Throttling of internet

General Forums Prince Rupert Forum
1

I am not getting the speeds that I am paying for as it is,  With this new “shaping” of our internet,  speeds will be even slower.

I bet the employees at citywest with a fast connection will not be shaped.

I ask why sell diferent speeds if you do not want people to use them.

They have already stated in the most recent bill that this action, “is completely non-discriminatory in nature”

Why do they feel that statement is even needed,  if they did not already realize that it may actually be.  Perhaps they think if they state that on the get go,  we might just take thier word for it and think that it is not.

Telus,  Come to Rupert,  you will have lots of customers.

2

Once upon a time didn’t there used to be two internet providers in town? Rapidnet, or something? Are there any alternatives to Citywest internet?

3

What makes you think Telus doesn’t?
You can almost guarantee if they come to a new area they will because they can, if you’re in an existing area they will because they can when it makes economic sense.
Get used to it. You’re $30 isn’t even chickenfeed.

4

City West gets it’s internet feed from Telus anyway so that won’t help…
What we need is Shaw that would be true competiton, but with the small population base I don’t see that happening… 

5

isnt there a dish or something you could buy to get internet???

6

why not waait till they do it to see if it affects you b4 you complain?

7

I’d go with Telus for $5 cheaper, just to spite Citywest. They say they weren’t throttling before, but we can only get 120kbps in town from a/dsl connection to a/dsl connection (previously 1.2Mbps). They said they don’t throttle and then Greg M. noted (privately) that they put caps on P2P protocols. They say you’re payin for 256Kbps connections (lite) but the throughput is more like 56Kbps (because of the standard explanation: line noise, user misconfiguration, the source you’re downloading from is slow…)

I like Keith, smart guy. And honestly, just about everyone there but their policies, their practices and quite frankly, their rates are in my opinion, borderline criminal for the service Rupert gets.

Anything further affecting a Citywest line is simply furthering degrade an already slow service that is over-sold, over-billed and over-throttled - in my opinion.

I thought there were regulations against regulating P2P protocols for ISP’s? Hmmpff.

It’s humerous that they say there are people utilizing a large portion of bandwidth causing everyone to be slow…

-Syncing the adsl modem at the prescribed speed you paid for lite/mid/full adsl is supposed to limit the connection? How can I take Joe Schmoe’s bandwidth if I am not supposed to have it in the first place?

-If I pay for Full adsl @ 2Mbps, and I only get maximum 300-400Kbps at a very rare once or twice a year, how is it I am using more than what I paid for?

-If I use 200Kbps consistently for 30 Days, all day long, is not still within my rights? I have paid for a prescribed 2Mbps, with no bandwidth cap, what they hell did I do to them? Oh wait, nothing.

Hypothetically, another type of situation could lead to this kind of situation. An imaginary ISP, lets call them, FittyWest, has a to pay for SO MUCH BANDWIDTH THROUGH SMELL-US after a connection from an imaginary town, lets call it, Sterrace and collectively their overselling of bandwidth is causing them to pay for more bandwidth than they purchased.

Anyway…when the competition if/when does come, Citywest is going to have real problems. Telus would have the best kick at the cat, and would garner a large portion of customers one would think - because of this kind of Citywest move.

8

Some of my thoughts:

  1.  Citywest’s site says they will be “transparent with customers on traffic management policies and practices”.  Let’s hope so.  

  2.  Citywest clearly did traffic management in the past.  I assume it was in response to some bandwidth issue?  If so, did the issue go away?  Or is there another reason that they stopped, but are now wanting to do it again?

  3.  I’m hopeful they will tell you if you are one of “the heaviest users of bandwidth.”  What’s the definition of “heavy”?  Will they tell you when you are being throttled?  Can a customer find out how much bandwidth he is using?

  4.  What exactly is the bandwidth problem?  Can it be solved by simply adding more bandwidth to the system?  Can it be solved by charging “the heaviest users of bandwidth” more money?

  5.  How does Citywest’s speeds compare to those elsewhere?  What has the historic speed looked like?  Was it faster before?  (I’m on the original 2 meg DSL, and my speeds have been the same for 10 years).

  6.  It is a positive step, in my opinion, that Citywest isn’t throttling based on the content of your traffic, just on the amount of traffic.  

If they were throttling based on content, it would mean they are recording what you are doing on the internet, and basing decisions on your activity.  I would compare it to the phone company listening in on your phone conversation and deciding to disconnect you during peak times if your conversation wasn’t important.  Nobody would want that. 

Instead the analogy would be like a phone company deciding to disconnect phone calls during peak times based on how long you’ve been on the phone.  At least they wouldn’t be listening in on your conversation, just timing it.

This also means that they won’t be slowing you down just because you’re downloading movies from iTunes or watching TV on the Global website or using Skype or Vonage.  All of which directly compete with other Citywest services.  To slow you down based on applications like that would be a real conflict of interest, in my opinion, so I’m glad at least they’re not planning to do that.

I agree with you, decker, that we should wait and see what this looks like before complaining.  But if you are throttled (and hopefully they will tell you), then you can complain.

If you look here:  http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-657.htm  you will see that the CRTC has recently tackled this issue.

If you scroll down to #43, you’ll see how Citywest would have to respond to a complaint about throttling.  
 - describe the throttling – why it was needed, and exactly what was done.
 - show how throttling help solved an identified problem
 - explain why “network investment” and “economic approaches” couldn’t solve the identified problem.

So I think as long as Citywest can explain how adding capacity to their system, or charging more for heavy users would not solve the apparent bandwidth problem, then they would be ok with throttling.

If you take a look at #60, you’ll see some more information on how ISPs are supposed to inform customers about throttling.  Citywest has posted this stuff on their website, and included a message with your bill.  They aren’t telling us the specifics about speed, however, but I’m hopeful they will do so in January.

Any thoughts?  Any answers?  Perhaps someone with a bit more knowledge of this stuff could look through the CRTC link and process it.  It’s written for technical lawyers, it seems.

9

my speed seems normal - not bad.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/626038423.png

10

yea i dont follow all the technical mombo jumbo the way some do . but i dont game mostly surf and the odd download but when downloading im not in a big hurry so i may not notice . who knows wait and see i guess

11

I do know they throttle P2P already.  On speed test I get my 1.5 to 2.0 MBs.  However as the second picture show I top out at 200 KB  which I think is about .19 MBs

12

I think the official word (from the quote in the paper, anyway) is that they used to throttle, but don’t anymore.  Which is interesting – why did they do it in the first place, and has that need gone away, or are they just changing their approach?

Hard to say if getting 200kB/sec means that they are throttling you.  I’d vote for no.  256kB/sec is the theoretical limit for 2Mb/sec, but when you include the protocol overhead, it’s going to be less.  Your top screenshot shows 1.72Mbit/sec which is about 220kBytes/sec.

On top of that, how do you know that the other side is actually sending data at 256kB/sec or more?  Windowing is influenced by a bunch of factors.

I’d say that if you were being throttled, you wouldn’t be seeing 200kB/sec.  It would be much less.  Also, your speed to Citywest (the speedtest) is about the same as your speed on the graph (is that a torrent?).  So your bandwidth within the Citywest network is roughly the same as out of the network, which also would indicate that your connection is not being managed.

Also, I think you’re confusing megaBITs and kiloBYTES.  2.0 Megabits is about 256 Kilobytes.

The simple way to find out is just to ask.  Call 'em up and ask.  I’m confident that the answer you’ll get is no.

13

This is what I get,  could be doing it wrong though.

14

8 bits in a byte. You’re converting 200 kBytes and getting 0.19 mBytes.  Which is right. But your internet connection is 2 megabits, not 2 megabytes. 

Nerds tend to use a big B for Byte and little b for bits.  so 2Mb is different than 2MB.

The bottom line is that 220 kBytes is pretty close to 2 mbits.

15

Seriously our speeds are pretty bad compared to the rest of speedtest’s results on most other places
Prince Rupert
speedtest.net/global.php

Terrace
speedtest.net/global.php

16

I think we are looking at the word throttling to closely and should be looking at the fact that they are shaping the bandwidth.

If you don’t see my view I will post later today.

17

What ever you want to call it,  it is still less than what you are paying for. 

18

Right now you’re getting what you are paying for.  Did you read the posts on the previous page about you mixing up bits and bytes?

19

Just back from the lower mainland and Van island,using laptop wireless connections at hotels etc.and twice as fast as here in Rupert!I have had "high speed"since it was offered and have seen it get slower and slower.Switched to the fiber,not much better.We ARE NOT getting what we are paying for,not sure what to do about that…we get nowhere complaining one at a time,any ideas?

20

Well you may not be getting what you’re paying for, I don’t know.  Can you do a speedtest and post the results?

expat is definitely getting 2 megabits, though.  If that’s what he’s paying for, that’s what he’s getting. 

I also have 2 megabits, and I consistently get 200-250 kB/sec.