BigCityLib is reporting problems with his Internet connection through Rogers today, and the culprit is Rogers themselves. They reportedly are shaping, or prioritizing, Peer 2 Peer Internet traffic on their network, to the point where it’s unusable for some people. This is exactly the kind of thing that the fight for Net Neutrality is about, and people had better hit Rogers with complaints, or the Internet in Canada could be in serious trouble. They could start deciding which programs you can use on the Internet. You could lose your VOIP service with a competitor, you could be blocked from watching CBC video clips, or even have your emails delivered the next day, if we go down the road Rogers wants to go with P2P, on “the advisement of the RCMP”!
When P2P is criminalized, only criminals will have computers.
@hotmail.com
![[EFC Blue Ribbon - Free Speech Online]](http://www.efc.ca/images/efcfreet.gif)
Anth | 11-Dec-06 at 8:57 pm | Permalink
I think Telus is doing the same thing.
psychols | 11-Dec-06 at 9:38 pm | Permalink
Perhaps this is not so much censorship as an attempt to reduce the high bandwidth associated with P2P traffic. It is probably not going to work out for Rogers (or Telus) anyway.
scruffydan | 11-Dec-06 at 9:44 pm | Permalink
Shaw Cable in Vancouver does shape P2P traffic, especially bit torrent.
BUT thankfully there are things you can do to get around this.
If the ISP (Rogers in this case) is using basic traffic shaping technologies simply changing the applications default port may bypass their throttling filters.
For more advanced throttling software using protocol encryption shoudl bypass the throttling. Most bit torrent clients support protocol encryption which effectively hides the packet headers from your ISP (this is how they determine what you are doing, and throttle your speeds.)
The settings I use in utorrent (my preferred bit torrent client) are Forced protocol encryption, and I dis-allow incoming legacy (non-encrypted) connections. This ensures that all my bit torrent connections (incoming and outgoing) are encrypted, and my speeds have been faster.
its a good idea to use both methods at the same time to avoid throttling.
As for other P2P protocols a quick google search should provide solutions.
anonymous | 11-Dec-06 at 10:20 pm | Permalink
TELUS is not (yet) doing this, however Rogers has been doing this for some time using equipment from p-cube (now part of cisco).
bigcitylib | 12-Dec-06 at 9:32 am | Permalink
Things finally ended happily, with all programs working, though I don’t know what finally happened that fixed the issue. The weirdest part of the whole experience was the varying reactions of the Rogers tech-support people.
-One said they were shaping traffic, but I wouldn’t notice it unless I was donwloading/uploading tons of files.
-Two said there was no traffic shaping going on period.
-One said they were shaping traffic because the RCMP had told them about child porn on the P2P sites.
-One said he’d never heard of “P2P” software.
Saskboy | 12-Dec-06 at 1:47 pm | Permalink
I think psychols is onto the answer, which says the truth about Rogers is in between what BigCL encountered from support people.
There is likely mild shaping going on, so that service for other areas isn’t made useless by P2P. Censorship isn’t the goal (yet), yet we know Bell isn’t above that sort of thing when they’ve allegedly blocked some websites due to court orders (although it may have been the website was down, I don’t remember the details of that story from a year or two ago). Some of the support people don’t have a technical background to know what’s going on, so they pass on rumours of shaping or even what they’ve heard “knowledgeable” customers tell them.
Linda in LongBranch, Etobicoke | 23-Dec-06 at 9:23 am | Permalink
So Rogers are requesting that I “upgrade” to a new modem at no cost to me…has to be done by Dec. 31st. Since I am a moderate user of BitComet I am not wanting to walk a gauntlet of “fixes” so I can get my torrents to flow – should I just keep my old modem which seems to be working fine? What are the consequences if I don’t?
Saskboy | 23-Dec-06 at 10:17 am | Permalink
Linda, I’m not sure. It’s possible they’ll cut off service to the old modems, but it’s also possible nothing will happen to your service. If you keep your old modem, at least you’ll know come the new year, if you can do without a day of service if it takes long to switch modems.
Mark | 24-May-07 at 5:15 pm | Permalink
Im located just north of Toronto and ive Notice Traffic Shapeing slowing down my p2p use Gameing & Torrent use i dont just mean slow i mean 2 kbs a sec if that then dead. I pay 55$ a month for there biggest highest package and im not impressed with Rogers they will need to fix there service or im sure there going to find there service come to a stop.
I talked to rogers highest person today and they said they are aware of the complaints and are going to be letting highers up know they are loseing customers. there is a new isp in my town who over 5000 down so maybe if rogers dont watch there self someone will take them over. No one wants to be limited and if an isp cant handle the bandwith maybe they shouldint offer it and state they can since there new line is 18mbps i wouldint upgrade to it they can even support my 6000 down line
Saskboy | 24-May-07 at 7:33 pm | Permalink
If they shape torrents, then there’s no way to get legitimate downloads like Linux CDs, at the high speeds they offer. There’s no point in having a high speed connection if you can’t download a 700MB file in a couple hours.
Yousaf M. Shaikh | 04-Nov-07 at 2:07 am | Permalink
I found my replacement to Rogers!!! Bye-bye Rogers! Bye-bye high prices & low service! Bye-bye and good riddance!
I am a member to a website, http://www.canadianisp.com. They list a lot of different internet service providers, and not only that but you can do a comprehensive search for what exactly you’re looking for (type of service like cable, dsl, adsl, dry dsl, etc.).
Anyways, I came across one company called TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
I’ve read nothing but AWESOME things about them, and this is from individuals like you and I.
I will DEFINITELY be switching over to them. I’m a VOIP subscriber with Vonage Canada, so I do NOT have an active line with Bell
Canada, therefore I can’t get ADSL. I can however, get “Dry DSL” for people who don’t have an active Bell Canada line.
TEKSAVVY DOES NOT THROTTLE P2P, NOR DO THEY “TRAFFIC SHAPE” DATA.
I’m sorry if I sound like a shill but I’m so sick and tired of Rogers limiting my service and how I can use it. Anyways, if you wanna check them out you can do so at : http://www.teksavvy.com/
PEACE!