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.

CRTC rules in favor of Bell, against net neutrality

If you’re wondering who’s side the CRTC is on, it’s not the consumer. The CRTC recently ruled that Bell Sympatico’s throttling practices did not discriminate against the ISP wholesalers. In essence Bell and Rogers are free to do as they please. Many have already voiced their displeasure with the decision. Consumers are lamenting the seemingly attack on their Internet freedoms however the Internet wholesalers are the ones getting screwed here.

See how it normally works is that companies tend to favor the customers who usually have big orders. In this case the guys buying large chunks of Internet time are getting the opposite end of the stick. Thanks for your business, now fuck you!

The CRTC is planning on holding another meeting on general traffic shaping practices in February. I’m sure it will be well attended.

Software to stop you from talking on the phone while driving

This new software from Aegis Mobility called DriveAssist is designed to reduce the number of traffic accidents. The software can determine whether the cellphone user is moving at “car speeds” and notifies the caller and gives the option to leave a voice message. It looks to be promising technology. For many people in theory talking and driving should not mix, however in practice it’s quite difficult to avoid picking up the phone when it rings. It becomes second nature, just ask any teenager.

The major stumbling block will be getting people to use/subscribe to the service. Definitely a company worth investing in. When legislation gets submitted this companies software will become mandatory and as you know government contracts are worth a pretty penny. (more)

Bluetooth headsets people! Use them.

Bell decides to punish wholesale ISPs where it hurts

Despite the fact that bandwidth costs for ISPs are dropping as fast as user traffic rates rise, many ISPs still face congestion problems at the last mile, and Bell Canada is no exception, as internal data recently showed. Not content with simply throttling P2P traffic for ten hours a day, the company has just announced plans to impose usage-based billing on the small ISPs that buy wholesale access from Bell. In some cases, the “free” monthly limit will be as low as 2GB. No, that’s not a typo.

News of the move began to percolate through online forums this week as small ISPs expressed outrage over a practice that could make them even less competitive with Bell, and it then expanded (a bit) into blogs and outlets like the CBC. The Canadian government requires Bell to lease access to other firms because of its infrastructure dominance, but Bell recently extended its P2P throttling techniques from its own ISP service (Sympatico) to wholesalers as well. (link)

Spam clogging up the Intertubes, 80% of email traffic

Almost everyone hates spam. The only people that don’t hate it are the ones that make vast amounts of money from sending it. The profits they turn are so large that regardless of what spam fighters do, the amount of spam keeps increasing. According to web security firm MessageLabs, spam accounted for 81.5 percent of all e-mail traffic in June.

This number, which is calculated based on 3 billion e-mail connections that MessageLabs scans every single day, more or less corresponds with US-specific data. An analysis of year-to-date spam rates for individual US states shows that the percentage of e-mails that were spam range from 77 (Montana) to 91 percent (Illinois). In other words, in every single state in the US, over three quarters of e-mails sent are junk. The average spam level in the US was 86 percent in June. (link)