise Doubt About Traffic Management Practices
Mark Goldberg points to a recent Sandvine broadband report on recent broadband traffic patterns. Goldberg points to the growth of real-time entertainment traffic, such as streaming, which is consistent with what the CRTC heard during the net neutrality hearings over the summer. Most notable, however, is yet another confirmation that […]
Videotron Throttling P2P Traffic?
There are some reports that Videotron has begun to throttle P2P traffic. Comments based on personal experiences welcome. Update: Commenters indicate that this is false and that Videotron denies throttling activities.
CRTC Raises Prospect of Major Net Neutrality Consultation
One year ago, the telecommunications companies were seeking to downplay the importance of net neutrality. It would appear that the CRTC is not buying that anymore. In a speech to the 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein had the following to say about the issue:
Another issue of increasing importance is net neutrality.
Does Bell Really Have a P2P Bandwidth Problem?
Bell filed its response to the CAIP submission to the CRTC on its throttling practices yesterday, unsurprisingly arguing that its actions are justified and that there is no need to deal with the issue on an emergency basis. Several points stand out from the submission including its non-response to the privacy concerns with deep-packet inspection (it merely says that it does not retain or use the data, but does not deny collecting what could easily be interpreted as personally identifiable information) and its inference that P2P usage could be deemed using a connection as a "server" and therefore outside the boundaries of "fair and proportionate use" under typical ISP terms of use.
Most importantly, however, Bell provides data on its network usage that significantly undermines its claim that P2P usage is causing such havoc with its network that throttling measures that impact 100 percent of its (and some of its competitions') users are needed. Bell again reiterates that the "problem" lies with 5 percent of its users that are heavy P2P users. Yet that 5 percent apparently uses 33 percent of available bandwidth during peak periods. That is a disproportionate use to be sure, yet it struck me as far lower than might have been expected.
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