Does this mean another Price increase for hi-speed internet????

[harmer]

Here is an article from today's Toronto Star.

Another telco travesty
TYLER HAMILTON

Class divisions could soon be a common sight in the high-speed Internet community, where the quality of service you get depends on how much you're willing to pay. And the speed of your Internet connection has nothing to do with it. It's all about applications, and which "packets" of data — whether from email, Web page requests, Internet phone services or music downloads — get priority or VIP treatment on increasingly crowded networks. Whereas we've all heard of the "very important person" designation, this is really about "very important packets." If you've got something important and you don't want it to get held up in traffic, getting on the express lane is going to cost you. Funny, isn't that why someone purchases high-speed Internet in the first place? Imagine if the operator of the 407 Highway told existing customers they could only use the fourth lane if they paid more money each month. First there's a toll on the highway, then there's a toll on an individual lane. Last year, Calgary-based Shaw Cable became one of the first cable companies in North America to offer what it calls "quality of service enhancements" on its high-speed network. Essentially, it charges people $10 more each month if they want to make sure a third-party Internet telephone service, from a service provider such as Vonage or Primus, works properly over Shaw's high-speed service. "Without this service customers may encounter quality of service issues with their voice over Internet service," the company states on its website. As one industry source told me, "It's a sneaky way of saying if you don't get this your service will suck." Suddenly, high-speed customers with "regular" service find themselves as second-class cybercitizens. To accomplish this, Shaw uses technology from Merrimack, N.H.-based Ellacoya Networks Inc., among a handful of companies — including Cisco-owned P-Cube Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., and Waterloo-based Sandvine Inc. — that have perfected the art of what's known as "deep packet inspection." Basically, the technology can analyze all traffic on a high-speed network, identify what it is, and then "mark" it — that is, assign it a level of priority chosen by the network operator. It means Shaw knows which subscriber on its network is using a Primus VoIP service, or Kazaa for downloading music, or Bit Torrent for downloading movies. In fact, it inspects even deeper. Not only does the technology know you're using Kazaa, for example, but it knows the specific songs you have chosen to download, which itself has privacy implications depending on how a network operator uses it. It's quite creepy, actually. The ultimate effect is packet discrimination. Primus, for example, said that Shaw's new $10 service amounts to a VoIP tax that would ultimately discourage consumers from using third-party applications. Closer to home, Rogers Cable and Cogeco Cable also use technology from one of the above-mentioned companies to prioritize traffic on their respective networks. If you're a Rogers high-speed user, you may have noticed that those digital movies or songs you've been downloading are taking longer. Rogers doesn't hide the fact that it gives email, Web pages, instant messaging and its own Internet phone service priority on its network. "What that means is music and video come to the bottom of the list," said Taanta Gupta, a spokesperson for Rogers Cable. "We're talking about delay of minutes, not hours. It's a common practice with cable companies in North America. It isn't new." What Rogers hasn't done — not yet, anyway — is follow Shaw by offering its customers a VIP service. But the Toronto-based cable giant has made it clear that it's considering the move in some shape or form. Brian Sharwood, a telecom analyst with the Seaboard Group in Toronto, said doing so could carry a lot of marketing risk for a company that's still stinging from a negative-option billing fiasco that happened nearly a decade ago. "The marketing pitfalls, especially for Rogers, (are) high," said Sharwood. Imagine if Rogers created three classes of service — Bronze, Silver and Gold — with Bronze giving lowest priority to video, music and Internet telephony that doesn't originate from Rogers. Gold, on the other hand, would guarantee the speedy delivery of all applications. As more people sign up for Gold does that mean that Bronze customers get increasingly bad service, because they will be pushed to the back of the line? And how does Rogers justify to existing customers, who "believe" they're getting unfettered access to Web services, the idea of paying more just to maintain the level of quality they thought they were paying for? For years the cable and phone companies have talked about how they're merely the dumb pipe that carries all the content on the Internet. They just connect traffic from points A to B. No longer does that argument fly. They know exactly what they're carrying, often in alarming detail, and the temptation is there to increasingly use that knowledge to extract more revenue from subscribers. It's a brave new online world. Spectrum reports on business technology and telecommunications. Reach Tyler Hamilton at thamilt@thestar.ca

[sezer_79]

QOS comed to mind.

Taking some good technology, turning it around and slamming us consumers in the face with it.

What's next??

[HammerJoe]

Anyone surprised by this?

Not me.

[CW]

Rogers has been hiding the fact that they are doing this in certain areas for at least 9 months. Try to raise an issue about extremely poor performance with Bittorrent and they'll just say they don't support it and the fault must lie with you.

[AstroGirl]

I'm not surprised that Rogers might charge more for their high speed internet service in the near future... But the price increase will definately diminish the service experienced by the users that don't opt to pay for VIP service, and that's too bad.

But we all have to realize that music and video data packets should take the back seat to e-mail and VoIP data packets with any high speed internet company. It's called Quality of Service. Clearly, music and video packets don't carry the urgency that the other mentioned packets do.

[nathan]

Originally Posted by AstroGirl

Clearly, music and video packets don't carry the urgency that the other mentioned packets do.

To you (or I actually) they don't, but to someone else they might. Someone may get high speed purely for downloading massive amounts of multi-media. They shouldn't necessarily get the shaft just because what they consider important, many others don't.

But it is a business, and these people are losing their providers money. And quite frankly, the odds that these people are downloading or uploading perfectly legal material is fairly slim, so I find it hard to feel bad for them. (I'm not being all high-and-mighty here either, I come very close to my cap every month, and I won't lie and say that I use the service to up/download gigs and gigs of open source software.

If it comes down to it, and Rogers, or whomever, were to start rate-shaping nntp packets, I'd simply move to another provider...and probably pay more. I think the days of paying $40 dollars per month for a service that meets my needs is coming to a close...but I've had a pretty good run.

[que3jxp]

Originally Posted by CW

Rogers has been hiding the fact that they are doing this in certain areas for at least 9 months. Try to raise an issue about extremely poor performance with Bittorrent and they'll just say they don't support it and the fault must lie with you.

There is a trick to this one...

Change the default port number that you are using in your BT client and POW!! The QoS protocol can't pick up on it!!!

[que3jxp]

Originally Posted by AstroGirl

But we all have to realize that music and video data packets should take the back seat to e-mail and VoIP data packets with any high speed internet company. It's called Quality of Service. Clearly, music and video packets don't carry the urgency that the other mentioned packets do.

I agree. And to more broadly state it, anything that is latency sensitive should be put to the top of the QoS service. This would be games as well as VoIP traffic.

We all need to remember that QoS ultimately works out to latency or response time. DLing a file is not greatly impacted by higher latencies like VoIP or online games. I also would like my e-mail to respond faster and perhaps HTTP loads.

[nathan]

Originally Posted by que3jxp

Change the default port number that you are using in your BT client and POW!! The QoS protocol can't pick up on it!!!

Depends on what software they're using. Most of the newer stuff doesn't use ports to determine what type of traffic is what, it checks the packet itself to see what kind of data is in it.

(not all rate-shapers do this, but expect more and more to as people realize it's as easy as switching ports to get by the software)

[k4kman]

My biggest problem with this is do you really think Rogers will give Vonage VOIP the same priority as there own VOIP server? ? No just like in the article even if you pay more Rogers wants you to buy there products from them and this to me in unfair competition.

My big problems is seems like the pricing is going up and up and service and what you get is going down down down.

most ISP's now have a limit on the amount of traffic you can have in a month. Now they want more to get your traffic to you in a timely manner.
oh ya and now you have to get your own Service to provide NNTP.

Maybe they should just charge per application you would like to use
ie. Email $5, NNTP $50, Rogers VOIP Free, Other VOIP $10,
I find it funny thing like TV over the internet are just starting out but I’m sure that will not work now unless you are willing to pay something more to your ISP to let it though.

Over the last 10 years it seems like we started to get more for our money but now it's going to start back the other way.

The public internet has really changed in the last 10 years and now it’s just a big store you pay for anything you want to do, see, and hear

[MarcP]

Originally Posted by nathan

it checks the packet itself to see what kind of data is in it.

Just use the BitTorrent software and turn on the "encrypted header" feature. Rogers can't check that and you'll get much improved speed.

[nathan]

Originally Posted by k4kman

My biggest problem with this is do you really think Rogers will give Vonage VOIP the same priority as there own VOIP server? ? No just like in the article even if you pay more Rogers wants you to buy there products from them and this to me in unfair competition.

Rogers VOIP service runs on it's own network, and doesn't interfere with any internet services you may have. It's a guaranteed connection, costs about twice as much as Vonage or Primus, and should be more reliable.

The service we get from Rogers, or Bell, or whomever, is a consumer-based service that doesn't, and shouldn't have any real level of guaranteed reliability built in. Simply because you (the royal 'you', not YOU you) choose to use your service for VoIP, that doesn't make that service anymore important than someone else who chooses to use their internet for multimedia. If they're paying the same amount as you, they should have the same access to whatever they want as you, the thought that a consumer service with no QOS terms built in should favor one person's usage over another is rediculous.

Originally Posted by k4kman

My big problems is seems like the pricing is going up and up and service and what you get is going down down down.

I don't see it that way at all, the speeds that the providers has doubled in the past year (and is 6 times what it was when I first got high-speed), my bandwidth has probably quadrupled, but my price is the same as it ever was. (in fact, it's far cheaper then when it was 'The Wave')

Originally Posted by k4kman

most ISP's now have a limit on the amount of traffic you can have in a month.

This was expected at some point, the people who use all the bandwidth that their ISP allocates to them (myself included) are money-losers for Rogers...they're paying a lot more than $40 dollars for the 100Gb that myself or someone else has transferred back and forth.

Originally Posted by k4kman

Now they want more to get your traffic to you in a timely manner.

No, they want you to pay for QOS services, which is what businesses have been paying for for years. There's a reason why businesses pay more for their internet service, and that's because they usually recieve some sort of guarantee of availability and uptime (QOS or whathaveyou). We don't, and never have, had any guarantee of service. Again, everyone pays the same amount in the same teir of service from their NSP, so why should one person's traffic be deemed more important than someone else's, regardless of the content? I use my internet service almost exclusively for NNTP and VoIP through Primus, but the thought that my phone service is more imporant than someone else's media-browsing is selfish at best. I made the choice to go to a VOIP based phone provider running over a consumer-based non QOS network.

Originally Posted by k4kman

oh ya and now you have to get your own Service to provide NNTP.

To be fair on this one, anyone who used nntp for binaries probably never used Rogers (horrible retention and completion) or their ISP, and anyone who used it for text can use a free text-only server. NNTP's a horrible thing to offer free to your customers if you plan on holding any binary groups. A bucketload of resources used up by a protocol used by a relatively small portion of the internet population.

Originally Posted by k4kman

The public internet has really changed in the last 10 years and now it’s just a big store you pay for anything you want to do, see, and hear

Well, yes, but then look at what you could do on the internet 10 years ago as opposed to today? I still used my 28.8 modem to call BBS's to get access to email.

[MarcP]

Nathan, the real concern is that Rogers would purposely throttle VoIP traffic to force people to pay extra for QoS or switch to their telephony service. What stops them from doing so? It'd be one very tough thing to proove for an "unfair competition" complaint.

[nathan]

If they were to do that, then I completely agree, that would be extremely wrong. That being said, it's such a small portion of their segment, and it's such a small amount of bandwidth for them, I can't imagine anyone actually throttling it down. From what I read (and I suppose I could read it again) they were just offering the option to insure that those packets got priority, but I didn't see anything that suggested that they would take steps against VoIP traffic specifically.

And I'm not arguing it's a cash-grab for what they're offering it for...if you have a decent internet connection, fairly reliable VoIP service shoudn't be a problem, and you definately shouldn't have to pay extra to guarantee it.

[I_Want_My_HDTV]

My big problems is seems like the pricing is going up and up and service and what you get is going down down down.

My service is as good or better than ever. The price is cheaper than Rogers or Sympatico and hasn't gone up since I started with the ISP.

most ISP's now have a limit on the amount of traffic you can have in a month. Now they want more to get your traffic to you in a timely manner. oh ya and now you have to get your own Service to provide NNTP.

My limit just went from 20 to 100 GB/mo. I have never used more than 10. The only ISP that hit a limit with was Sympatico. I switched to another without limits in less than a week. NNTP was rarely an option, even with dialup.

Maybe they should just charge per application you would like to use ie. Email $5, NNTP $50, Rogers VOIP Free, Other VOIP $10, I find it funny thing like TV over the internet are just starting out but I’m sure that will not work now unless you are willing to pay something more to your ISP to let it though.

Internet TV will be limited by copyright laws and the CRTC anyway. Some ISPs do not block ports. You are not forced to subscribe to ones that do. NNTP has almost always been extra.

Over the last 10 years it seems like we started to get more for our money but now it's going to start back the other way.

10 years ago we were lucky to 5 or 10 MB of material downloaded in a day and were grateful for the privilege. Now many people think they have some sort of right to download 5 or 10 GB per day for the same price. Maybe you should own an ISP and we'll see what you think then.