Traffic shaping is not a tool of the devil, nor do we believe the solution to bandwidth problems is simply to provision more dark fiber and build more underground fiber optic lines. But as time has gone on, the issues around network neutrality have become more pronounced.
For example, Bell Canada has been throttling P2P service, much like Comcast in the United States. However, what makes this different is that Bell Canada is in a position much like AT&T – in that throttling the network on the backbone affects all the people – including people who are not Bell’s customers – along the line.
Worse still, Bell has been reselling the capacity to provide ADSL service to smaller ISPs without letting the services know that the bandwidth is throttled for certain applications. One of those smaller ISPs, Teksavvy, said: “We are not throttling anything and as far as I am aware will never throttle anyone. We don't believe in it.”– so the idea that Bell will leave them with no choice in the matter is a little worrisome. There isn’t much choice in the matter – the only other big broadband provider in Canada is Rogers Cable, which also throttles traffic.
There are arguments that “net neutrality” will be solved by the forces of the free market – that is, if one ISP throttles, they can go to their competitors. The problem is that, in this case, this is exactly what savvy customers were doing by moving from larger companies, like Bell and Rogers, to smaller companies like Teksavvy. From the consumer, it’s reducing their choice. For the small ISP, it’s could be considered downright anticompetitive, and the Canadian Association of Internet Providers applied for relief before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that would require Bell Canada to cease and desist.
We contacted Rocky Gaudrault, CEO of Teksavvy Solutions, but because this was now a legal matter, he explained that he was unable to comment. It was clear that he is passionate about the issue, but Teksavvy’s staff keeps him from speaking out by supplying him with timbits and beer to keep his mouth and hands busy.
Particularly interesting is this comment by a Slashdotter – both Bell and Teksavvy charge on a “tiered and metered” basis – which pretty much cuts through the false choice between deep packet inspection and metered bandwidth; Bell has both. (One profanity-laden post implied that the only reason that Bell Canada did this was to coldly eliminate the most compelling competitive advantage that smaller ISPs had – Bell had throttled traffic, small ISPs didn’t.)
The upshot is that network neutrality concerns have been brought to Canada’s Parliament during Question Time. (link via Prof. Michael Geist at the University of Ottowa, who we hope to have an interview with on Monday.) It’s unsurprising because these matters do not just affect consumers but large enterprises as well - an unannounced and sudden change in the QoS policies of the backbone provider is exactly the type of thing that can foul up capacity planning, VoIP switchover, teleconferencing, etc. Especially worrisome are those technology companies who rely on some form or another of P2P traffic to help cut their bandwidth costs.
Deep packet inspection is a powerful tool, and used in the right hands, in the right way, it can help make QoS planning easier, can help streamline business critical applications, can provide overall better end-user response times, and may indeed be a great technological boon.
But we can’t see any benefit in this case for throttling the traffic of resold bandwidth, and for not disclosing the changes in advance. If businesses that control backbone traffic want to avoid governmental regulation, they need to show that they can be responsible with the power they have and use it in a manner which is neither anti-competitive nor deceptive to wholesale resellers and end-user customers.
by Joel Trammell
