Bell – Page 7 – rgbFilter

Canada’s unfair data rates get international attention, believe it or not.

June 30, 2008July 25, 2009 Danny X Bell, Rogers0 comment

Anyone who has even taken a cursory glance at our main page will know that we’re what you might call a little irked over the ramrodding Canadians are taking if they want to purchase an iPhone from Rogers. In a nutshell, Rogers is offering half what AT&T is for more money, and a third what O2 in the UK is offering, also for significantly more money. It’s a grossly unfair monopolistic practice that can in no way represent what the “vast majority” of consumers want or need, and considering the…

Besting the iPhone Deal In Canada

June 28, 2008July 25, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, HTC, Windows Mobile1 Comment

With all the negative buzz about the Rogers iPhone, mainly over Rogers overpriced data plans, people are forgetting about the other half of the Great Canadian Media Duopoly. Most of the major cellphone carriers in Canada offer cheap, sub $10 data plans of one sort or another which include 3G speeds. Of course, these plans apply to non-smartphones, leaving out Windows Mobile and Blackberrys. Anyone who’s tried the ‘mobile internet’ on a standard phone knows that you don’t need ‘unlimited’ because it’s such a horrible experience. With one exception…

Bell’s Own Data Shatters P2P Red Herring

June 26, 2008February 2, 2011 Doug Groves Bell, CRTC, online rights, Teksavvy10 Comments

About a week ago, the CRTC demanded that Bell release to the public by June 23rd information that would prove it’s claim that P2P throttling was having a negative impact on it’s network. Some, but not all, of that information has been made public. Many details are being kept from public view for ‘competitive’ reasons. Even the scant evidence released shows exactly how flimsy Bell’s case is. One would assume that the company would release the most damaging evidence, but their claim is that over a 2 month period, 2-5%…

Bell’s VideoStore and Net Neutrality

May 22, 2008July 25, 2009 Doug Groves Bell5 Comments

Over the past month or more, there’s been an uptick in Net neutrality issues in the Canadian ISP space. Over the decades, Bell Canada has received untold millions in government subsidies to build out it’s infrastructure. In return, it’s is mandated by the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission) to lease wholesale to 3rd party companies to run their own services on Bell’s physical infranstruction. Back in March of this year, Bell announced that it would start packet shaping, or throttling bit torrent transfers ‘during peak hours’, even on these…

CAIP vs. Bell – Round One

April 8, 2008April 17, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, CAIP4 Comments

In the latest news regarding the Bell bandwidth throttling issue, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has filed a Cease And Desist application with the CRTC, to put an end to Bell’s packet shaping. From the press release: Tom Copeland, Chair of CAIP states, ” Bell has undertaken an activity that it has no regulatory authority to do and it did so without notifying it’s wholesale ISP customers which it has a legal responsibility to do before making such changes. It did so without the knowledge of its customers…

Canadian Throttling: It’s Not Just For P2P

April 4, 2008April 17, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, Teksavvy, throttling10 Comments

The issue of net neutrality is quickly coming to a head here in Canada. It’s been long known that the largest cable internet provider Rogers has been throttling P2P activity, but since the announcement a couple of weeks ago that Bell would start throttling P2P on it’s 3rd party wholesale lines (which would affect DSL users not subscribed to Bell’s Sympatico service), there has been a lot of action. What has been largely overlooked is that not only is Bell throttling P2P, but they are, if the evidence is accurate,…

Net Neutrality Perfect Storm, eh! – Updated

March 31, 2008July 9, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, net neutrality86 Comments

For some time, net neutrality has been below the radar for most Canadians. Sure, we’ve read about what’s going on in the US, but many of the regulations governing internet backbones and content delivery are different up here. For example, Canadian law charges a piracy tax on writeable media such as CDs, to offset piracy. In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen a perfect storm brewing regarding net neutrality in our home and native land. Here’s a quick breakdown… Bell Canada is required to sell DSL lines wholesale to…