CRTC Rules: Throttle Away!

So much for net neutrality. It would appear that the CRTC has sided with the Rogers and Bell on the web traffic issue. Bad news for Internet wholesalers. So all that is required is to notify their customers 30 days in advance (60 days for resellers) and start throttling. The decision gives plenty of discretion to Rogers and Bell to slow down data whenever they deem it necessary (which will be ALL THE TIME). The CRTC also added indirectly that pricing should be adjusted and that the changes should “harm” customers as little as possible.

In another ruling billing per usage was shot down, at least temporarily, by the CRTC. If allowed to proceed, it would all but eliminate wholesalers all together by making it unprofitable. With little competition as is the Internet market would be divided up by Rogers and Bell. Canada is seriously lagging behind other G8 nations when it comes to Internet speed and prices.

So enjoy your “high speed Internet connection” and unlimited downloads while you still can.

Dell gets into Forensics

As cyber crime grows Dell has decided to offer up a new service for law enforcement. A new digital forensics service is aimed at helping authorities police the Internet. The package offering jointly with Intel and other partners provides the necessary tools to host a data center for a coordinated effort to deal with criminals more efficiently. Helping to provide an infrastructure solution should help counter increasing computer crime.

Bell Sympatico aims to squeeze out wholesalers

Usage based billing will be the end of Internet DSL wholesale companies in Canada. Bell raised the idea last year in a response to a CRTC ruling forcing them to allow their wholesalers the same service offering they had. UBB is the end of unlimited flat rate Internet plans for many smaller companies. Bell plans to implement the billing system at the end May this year. So much for competition.

So not only do Bell Sympatico customers have to deal with unnecessary slow Internet due to throttling but monthly access fees will also rise. Oops you went over your monthly cap, that will be an extra $20. Will it be any surprise when BCE’s profit results are up by the end of the year? If only there were another service provider. In Canada there is Rogers and Bell, both which suck balls. (link)

Will Spam be the end of the Internet?

Everyday it’s the same thing. An email box full up of messages, 90% of which is spam. Remember back in the day when you used get excited when you got snail mail? With email … not so much. Would it surprise you that 97% of all email is spam? In fact I have several email accounts for this exact reason, to avoid spam. However it forces me to keep a schedule. Logging in each account to check for spam and delete it. Forget a few days and it inconveniences me to delete everything. Go on vacation and you might as well close that email account because legitimate emails have already been bouncing because your email was full within a day. Despite a few notable arrests and charges, spammers are not deterred. Sadly it’s just a part of daily life when you’re living with the Internet. However, it’s unbelievable that it only takes a handful of bad apples to ruin something so incredibly useful. Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe so I can spam you.

Bell Sympatico Internet: the fine print

Thinking of signing up with Bell for you Internet service? Make sure you read the fine print. There are several tiers of service you can get. Essential 0.5 Mbit line, Essential Plus 2Mbit, Performance 7Mbit, Max10 10Mbit, Max16 which is 16Mbit. However you may have missed the part about “within acceptable speed range”. WHA? Yeah, they key thing about those packages is that you can get UP TO X Mbps speeds. Just because you’re subscribed to a 16Mbps package doesn’t mean you will actually receive those kinds of speeds, nor anything approaching those speeds.

According to the techs performance will vary depending on your location and distance from the Bell office. So long as you’re within the “acceptable performance range” no tech will come out to upgrade the physical line to your home. For the 10Mbps package that means 1.5Mbps to 10Mbps. So even if you’re on the most expensive package but far away from the Bell office, you will get crappy download speeds. You will get the exact same speeds if you were on a cheaper package. I don’t know about you but paying $52.95 for “up to 10Mbps” and getting a 5Mbps performance is simply unacceptable. So what are you paying for? Essentially a bigger download cap and that’s it.

I don’t mind paying more so long as the service I receive is “as advertised” or is an improvement on my previous service. This tiered system by Bell is just a scam, fooling people into believing they will receive “faster downloads” on a more expensive plan. Simply put, it’s false advertising.

Also the whole “live chat” with a Bell representative is irritating. I’ve chatted with several reps this past week and all of them do not know the meaning of customer service. I’ve had chat sessions closed while in mid chat by the rep and then when reconnecting and attempting to reconnect with the previous rep only to be told “that rep is currently busy”. Nice way to avoid the issue. Not only are they uninformed but they also gave quite a bit of attitude, like I should be “thankful” that I’m getting the speeds that I currently get with the impression that many other customers experience worse speeds than I do. This is not the right approach to customer service. If you’re a Bell Sympatico customer I urge you to switch services. Send a message to Bell that this is simply unacceptable.