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Rogers Still Under Fire For WOW Throttling
Company Acknowledges Other Games, Apps Impacted

Roughly half of Canada's network neutrality complaints have to deal with Rogers Communications, and most of those have to do with Rogers throttling World of Warcraft. As we noted back in March, Rogers network management systems accidentally targeted the popular game, something Rogers constantly told users they were working on. However, not only has the ISP not fixed the problem for many, it has admitted that WOW isn't the only application or game currently being hindered by the company's less-than-precise network management platform.

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Canadian regulatory agency the CRTC has been slowly digging into the complaints after players of other games notices similar problems. Several of our forum regulars have filed complaints with the agency, which triggered a formal inquiry with Rogers. Rogers recently responded to the CRTC, and acknowledged that numerous games and applications could be impacted. According to Rogers, users may see significant connection slowdowns if:

•Other peer-to-peer applications are running at the same time;

•The game or application was misclassified by network traffic management systems, as in the case of World of Warcraft; and

•All the applications classified as peer-to-peer traffic have a combined bandwidth of 80 kilobits per second or more – the threshold that trips the network traffic management system.

It remains unclear why dozens of global ISPs using all manner of intelligent network management platforms aren't having this level of dysfunction. Rogers users in our forums have been complaining about this issue since last fall if not earlier, and this seemingly endless battle has many suggesting Rogers may want to learn how to run a network before they get into banking.
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chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

Lol, i would be embarresed

If i lived in canada and had rogers for my service.

footballdude
Premium Member
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO

1 recommendation

footballdude

Premium Member

nic pic

That picture is way better than the article.

TheBionic
Funkier than a mohair disco ball.
Premium Member
join:2009-07-06
united state

TheBionic

Premium Member

Re: nic pic

said by footballdude:

That picture is way better than the article.

I lol'd

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY

Smith6612

MVM

Re: nic pic

Same . I could make a nice Star Wars: Battlefront (II) reference.
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch

Member

They can't be THAT stupid

I have a hard time believing this is accidental. After all, if their traffic management system has been this screwed up for this long, wouldn't the prudent thing be to turn the damn thing off until it can be fixed? The fact that they haven't seems to indicate that it's functioning as intended. They just don't want to admit it. They probably hope that, over time, people will just resign themselves to it and stop complaining.

Either that, or the networking people know full well it's broken and want to turn it off, but the suits, clueless as ever, won't let them.

elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO

elios

Member

Re: They can't be THAT stupid

said by ISurfTooMuch:

I have a hard time believing this is accidental. After all, if their traffic management system has been this screwed up for this long, wouldn't the prudent thing be to turn the damn thing off until it can be fixed? The fact that they haven't seems to indicate that it's functioning as intended. They just don't want to admit it. They probably hope that, over time, people will just resign themselves to it and stop complaining.

Either that, or the networking people know full well it's broken and want to turn it off, but the suits, clueless as ever, won't let them.

im thinking a little of A and a little of B

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues to ISurfTooMuch

Premium Member

to ISurfTooMuch
said by ISurfTooMuch:

I have a hard time believing this is accidental. After all, if their traffic management system has been this screwed up for this long, wouldn't the prudent thing be to turn the damn thing off until it can be fixed?

Turn it off? Then we'd have to upgrade our network to handle all the bandwidth hogs that would use P2P to it's fullest. Note in the article they consistently blame P2P even though he complainants don't use P2P
mogamer
join:2011-04-20
Royal Oak, MI

mogamer

Member

Re: They can't be THAT stupid

said by elwoodblues:

said by ISurfTooMuch:

I have a hard time believing this is accidental. After all, if their traffic management system has been this screwed up for this long, wouldn't the prudent thing be to turn the damn thing off until it can be fixed?

Turn it off? Then we'd have to upgrade our network to handle all the bandwidth hogs that would use P2P to it's fullest. Note in the article they consistently blame P2P even though he complainants don't use P2P

Doesn't Rogers have caps? That isn't enough to deter "bandwith hogs"?

HunterZ
join:2003-07-16
Kent, WA

HunterZ

Member

World of Warcraft traffic

WoW itself doesn't use much bandwidth, so I can't imagine why it would ever get tagged for throttling. Is this actually referring to Blizzard's BitTorrent-based WoW patch distribution mechanism? I can easily see how that might get categorized as P2P (since that's exactly what it is) and throttled.

Ebolla
join:2005-09-28
Dracut, MA

Ebolla

Member

Re: World of Warcraft traffic

Says in his article "Other peer-to-peer applications are running at the same time" so yeah I think what you are saying sounds about right.

MovieLover76
join:2009-09-11
Cherry Hill, NJ

MovieLover76

Member

80 Kilobits

They throttle all p2p traffic that exceeds 80 kilobits / sec that's insane, that's almost nothing. unless I didn't have any other choice in the area I lived I'd vote with my wallet and leave for another company

DataRiker
Premium Member
join:2002-05-19
00000

DataRiker

Premium Member

Re: 80 Kilobits

That 80 kilobits/s has to be a Typo. That is only slightly higher than a 56k modem.

I'm thinking maybe 80 kilobytes/s.
kccricket
join:2001-07-05
Youngsville, NC

1 edit

kccricket

Member

Peer to Peer

The core game is probably not being throttled directly. Blizzard utilizes a peer-to-peer bittorrent system to distribute new and updated game content. This sometimes runs while you're playing to download any recently-updated content. This way Blizzard can update certain aspects of the game without requiring a client side patch. WoW's bittorrent transfers are indistinguishable from any other bittorrent transfer.

Most likely what's happening here is that when Rogers detects the bittorrent transfer, they throttle the entire internet connection. Since the transfer can be going while the game is running, users feel the impact while playing.
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

Re: Peer to Peer

said by kccricket:

The core game is probably not being throttled directly. Blizzard utilizes a peer-to-peer bittorrent system to distribute new and updated game content. This sometimes runs while you're playing to download any recently-updated content. This way Blizzard can update certain aspects of the game without requiring a client side patch. WoW's bittorrent transfers are indistinguishable from any other bittorrent transfer.

Most likely what's happening here is that when Rogers detects the bittorrent transfer, they throttle the entire internet connection. Since the transfer can be going while the game is running, users feel the impact while playing.

You may wish to read my March 29th complaint.. I cover how the game patches extensively. P2P is NEVER active during gameplay.
»dl.dropbox.com/u/9038867 ··· 2011.pdf

As for "without requiring a client side patch", thats incorrect.. The in-game downloader will only download what you're missing, or if your copy is corrupted. Adding content to the game does require a client side patch, and requires a launcher patch even before that.
YogiB
join:2010-08-18
Montreal, QC

YogiB

Member

Solution...

quote:
It remains unclear why dozens of global ISPs using all manner of intelligent network management platforms aren't having this level of dysfunction.
It's very clear to me: all the other ISPs are NOT using throttling to 'prevent network congestion' (as if that were actually a problem). Most providers have more sophisticated solutions to handle big amounts of traffic (like: investing in a network that can actually deal with such amounts of traffic).

North-America is probably the only place where clients get throttled. So the solution is easy: ISPs need to stop throttling!
Kommie2 (banned)
join:2003-05-13
united state

Kommie2 (banned)

Member

Why didn't the rest of Canada vote NDP ?

Why didn't the rest of Canada vote NDP ?
wilburyan
join:2002-08-01

wilburyan

Member

Re: Why didn't the rest of Canada vote NDP ?

cause the rest of Canada isn't in favor of running the country into the ground. I'd vote liberal before NDP...
Kommie2 (banned)
join:2003-05-13
united state

Kommie2 (banned)

Member

Re: Why didn't the rest of Canada vote NDP ?

Seems the Conservatives are doing just that.
mmay149q
Premium Member
join:2009-03-05
Dallas, TX

mmay149q

Premium Member

Ohhhh k

Karl as an avid World of Warcraft player, the best way to do the acronym for it, and proper way is WoW, lower case O, come on now! Jk, but this is seriously crap, if my ISP did that I'd drop them in a heart beat if they were going on this long throttling my connection.

Matt

newview
Ex .. Ex .. Exactly
Premium Member
join:2001-10-01
Parsonsburg, MD

newview

Premium Member

All I can say is ...

Rogers needs to L2Throttle ...

Seriously, the stampede to leave Rogers would have been deafening if our Canadian friends actually had a choice in broadband providers. Competition is the the ONLY thing that will stop this kind of bullshit from happening in the first place.

Sadly, there are areas of the States that still have NO choices in broadband providers, or worse yet, no broadband at all.

Farmer Chuck
@teksavvy.com

Farmer Chuck

Anon

It will only get worst

I can assure you that if you live in Canada you already know things can only get worst not better.