CRTC rules on Traffic Management Practices

Wed Oct 21 17:22:33 UTC 2009

Joe Maimon wrote:
>
>
> Tim Lampman wrote:
>> Realistically this has to do with one main thing, traffic throttling 
>> (Mainly of bittorrent and other p2p applications).
>> In previous decisions and hearings they discussed at length the 
>> management of networks in regards to spam and viruses.
>> These have nothing to do with what this ruling is about and they 
>> stated that there is a clear distinction
>> between managing spam and viruses and management of traffic for 
>> specific applications.
>>
>> This ruling really doesn't amount to much at this point as bell, 
>> rogers, shaw, cogeco etc will all still throttle whatever they
>> want, whenever they want without much regard for the rulings of the 
>> CRTC. They ignore many other rulings every day,
>> why would this one be any different.
>>
>
> The issue that interests me most is the reputed filtering and 
> throttling performed by these companies for broadband L2 connections 
> backhauled to ISP's doing the L3 on them, such as with ATM or L2TP.
>
> In that scenario, a broadband user who is a customer of Mom'N'Pop ISP 
> is getting throttled by a third party providing a L2 backhaul.
>
> From what you have posted, this would now require prior approval. As I 
> feel strongly that this behavior is quite wrong and should not happen, 
> I am encouraged by these rules.
>
> Joe
>
It would appear this is how it should be, however the track record of 
Bell heeding the CRTC's rulings has not been good. Last year Bell was 
ordered to offer matching speeds to their wholesale GAS customers to 
that of their retail offerings, they simply never complied. This ruling 
only applies to time sensitive traffic, most of which Bell does not 
currently throttle. While I think most people would agree that its 
completely wrong to throttle the traffic of a third party wholesale 
customer, the reality is that Bell does this every day and will continue 
to do so regardless of what the CRTC tells them.

-- 
Tim Lampman
Co-Owner/CTO
*Broadline Networks Inc.*
57 Colborne Street West, Brantford, ON, N3T 1K6
*c.* 905-746-3114
www.broadlinenetworks.com <http://www.broadlinenetworks.com/> | 
tim at broadlinenetworks.com <mailto:tim at broadlinenetworks.com>