Where's My Net Neutrality?

[decypher]

So it's no secret that Canadian ISP's throttle your internet connection while advertising crazy fast speeds with those cute turtles.

I've been waiting for a new ISP to come along that doesn't discriminate and found Teksavvy. Now telecom vigilante, Michael Geist, reported last week that Bell is now throttling Teksavvy's traffic.

I've heard that the VPN and SSH workaround doesn't work anymore. True? I wanna know before i waste time trying it and testing my connection.

This is mainly a question for rawb, ebbo, and all you other techgods. Has there been any new workarounds or any other ISP that i can turn to?

[GSG9]

webnet or gtfo

[decypher]

Sorry 2.5Mbps is fail.

[GSG9]

i just like it cause i am rarely at home so having an isp that s located at home is a waste of my time.

[decypher]

Originally Posted by GSG9

i just like it cause i am rarely at home so having an isp that s located at home is a waste of my time.

hmm still looks interesting to replace an EDGE dataplan and for laptop use. Have you ever tested your speeds and what is the coverage like in and around Vancouver?

[Drazkers]

Are you forcing encryption for all your torrents?

[galaxie]

I just saw this on the news - I totally noticed that my speeds had massively decreased lately but I just attributed it to my brother likely fucking something up (he does this regularly). I guess I should stop blaming him...oops.

[decypher]

Originally Posted by Drazkers

Are you forcing encryption for all your torrents?

I heard encryption doesn't work anymore because they have started throttling all encrypted data.

My connection was good for a few big downloads but after that I got throttled down quite a bit and it has never let up.

[Drazkers]

Originally Posted by decypher

I heard encryption doesn't work anymore because they have started throttling all encrypted data.

My connection was good for a few big downloads but after that I got throttled down quite a bit and it has never let up.

Its known to help in certain situations, also, if you use a queuing system that helps as compared to a constant download.

[rawb]

I HAVE A FUNNY TEKSAVVY ANECDOTE FOR WHEN IM NOT ON A PUBLIC INTERNET FORUM THAT COULD BE GOOGLED AND TRACE ME BACK TO WHERE I WORK.


ANYWAYS THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT HERE RIGHT NOW, AS BELL DOES NOT HAVE ADSL INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE WEST (TELUS IS THE WESTERN STRONGHOLD).


KAM DO YOU STILL LIVE IN THE BUILDING YOU HAD YOUR BDAY PARTY IN? IM SURE YOU GET NOVUS THERE. NOVUS IS GREAT BECAUSE THEY HAVE THEIR OWN FIBER DOWNTOWN, SO THEYRE NOT RENTING/LEASING ANY INFRASTRUCTURE. THEY RUN BANDWIDTH FROM A FEW DIFFERENT COMPANIES SO THEY ALWAYS HAVE RECOURSE IN CASE ONE FUCKS THEM OVER. ALSO! THEIR SPEEDS ARE RIDICULOUS. ALSO! I HAVE WORKED WITH THEM THROUGH MY COMPANY AND THEY ARE COMPETENT AND GOOD PEOPLE. THE ONLY DOWNSIDE IS THAT NOVUS IS REALLY ONLY AVAILABLE DOWNTOWN AND IN BUILDINGS BUILT IN THE LAST 10-15 YEARS. l

ANYWAYS I CAN TALK ABOUT THIS SHIT FOR HOURS SO I WONT BORE ANYBODY. BUT WHAT BELL IS DOING IS INHERENTLY "WRONG" AND THEY ARE GOING TO GET RAPED IN COURT, BARRING CIRCUS TRICKS OR AN IDIOT JUDGE. TELUS HAS THE TECHNOLOGY TO DO THIS SHIT TOO, BUT IM DOUBTING THEY WILL.

[decypher]

Yup still in this building, I've seen the NOVUS adverts all over the mail area. Shiiit I don't remember their speeds going that high when i saw the website before. I was gonna wait to see how other people found the service so now i think I just might switch. Screw Rogers....

edit: wow their upspeed matches their downspeed...

[rawb]

ALSO JUST SO EVERYONE IS CLEAR:

THE ISSUE HERE IS NOT THAT BELL THROTTLES CERTAIN TYPES OF BANDWIDTH, CURRENTLY THAT IS LEGAL AND ALLOWABLE AND A WHOLE OTHER ARGUMENT THAT IS MUCH DEEPER THAN MOST PEOPLE THINK.

THE ISSUE IS THAT BELL IS REQUIRED BY LAW TO ALLOW OTHER COMPANIES TO RESELL ITS ADSL SERVICE. TEKSAVVY IS ONE OF THOSE COMPANIES. BELL USED TO THROTTLE ONLY THEIR CUSTOMERS, NOW THEY THROTTLE EVEN CUSTOMERS OF THESE RESELLERS. NOW TEKSAVVY IS MAD, WITH GOOD REASON. l

[rawb]

DUDE NOVUS IS BALLER CITY AND SOME OF THE BEST RESIDENTIAL INTERNET IN NORTH AMERICA

COP THAT SHIT l

[decypher]

I'm already there dude. I'll be dreaming of liberated packets tonight.


The whole net neutrality topic is pretty interesting. Lots of stuff going on in the states as well with Comcast and the like.

[rawb]

NET NEUTRALITY IS A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THROTTLING BUT ALSO A LOT ABOUT FILTERING AND ADDING PRIORITY FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF SERVICE. IT ALSO HAS A DIFFERENT DEFINITION DEPENDING ON WHOM YOU ASK.

THERE ARE THINGS LIKE THROTTLING BITTORRENT WHICH SUCK FOR END USERS, BUT IM NOT TOTALLY IN DISAGREEMENT WITH IT BECAUSE THE SHITTY LOGISTICS OF SELLING INTERNET TO PEOPLE WHO ARE JUST MAXING IT OUT TO DO THEORETICALLY "ILLEGAL" THINGS. IM NOT SAYING ITS RIGHT IM JUST SAYING THERE IS A GOOD ARGUMENT ON BOTH SIDES.

BUT THERE IS ALSO A KIND OF TIERED INTERNET THAT WOULD PROVIDE CUSTOMERS WITH DIFFERENT OPTIONS (HI I WANT THE REGULAR WEB INTERNET AND ADD ON VOIP INTERNET AND VIDEO GAME INTERNET AS WELL). THE ARGUMENT IS THAT THINGS LIKE VOIP AND GAMES REQUIRE LOW LATENCY BANDWIDTH THAT IS MORE DIFFICULT TO PROVIDE THEN JUST A LOT OF SHITTY WEB BROWSING BANDWIDTH. IMHO THAT IS GREAT AND ALL BUT I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OF THE MIND THAT YOU SHOULD BE BUILDING OUT YOUR NETWORK BASED ON THE BEST POSSIBLE DELIVERY FOR ANY PACKET AT ANY TIME.

ALSO THERE IS THE IDEA THAT SINCE GOOGLE AND YOUTUBE AND HOTMAIL USE A GIGANTIC CHUNK OF THE WORLDS BANDWIDTH, SO THAT THEY SHOULD BE PAYING ISPS EXTRA FOR ACCESS TO THEIR USERS TO STAY "FAST". THIS IS ALL SORTS OF BULLSHIT.


TL;DR VERSION: TELEPHONE COMPANIES HAVE HISTORICALLY ALWAYS LOOKED FOR WAYS TO FUCK THEIR CUSTOMERS, NOTHING HAS CHANGED

l

[ebbomega]

YOU GUYS ARE FORGETTING THAT THE INTERNET IS NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN JUST PUT THINGS ON.


IT'S NOT A TRUCKl

[Phrenetic]

I have Telus DSL and Shaw Cable and I Bridge the connections on my Mobo. best of both worlds with insane speeds

[rawb]

Originally Posted by Phrenetic

I have Telus DSL and Shaw Cable and I Bridge the connections on my Mobo. best of both worlds with insane speeds

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

[Phrenetic]

been working fine for the last few months

[rawb]

I KNOW YOU'RE TROLLING BECAUSE NOBODY COULD BE THIS STUPID
l

[decypher]

I've been following some of the policy and a tiered Internet is what worries me the most. It goes against the original end-to-end design principle. I believe it's just paving the way for the media moguls to increase their hegemony and vertical-integration that would effect the content produced online. Like you said an unbiased build for a network is a good one.

Maybe I'm a bit alarmist but i can see ISP's owning the infrastructure and media conglomerates owning the content and wielding that power to reduce the amount of alternatives that are easily accessible atm. I fear it could be a big roadblock in the increasing prevalence of ad-free alternative media that is a valuable resource for me. I don't want my future video feeds to be throttled from one source, but omg i can get really fast CNN which has the "best political team on television" apparently. Free-market deregulation is usually in the service of power regimes and I don't see how this can be good for the Internet.

I read that since downloaders started bypassing throttling, with encryption, that this actually increased congestion and now ISP's have started throttling all of the encrypted data that passes through their infrastructure. Is this true? Wouldn't that just be making the problem worse and then using that as example to bring in major deregulation and a smorgasborge of business deals? Can't they expand? I hear N. America is lagging behind other technologically advanced cities in Asia and the EU now.

[Gusto]

Originally Posted by decypher

I read that since downloaders started bypassing throttling, with encryption, that this actually increased congestion and now ISP's have started throttling all of the encrypted data that passes through their infrastructure. Is this true? Wouldn't that just be making the problem worse and then using that as example to bring in major deregulation and a smorgasborge of business deals?

well it makes sense from a technical standpoint and there aren't a lot of reasons for consumers to need to encrypt large amounts of traffic, besides avoiding detection. i can see why they'd throttle encrypted traffic in an attempt to prioritize it, but i don't agree with it.

whether or not it makes the problem worse depends on what you think the problem is.

[rawb]

switched out of caps for clarity

bittorrent is a BIG FAT PROBLEM because every isp and network is built on the idea that not EVERYONE is going to be maxing their connections at all time. networks take the average use of everyone on their network and build out based on that.

(sure you may download big files 3 days out of a month but the general user will not be maxing out their connection 24/7/31.)

something like bittorrent being run by a bunch of users means that, depending on the amount and popularity of torrents they're sharing, that people are leaving their computers unattended to send/recieve massive amounts of data. even when not downloading you can be spiking bandwidth with bittorrent uploads. thing about it, if you download a movie or a album and walk a way from your computer for a day or so, that movie will not only be downloaded but re-uploaded many times over. bandwidth demand is increasing exponentially.

effectively this throws and projections out the out the window, it has massively increased cost of bandwidth for all isps involved, but no new revenue is being generated. accounts are still 25-60 bucks and people are using 5-20x the bandwidth. (a "heavy downloader"'s monthly bandwidth, on the open "bandwidth market", costs between hundreds and thousands of dollars)

currently, on an average isp, bittorrent consists 50-80% of bandwidth. when the fact is that almost all of this traffic is being used to share music and movies and games illegally, it's a no-brainer for the isp to throttle it. the legitimate uses for bittorent are small enough that it's a easy hit to take for better overall service for everyone.

now, in large amounts, bandwidth becomes cheaper. and bandwidth prices are always falling as a rule, because the internet is always adding capacity. but an isps capacity to add bandwidth for its customers is hard. this is due to the "last mile" problem (you people may already know about this).

Right now you need to add bandwith in the following areas.


1) $$$ REST OF THE INTERNET --> ISP (fiber optic cables + money agreements with bandwidth carriers)
2) $$$$$$$$ ISP --> YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD (more fibre, more network gear)
3) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD --> YOUR HOUSE (right now for most residential neighbourhoods, the only wires to run internet on into your house is the cable wire or the telephone wire because the internets wasnt existing when they were run. to increase this we need to actually RUN NEW CABLES DOWN EVERY POLE TO EVERY HOUSE IN CANADA HOLY SHIT WTF THINK OF THE UNION RATES FOR THIS SHIT THATS LIKE A TRILLION DOLLARS)

So when the internet comes towards you, first it hits telus, who then sends it to a local telus station in your neighbourhood, who then converts it into adsl and sends it through your telephone line.

it's actually step 3 that keeps all of us from getting more bandwidth, since it would require a huge overhaul of canadian telecommunications. the isps dont want to invest anything because they hope either the government will step up and fund upgrades or that a MAGIC NEW TECHNOLOGY will be invented that gives everyone more bandwidth over what we already have (also they spent millions on ADSL and CABLE INTERNET tech and they want to milk that investment for as long as possible). there is some proactive work going on, as in most new buildings in urban centers, internet fiber is being run RIGHT INTO THE BUILDING which is why someone like novus can come along and be like 'oh hey guys sup im going to give you batshit insane internet for a nominal price'. their steps 2 and 3 are infinitely cheaper than telus and shaw's.

ANYWAYS that is the magic story about why your bit torrents are being throttled and why if the government ever mandated that isps stop it they will either go out of business or raise prices to the point where fast internet becomes a rich-person thing.

theres a lot more detail but i think ive talked about COMPUTARZ enough for today.

[rawb]

WHOA WALL OF TEXT

TL;DR VERSION : LOL EVERYONE IS FUCKEDl

[thebobman]

Solution = Shaw Xtreme (or nitro if you have the coin) + newsgroup subscription. Seriously, bit-torrent is like amateur night at the Apollo.