RSSCanadian ISP flouts net neutrality principles again
By Tim Conneally | Published December 11, 2007, 2:09 PM
Rogers Yahoo, which has repeatedly come under fire for traffic shaping, has now ventured even further away from neutral ground, by inserting usage messages into its users' unencrypted data streams.
Made public over the weekend through Internet activist and co-founder of nonprofit People for Internet Responsibility Lauren Weinstein, someone going by the tag of "A Concerned Reader" captured an image of a Rogers Yahoo message being displayed over a Google Canada page.
The message shows the bandwidth consumption of a Rogers user, warning that he is approaching his monthly 75 GB data cap. It is called Internet Subscriber Notification System (ISNS), and the ISP confirmed yesterday that it was, in fact, trying different ways to notify customers of bandwidth limitations.
While the company says it is merely testing customer responses, it believes the information displayed in the ISNS message is useful to the customer. Rogers currently has no standard customer notification procedure of bandwidth limitations.
But previous controversy for the company came also in the name of bandwidth conservation. Rogers is now well-known for throttling all encrypted traffic to keep Usenet and BitTorrent downloaders from consuming more bandwidth than everyone else.
According to a Rogers customer survey, the typical customer consumes only 5 gigabytes a month.
ISNS has been attributed to San Antonio network software developer Perftech, whose applications insert advertising, promotions, and subscriber care messaging into both wired and Wi-Fi environments. Perftech was a subsidiary of Canadian telecom giant Nortel until 2001.
The actions of Rogers show how important the debate over net neutrality regulations has become in Canada. To sign petitions and receive updates on the state of Canadian internet laws, visitNet Neutrality Canada.
Google's stance on net neutrality is that broadband carriers simply should not be allowed to use their market power to control the online activity of its users.
Well, the first round of emails went out last night to various friends and acquaintances who will likely pull their services if Rogers pulls this bulls***. Each of them have heavy investments in Rogers services, ranging form cels to digital cable to home phone and of course internet. They've each agreed to contact friends and acquaintances THEY know with like interests and investments. They'll tell friends and so on and so on and so on... just like the old commercial.
This is coast to coast, stretching from Vancouver, to Calgary, to Ottawa, to Toronto. The first ten of us alone add up to easily well over $10K a year in revenue for Rogers. More than 10 emails went out last night.
With media available such as blogs, boards, IM and email, word will spread fast.
The message is clear: if you don't like it, vote with your wallet.
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|Simple answer surely - change ISP. [shrugs]
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|That's exactly the point of the emails - but one step further. A simple ISP change doesn't hurt the company. Removing ALL other revenue sources form that company - digital cable / home phone / cel services - does.
That what I'm recommending.
Gets the point across a LOT clearer.
Rogers is all about lowering service levels while either maintaining or increasing fee levels. They have done this consistently for several years now. It's time to remind them know that customers are why they exist. The only way to do that is to vote with the wallet - not just at the ISP service level but at ALL the service levels. That packs a much bigger revenue punch.
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|I would think Google has a right to charge them for this ad placement. (why don't they re-direct it to yahoo.com also)
I would think they would have to proivide an audit of the records also.. How much money does the Canadian elected officals get from Roger/yahoo?? Canadians need to check the freezers of their elected officals?!?
On a good note Rogers is starting to define what unlimited internet is.. 75G.. but what if the user has been buying downloaded movies/music from Yahoo.com do they have to turn off the internet until the month is over??
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|Then it's not unlimited and they should stop calling it that. The dictionary term for unlimited could be legally used against them.
And yes, people can and do nitpick things like that every day - my wife works in the legal system and this isn't uncommon.
Furthermore, don't be so sure that their billing will withstand scrutiny - negative billing didn't and they had to back off.
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|I forgot to add:
If and when the company should implement this, they should be prepared to justify their billing by SUPPLYING THE USER WITH FIREWALL LOG RECORDS, which a savvy user like myself could then run through Websense (which I do have access to) to determ8ine the veracity of their billing information.
I would certainly be prepared to take the necessary legal action to enforce the release of those logs and furthermore, would definitely be willing to publicize the results of that verification FAR AND WIDE so that OTHER USERS could take appropriate action, legal and / or personal.
There will be no repeat of typical Rogers lack of ethics as demonstrated with "negative billing". They will have to stand and deliver.
Every street has two sides - Rogers tends to think it's exclusively one-way.
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|If they do this, my Internet, cable, home phone and cell phone subscriptions will be terminated with them - immediately.
Period.
That's a significant yearly revenue stream.
I advise others to do the same and to threaten them with customer wrath if they pursue this bulls***.
I am in no way shape or form interested in their typical trite excuses about bandwidth being expensive.
I work in the industry.
It's not.
I've been dissatisfied with their thuggery for a long time and this could be the excuse that I and many others have been waiting for to pull the plug on them.
Are you listening Rogers?
You had better be.
You're not the only game in town for those services any more: there's 3Web, Telus and Bell.
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|http://acanac.ca/google-...pwvm7oZACFQKHPAodvQU29g
for those of you sick of rogers & I have been for years .
acanc will give 5mb dsl line on dry lines still keep your sell & pay $240
please mention my name Tony Peters when you signup I get my free month
I been on acanac since feb 07 i have filled a 500gb hd with movies trojans& virus don't happen much compared to rogers .
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|Congratulations Tony Peters, you just won the coveted Retard of the Week Award.
First, you post your real name and admit you downloaded 500 GB worth of pirated movies. Genius.
Second, you seem to think trojans and viruses are related to your ISP. They are not. If you download a virus, you get a virus. It has absolutely nothing to do with your service provider.
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|What, you the chairman of the membership committee?
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|They're not called Jolly Rogers for nothing. This is the same cable company that came up with negative billing....
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|Are you referring to this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/...Negative_option_billing
When I saw the term "negative billing" I was wondering what it was all about.
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|Yes. It is unethical when the customer doesn't know that that is being done. Unlike a book club where you know from the start. Luckily Rogers doesn't offer cable Internet in my province. I get up to 15Mbps download.
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