Are you getting the most out of your Sympatico account?

I personally switched from Rogers communication cable services to Bell Sympatico services, due to traffic shaping policies held by the former. In recent news however, it appears that Sympatico service subscribers, are on the cusp of suffering the same fate.

In a short, traffic shaping, and throttling practices, are a way for the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to determine how much bandwidth (read information being transfered) is allowed to the customer via certain protocals. The most popular practice the net's s seen, has been with P2P file sharing networks, specifically Bittorrent. Bittorrent is a highly effective way of sharing large files between a large population. Commonly used for piracy, bittorrent is also used by a lot of FOSS (free and open source software) such as linux distributions and application suites.

A sufferer of traffic shaping may see symptoms such as 1-30kb/sec file transfers in azureus, yet can download a file from a webbrowser at 400kb/sec. There's a good chance its throttled.

This is a relatively new practice by service providers here in Canada, though Rogers has been known to do it for the past 2 years. South of the border, Comcast, the states' largest ISP, is undergoing a class action suit against them for the same practice.

However, this raises a large amount of legal issues, as well as the issue of "net neutrality". Subscribers to residential service may have already recieved letters or email from the company claiming the customer is a "Network Abuser" with a statement informing them of their account being limited to 512kbits/sec during peak times, yet they pay for unlimited usage. In the Terms of Agreement contract accepted by both the ISP and client, many statements point out the contradictory nature of this approach.

The company (Bell Canada), claims this is due to the "Network Abusers", as they are now called, using an unacceptable amount of bandwidth, that it impacts on fellow subscribers. A statement very much contradicted in the pleasant cartoon beaver filled commercials. Claiming subscribers won't feel the effect of their neighbors usage, as well as recieve consistant performace, a claim the competition (Rogers) cannot make.

An article on P2Pnet.net goes deeper into this issue. Which I must point out, goes beyond Bell direct subscribers, and effects subscribers to 3rd party ISP's (resellers and wholesalers contracted through Bell), who are also being "blacklisted" and "throttled". The linked article lists a number of these issues:

• Bell is throttling: this is admitted in their own forum

• Bell acknowledges
  it’s targeting specific programs and it didn’t specify the whole list,
  but only a partial list which may change as it deems fit, “as required”.
• So in other words,
  you’re at Bell’’s mercy since the areas aren’t defined, time-frame
  isn’t defined, programs/protocols/ports aren’t defined, B/W limits
  aren’t defined, what speed you will be dropped to isn’t defined,
• Even if you pay the extra $25/month for unlimited, you will/can get this throttle at any time of the day (to 30-KB/s) they deem fit to impose it and you will be labelled a ‘network Abuser’ if you reach the invisible magic b/w limit.

The article has roughly 20+ statements of the issue. As well goes into deeper detail with case examples of this happening to sympatico subscribers.

If you are a subscriber or plan on subscribing to the service, you should either consider the facts stated, or be aware that it may happen to you. If you also have a subscription, and are now considering terminating such contract, be aware that they are going to force an early cancelation fee.

Having recieved a letter stating that you are a so called "Network Abuser", one should call The Bell Executive Office, or Customer Relations, instead of regular customer server. Emily and her CGI beavers with cell phones, aren't going to give you much assistance.

Traffic shaping approaches have been claimed (by those that enforce them) as a preventative method to internet piracy. However, the real issue has been said to be that of $$$MONEY$$$. Perhaps, Bell has now over subscribed its bandwidth, and is scrambling. Maybe, they're trying to cut costs even more to allow for more growth.  Throttling bandwidth is an effective way of saving money, and seems interchangable with expanding your infrastructure to meet client demand.  Atleast according to one on Bay St.

Whatever the reasons are, a sad era is approaching. If Bell and others like them succeed, it sets a dangerous precedence for both the rights of internet subscribers, and for corporations handling competition, to form monopolies.