How will traffic shaping impact us? « The Simon Tonekham Statesman

How will traffic shaping impact us?

I was following the news the other day when Bell Canada (the world’s largest telephone company in Ontario/Quebec as the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier or ILEC) is strictly enforcing it’s traffic shaping policies.

This has really angered many independent ISPs (Internet Service Providers) on the way Bell has mishandled it’s wholesale network. The same thing goes to Telus, Rogers, Shaw, Videotron and Cogeco (Telus, which is also Canada’s 2nd largest telecommunications company in Alberta and British Columbia, the latter four are cable companies).

That’s why the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has filed a formal complaint to the CRTC over these concerns. What does it mean to the average user who pays almost $123CDN per month on getting the fastest internet as possible? Well, if you refer to my last post about “The Internet – what does it look like in the past and what the future will be”, that’s why many people are hogging up bandwidth resources such as BitTorrent, P2P, Kazaa, Limewire, FrostWire, Ares, Gnutella, etc.

(Although indirectly relating to this topic) We must remember the time that Napster was providing an free online service back in the heydays of the Dot-Com boom. It served as a file-sharing network, until many record labels (even the band called Metallica) and the RIAA (Recording Industry of America) has ordered the file sharing service to be shut down. The Napster name lives on – as a pay service, just like iTunes.

In the past, us people (especially myself) used to get internet access through the telephone line. You have to provide your username and password and the local telephone number that allows you to dial-in to the ISP network and you have to suffer all the annoying dial-tones. What’s worse, the entire phone line is occupied for the duration of the session compromising safety. That’s why people have to opt for a second phone line and they have to suffer on paying monthly charges on maintaining such a line. There’s one solution to solve all those problems.

One device, known as a “Switchboard”, works like this: You share just one phone line for all of your faxes, internet connections and telephones with one device. If I recall, I saw one commercial on TV advertising that and that particular device is known as the Emerson Switchboard. Some people believe that is a crap of garbage for this device. Others believe that this is an economical solution on getting a second phone line, while some believe it doesn’t work at all! There’s one software package that allows to do “Internet Call Waiting”. One application iirc is CallWave. It works similar to the call waiting that you use like you would in an ordinary telephone. However in order to use the feature as a software application, you have to subscribe to call waiting (or something like that) to use the feature. Most other ISPs have this similar feature as well.

With many “lite” internet services coming into the market place for a economical alternatives to high-speed DSL or cable connections, the Emerson Switchboard (and other device/software packages) is considered
redundant. There are some areas (particularly Rural areas) in which DSL/Cable infrastructure is non-existent for the time being. Some still use dial-up while a new technology called WiMAX is making a dominant debut as an alternative to Cable/DSL not currently served in these rural areas. As many new communities are developed, DSL/Cable services are constantly being served. We also must not forget about Fiber to the Home coming towards the marketplace. Right now, Bell Canada is testing it’s Sympatico Total Internet Max (aka Optimax) Internet service in Montreal and Toronto. It is expected to roll out in all communities from the course of this year and next year – 2008 to 2009 (anticipated).

As for WiMAX, the two internet providers that are offering this are Bell (under it’s Bell WiMAX internet service) and Rogers (under it’s Portable Internet and Portable Internet Unplugged Service). Rogers recently provided people who have a cottage up in Cottage Country, portable internet service. There’s also some Satellite internet service available too. Most major wireless carriers in Canada also provides Internet Access “on the fly” in which you connect your computer enabled cell phone or PC card in your laptop and then you will have instant access.

CBC’s Marketplace did a report on the “fastest internet access” and the results are staggering. Bell rated the last in internet service. Good thing that I’m with Rogers, my speeds are fairly decent.

As many people are still fighting about Bell’s practices on Traffic Shaping, some people have no choice but to get used to it. To finish this blog off, I’m leaving you a few videos relating to the “fastest internet service”, a news report about a customer in Alberta about her internet service and a music video by Paramore. The music video is called “That’s what you get”. The reason that I have selected this music video is that it fits loosely into my topic. I hope you enjoy these videos.

Bell Sympatico Throttles Internet Access: