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Rogers Tells CRTC Their Throttling System Works Fine
Except When it Doesn't...
Earlier this month we noted that Canadian cable company Rogers was given until September 27 to fix their broken network management platform, which for many of the ISP's users has resulted in Rogers throttling legitimate applications and games like World of Warcraft. Rogers issued their response (pdf) last night at around 6:30. In it, the company insists their current solution to their errant throttling is working well -- namely the "whitelisting" of impacted games:
quote:
Whitelisting means creating a policy that will not apply ITMPs to packets going to and from a game manufacturer’s servers no matter how the traffic is classified. This can usually be accomplished in a very short period of time. Whitelisting is effective where the game manufacturer’s server can be located. The second stage is a long term solution that involves a software upgrade created by Cisco and deployed on our network that will correct the misclassification. We note that we did not use whitelisting until recently...
In other words, Rogers hasn't technically fixed the problem -- they're just having to go in manually and whitelist any game or application caught by their overly aggressive network management policies. That's something users in our forums say hasn't worked very well, especially when companies tend to change server locations. Groups like Canada's Open Media argue that Rogers effectively ignored the CRTC's directive:
quote:
“The way the CRTC has put this to Rogers is that the CRTC expects a plan with dates to have this misclassification issue resolved. This just simply hasn’t happened here. The CRTC has been pretty clear to Rogers they want no possibility of misclassification here on any programs, games etc. Simply whitelisting on consumer complaint here will create undue preference to games, and applications reported...Until that happens, if Blizzard moves any of their servers (as they did last summer), the whitelist will no longer apply to World of Warcraft traffic, and we'll be back in this same situation all over again..
The ball is now back in the CRTC's court.
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KKaWing
join:2007-06-14

KKaWing

Member

-

Imagine if the CRTC actually grew some balls and "fined" Rogers by eliminating their chance at the 700 MHz auction. Yeah I'm dreaming...

winsyrstrife
River City Bounce
Premium Member
join:2002-04-30
Brooklyn, NY

winsyrstrife

Premium Member

Signature

What happens when an application's identification signature changes? Is there a Britney Spears song associated with such an incident?...
crt
join:2011-04-09

crt

Member

Rogers should be bankrupt

Rogers' response is full of lies. Unfortunately it's good enough for them get away for another year of criminal activity.

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds

Premium Member

*shakes head*

My concern is, if they are going to use the white-listing method,

How many games are going to be left out, and what has to happen for them not to be shaped.

If I run a game server, is my server going to be shaped, unless I also use Roger's fiber?

*shakes head* I hope CRTC realizes that Rogers has completely ignored their request to fix it, and said the same thing to Roger's customers, It works fine, nothing is wrong.
the cerberus
join:2007-10-16
Richmond Hill, ON

1 edit

the cerberus

Member

Re: *shakes head*

said by kevinds:

My concern is, if they are going to use the white-listing method,

How many games are going to be left out, and what has to happen for them not to be shaped.

If I run a game server, is my server going to be shaped, unless I also use Roger's fiber?

*shakes head* I hope CRTC realizes that Rogers has completely ignored their request to fix it, and said the same thing to Roger's customers, It works fine, nothing is wrong.

whitelisting is not net neutral, or else pretty soon rogers could start accidently blocking bell.ca or any other competitors website. then when people complain, months later rogers checks on it, so whitelisting something is not acceptable, because that means theres basically a blacklist to begin with.
if the crtc truly supports net neutrallity they would not allow such a system.
whitelisting is the road to blacklisting, as WOW has certainly been unfairly blocked. we cannot accept this solution at all, and it is disgusting what rogers is doing.
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

Rogers responds to Wire Report

»thewirereport.ca/reports ··· ing_roge

This one article seems to be free (most are paywalled).

CableConvert
Premium Member
join:2003-12-05
Atlanta, GA

CableConvert

Premium Member

Re: Rogers responds to Wire Report

its paywalled as well
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

Re: Rogers responds to Wire Report

Damn. When it first went up it wasn't paywalled. :\

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
Premium Member
join:2005-03-12

Wolfie00

Premium Member

Some companies want their technology to actually work

I guess for Rogers, the idea of taking traffic shaping out of the network until such time as it actually works is out of the question.

Much easier just to screw their customers and try to bamboozle the CRTC.
Pharaoh11
join:2011-02-01
Toronto, ON

Pharaoh11

Member

Re: Some companies want their technology to actually work

said by Wolfie00:

I guess for Rogers, the idea of taking traffic shaping out of the network until such time as it actually works is out of the question.

Much easier just to screw their customers and try to bamboozle the CRTC.

Its works perfectly it shafts everyone equally...lol.
priyen
join:2009-12-23
North York, ON

priyen

Member

typical

Rogers is too cheap to invesnt in more capacity they need to throtttle. They are waste compared to providers in other countries. I dont care if Rogers is a canadian business, with methods like these i hope a meteor crashes into their headquaortes and they go bankrupt and stop shaming canada.
same goes for bell.
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

Re: typical

said by priyen:

Rogers is too cheap to invesnt in more capacity they need to throtttle. They are waste compared to providers in other countries. I dont care if Rogers is a canadian business, with methods like these i hope a meteor crashes into their headquaortes and they go bankrupt and stop shaming canada.
same goes for bell.

I feel bad for you canadians. Btw how much do you pay for service? Internet?

Right now I live in a rural area in Iowa and here we have mediacom. I pay about $55 for 12mb internet (no cap, though I heard there is soft 250-300), and get some few local unencrypted channels.

on the go I have at&t iphone tethering plan and I have 4gb to share between my phone and computer for $45. Then it is $10 for each 1gb over.

I heard cell phone plans in Canada are still regional, not really nationwide? That if you leave your area code, you get long distance charges. There is not such thing in States.
priyen
join:2009-12-23
North York, ON

priyen

Member

Re: typical

i pay $40 + tax / month for cable internet 15/1.
But problem with these small isp's is they dont have "as much extra" capacity as the big guys. I only get 6mbps at night :/ while with rogers / bell, youll get max any time of day, you have a low cap + extreme throttling

JWD77
@cgocable.net

JWD77 to chgo_man99

Anon

to chgo_man99
For some reason, it seems like there are pseudo-monopolies in cable. In my city if you want cable, you have to be with a somewhat small company (though with plans and options comparable to Rogers) called Cogeco. As far as I know, you can't have Rogers. I used to live 45 minutes away, and there was only Rogers. You could get Bell for DSL, phone, and satellite TV, but no cable TV or internet.

Anywho, I pay (well, my parents, pay, if I still lived on my own, I would not be with any of the major providers) $56.95 for up to 14mbps download, 1mbps upload (which isn't even listed on the list of plans, you have to check their usage page), there's a 60GB cap, and a fine of $1.50/GB over that cap (though I did just discover they have a $30 cap on fines, which is actually pretty good, Rogers', at least back when I was stuck with them, was $50).

Meanwhile, an independent company called Acanac offers 15mbps down/1mbps up with no bandwidth cap for $48.95 ($39.95 if you order for 12 months or more). The only reason we're not with them is because they only have DSL in our area (which is not as fast, understandably) and my dad's weird obsession with sticking with Cogeco, even though Acanac offers a free home VOIP line, which would allow us to drop Cogeco AND Bell (no idea why we don't bundle and get a VOIP line, they pay an extra fee in order to make long-distance calls at a discount, but won't pay probably a lesser fee to just switch to VOIP and make free long distance calls... my parents are weird, they are also deathly against call display for some reason).

Anywho, to provide some comparisons for you based on Rogers. You pay $55, for $60 with Rogers (I assume, I suspect they're listing promotional prices, not real prices, but I can't find it in their small print) you could get 24mbps down/1mbps up and a 100GB cap. 12mbps (down, up would be 512kbps) would cost you $47 with Rogers and have a 60GB cap. And the highest cap you could get (unlimited is not an option) is 250GB, which only costs a cool $100/month.

For cell phones, at least my Virgin Mobile phone on the Bell cell network, I don't pay long distance fees if I leave my area code. If I leave, I have to pay long distance to call someone in my original area code or someone with an area code from where I'm from, even if they're standing next to me in the next area code over. In another area code, I can call a number that is local to there without paying long distance, but if they call me, they will have to pay long distance.

I big problem with Canadian companies is the vertical integration. The people who sell access to the internet, also own the infrastructure for access to the internet, they sell access to television, they own television networks and cable specialty channels, they sell access to telephones (both landline and cellular), they sell newspapers, they operate video content websites, and a whole lot more. So, for example, any kind of internet video (legal or illegal) is a huge danger to their other businesses. The television channels don't want people watching videos online (whether it's on their site with ads or illegally elsewhere) because they want people watching their programs on TV, with tons of commercials they can make money off of. The cable sellers don't want people watching videos online, because people will realize that the television networks put all their programs on their websites, usually the day after they air, so people really don't need to pay for cable AND the internet. So you've got two parts of these comglomerates saying "no, no, we can't have internet videos be successful", so the ISP portion agrees, and that's why we have such insanely restrictive bandwidth caps. Reasonable internet and reasonable cable cost you about $100/month combined, if people were to drop cable, the companies would lose half their profit, but no one can really get away with replacing TV with the internet because 60GB bandwidth cap will destroy you in overage charges. But, of course, is it any wonder that the best internet plan Rogers the same as it would to have reasonable internet and reasonable TV. They want that money, and they're going to try their hardest to get it (which will entirely be at the consumer's expense).
d5486
join:2010-06-07

d5486

Member

P2p vs games

So crtc cares about throttling when it affects games. But not when it affects file sharing !?? I dont get it. How about megaupload. Fileserve etc. What a backwards organization

ROGERSLOW
@rogers.com

ROGERSLOW

Anon

Rogers Exteme + Waterloo ON, 1 mbps DL 95% of time, 11 days

Click for full size
Second SMC modem to rule out hardware failure, same results with 2 computers, wired to the Rogers SMC port. Never any latency on first 5 hops out. No packetloss. Just miserably slow download speeds that get worse as daily usage increases in general, leveling off at 1 mbps to 500 kbps after 5 pm, until roughly 3 or 4. Past 5 days, 6 days before that I just had 1 meg down all the time. Always 1 meg upload, never effected. 7th service ticket in progress. It's hard to get a problem fixed when a company never admits the problem is on their end. I'm tired of arguing with Rogers and getting inconsistent answers from everyone I talk to. From tier 1, to CAT, you will hear different information.

Thats Rogers own speed check tool. Usually an ISP's own speed check fairs a bit better than 3rd parties.
mmay149q
Premium Member
join:2009-03-05
Dallas, TX

mmay149q

Premium Member

So kind of off topic....

But here are a list of my awesome characters in World of Warcraft!!!

»us.battle.net/wow/en/cha ··· l/simple
Warrior!

»us.battle.net/wow/en/cha ··· i/simple
Paladin! Almost fully PvP geared!

»us.battle.net/wow/en/cha ··· z/simple
And rogue! Next to make 85 and be fully geared!

With that being said you could probably understand EXACTLY how I'd feel if my ISP was doing this to me... I'm not going to lie, I'd probably be calling Blizzard every day asking them to file a lawsuit against my ISP due to this issue, I'd be pretty outraged, especially if I was constantly lagging while trying to own someone in PvP......

Matt