Throttling of internet

Thanks Mig… that blew my theory out of the water :unamused:

Oh well I think I will take the wait and see attitude and see how it effects me at home and at work.

Not sure…but have been told a lot.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/628171715.png

http://www.speedtest.net/result/628173666.png

http://www.speedtest.net/result/628174234.png

Well it’s 12 hours later… and I got the same speeds as earlier today.  I’ve never seen that before.  Speeds at this time of night are usually pretty crappy.

But then again… this is the first time I’ve done a Speedtest on a different computer, with a new modem.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/628513348.png

Not bad this am.

Yeah, something has to be up. Things got a lot better last night. Was able to downtown Itunes (and it didn’t take forever)

… then I get up this morning, and try… and yeah… Opening htmf took 3mins.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/628570066.png

More than most posters make in a month.
Just added a Telus 6Mb DSL, all said and done about $200 mo. 2+ modem extra.

You’re getting way better Rogers, best I measured was .210 and that was on the mountain about 100ft from their tower. In town  here .120 - .130

I took a look this morning and the CityWest petition is in Naomi’s Deli. Drop by, have a bite to eat/coffee or just sign the petition and go.  :smile:

its at maverick too. but signing it will do nothing . download limits have been capped  in major cities for years. get used to it or go down to citywest in the line up and complain . typing on here and bitching aint doing anything

Petition should be online, and HTMF is the most visited site for Citywest employees.

You may be right, but that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the “Local” communications company.

I don’t know what you want them to do exactly, NOT manage their pipe so you will all get more frequent periods of really slow service?

Add capacity?  Add economic measures?  Have they done this already?

Perhaps Citywest could buy more capacity, but I don’t assume that there should only be one pipe that is being managed.

Citywest’s Speedtest results tend to be below Telus and Shaw. That’s evident from several posts and also my experience as a Shaw customer elsewhere and from testing Telus connections when in the Lower Mainland.

Internet service is a competitive business elsewhere, but not here, largely because the local provider happens to be municipally owned. It has been that way for so long that any other business model seems unthinkable.

I think that it is time to question underlying assumptions and consider entering a competitive marketplace where if customers are dissatisfied they don’t complain or sign petitions; they switch.

Remember 10 years ago?

We had connections and speeds that were the envy of everybody else in Canada.  The residential DSL line I had in 1998 was faster than anything any of my friends across Canada could get without paying 10-20 times as much.  

Citytel was a leader then.  And it was because it was municipally owned.  It seemed to do things that were in Prince Rupert’s interests, even if it didn’t make sense to the marketplace.  I think it would be fair to say that Citytel at that time was very forward-looking, and willing to be on the cutting edge.  

Citywest’s manager’s take on mobile data services in the summer of 2007:  “I’ve done some checking around with businesses in town and they don’t see a demand for mobile data services.” [The Northern View, July 18, 2007]  

Unfortunately it’s 10 years of hard core conservative values later. Now nobody is going to do anything that doesn’t make total economic sense.
Like a one time expenditure for a traffic shaper that’s less than the added monthly cost of a bigger pipe that will just overload too.
That’s the ugly truth.
The other ugly truth is that nobody’s going to consider they’re at the absolute end of the line. Like the Fort is off on a dogleg. Huge extra costs for not being in the middle of a chain. People here make the same arguments, but reality is that Telus is not going to spend $1,000,000 to get $20 a month from 12 homes. Or even 100 homes. And the gov’t is neither going to give them the money to so it, nor tell them they have to.
The days of Alcan wanting fiber and a federal Liberal/provoncial NDP handing the telco $500 million to do it are gone. How long would it have taken for CityTel to connect if it had to string the fiber all the way to PG to do it?
Petition all you want. Cuz someone will have to shell out the money so you better step up to the plate and hold out your wallet.

I think what you are describing is not unique to Prince Rupert. Marketing texts say that products go through life cycles. During the innovation phase relatively small companies that focus on early adopters can dominate the market for a time. In parts of the Interior 10 years ago, for instance, ABC Communications was an innovator and leader.

But markets grow and mature when bigger players like Telus and Shaw (and Rogers in mobile data) move in and provide scale, cost and technical advantages to mass markets of people, most of whom don’t know the difference between bits and bytes or particularly care. The small innovators of 10 years ago become laggards or struggle to keep up. That seems to be a recurring theme in every Citywest thread. 

The story you cite from the Northern View illustrates the change, I think. A survey of local businesses - that is so Prince Rupert in a way - probably would have made sense in 1998, but these days the market would be better understood by standing at the door of a local high school at lunch time.

I think that Rupert will make a transition from Citywest to being customers of mass market providers. In the cell phone business that transition must be well advanced, I suspect. Citywest management may hasten or slow down that change, but to me it seems inevitable.

You’re using the wrong tense regarding ABC… they’re still doing it. And don’t convince yourself you’re part of the ‘maturing market’. Like I said, the middle of the chain gets the investment.
ABC’s now spread from Mackenzie down to the Okanagan, and recently acquired Burns Lake. By doing what exactly what we do, serving areas that would get nothing without what you refer to as laggards picking up the slack. And picking up the choice trimmings left by centralizing Shaw and Telus. They can’t send a guy to put the mill back online today when their whole crew is tied up by Mrs. Id10t who has no Start button on her Windows XP and shouldn’t have to walk all the way downstairs to see if  the extension’s off the hook.

There ain’t much bright light for us boonie-dwellers when our towns aren’t growing. Unless we want to pay more a lot than people in major centres.

I’m not entirely sure what the market penetration for a/dsl is in this particular town, but lets say 9200 homes of the 12,000 (give or take 1000) homes in the city (and close region) purchase a/dsl / cable at $45.00 a service drop (seems a reasonable price) then that would amount to $496,800.00 per twelve months of service.

It rains here. Alot. At $45.00 a month I can’t see the number of service drops being off by that much. Lets not count out businesses who may pay more. Telus, Shaw or any other company looking for ROI in a digital communications investment just may see a real return with ten years of service.

How about signing and mailing petitions to Shaw and Telus to reevaluate the region. Like a pre-order for internet services. I could have about thirty-five service drops signed up in less than thirty days.  :sunglasses:

… and Bob Allen is a good guy as well. I can’t speak for ABC’s recent expansions, but I can for where they started out. Perhaps they provide a useful comparison with Citywest.

ABC was the only internet provider in town until Telus and Shaw took over much of the residential business especially. ABC remained strong on the commercial side, picking up or keeping ‘the choice trimmings’ much as you describe. I had Telus and later Shaw at home - there were advantages - while ABC looked after the office network (which ran on Telus lines). They could also set up wireless towers to service particular customers - not what Mrs  Id10t typically had in mind or could afford.

This describes a situation where there was a transition from one provider to three, each with their respective strengths, one being a much smaller company that has a history of focusing on the needs of certain customers. But that is not the situation here. This place is limited to what one local company offers (leaving aside Roger’s mobile data).

I don’t discount questions about where the majors are likely to invest or not invest, other than to note that Telus in particular is providing broadband to places that are smaller than Rupert and at or near the end of the road.

The assumption needs to be challenged, I suggest, that because the City owns a telecom company citizens/customers are stuck with whatever services it is able to or that its management chooses to provide.

It should be challenged, as a resident you have a lot more influence of the boardroom than say a Rogers customer. However you don’t have a multi-billion dollar budget and expanding market to work with.

My intro to ABC was years ago, we walked in to do a major deal with them and there was my old supervisor from BC Tel and my old apprentice! Bob Allen made my day when he asked my old supe to fetch coffee for us!  :smiley:
Just this summer I ran into Gary (ex apprentice) and we were told the network wiring on a remote reserve what just fine, we were stupid. We just looked at each other and snickered because the two of us put it in many years back - 4 pair Cat3 phone line for the switchboard. Just fine for 50 Volt POTS lines…

Wouldn’t a more affordable solution, although maybe somewhat costly, be Microwave Radio Systems to increase bandwidth in the northern regions? The technology has matured and it is being used in places like Alaska and Vancouver Island for backhauls and backbones etc. Maybe its already being used here I haven’t checked into it. The idea of laying fibre made me respond…