Canadian ISP Admits to Throwing Brakes on World of Warcraft

[Logan Westbrook]

Canadian ISP Admits to Throwing Brakes on World of Warcraft

There are problems with the popular MMO, but the ISP won't be able to fix them for months.

Rogers, one of the largest Internet service providers in Canada, had admitted that it has been throttling World of Warcraft. The ISP insists, however, that it had only done so by accident as part of its efforts to clamp down on peer-to-peer file sharing.

Last month, WoW player Teresa Murphy lodged a complaint [http://aegir.openmedia.ca/sites/openmedia.ca/files/Complaint%20-%20Roger's%20Internet%20Traffic%20Management%20-%20K.%20Thompson.pdf], with Canada's telecoms regulator, the CRTC, saying that Rogers indiscriminate throttling was making the game almost unplayable. She didn't care if Rogers wanted to try to stop file sharers, but said she was paying for a service that she wasn't able to use, because Rogers' filters couldn't tell the difference between P2P and her game.

The CRTC ordered Rogers to investigate Murphy's claims. They discovered that she was right on the money, and that its filters really couldn't tell the difference between P2P file sharing and World of Warcraft. Rogers insists that the problem arises when players use P2P software at the same time as the game, despite Murphy's claims that she didn't use P2P software at all. Unfortunately, it's going to be a while before Rogers will be able to fix this problem. In its reply [http://aegir.openmedia.ca/sites/openmedia.ca/files/Rogers%20letter%20to%20CRTC%20re%20ITMPs%20Mar22-11.pdf].to Murphy, the ISP said that a fix for the problems that she and other players were experiencing wouldn't be ready until June.

Internet usage is proving to me something of a thorny issue in Canada; just last month the Canadian government vetoed a ruling by the CRTC that would have allowed fairly stringent usage-based internet charges after the public made its displeasure very clear. Canada is one of the few Western countries that doesn't offer broadband plans with unlimited data.


Source: Ars Technica [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/oops-major-canadian-isp-admits-throttling-world-of-warcraft.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss]


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[DamienHell]

Nah this is nothing new, Rogers has always been a terrible ISP.

 

[zehydra]

Yeah, man Canada's got internet issues.

It's probably one of the only things about the place that I dislike enough to not move there.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

Yeah, thsi is among other internet issues we've been dealing with here lately. The CRTC is thankfully helping us out, but it's proving fairly difficult to stop the big ISP's from being the money grabbing bastards that they are.

(I'm paying about $50/month for ~1.5-2MB/s down and 60GB/month)

 

[jjhoho]

Canada officially took a blemish with this one. Thought it was a great nation but Internet is really important to me.

Shame really.

In fairness, it's just the CRTC(and rogers) being dumbasses about the whole thing, you can't blame the country as a whole for their failures. We as people have been pretty pissed about all of it, and we've been fighting it every step of the way. I just hope that they'll stop all of it in general.

 

[LostNumber]

Hmm, had no idea this was happening. I'm on Shaw, but I know plenty of people that play WoW (some of which I'm sure use Rogers) and have never heard any complaints from them. Good of them to own up to it and fix the problem, though.

 

[fnartilter]

Damn, I wonder if that translated to other MMOs as well? For such a great country we get shitty digital services, but hey, at least we don't have Australia's rating board? ^^

 

[Steve Fidler]

Uh, my post disappeared.

But essentially the last line of this article is wrong. Canada has several providers that offer unlimited Broadband connections. They are just not the big telecom companies like Bell and Rogers.

Teksavvy and Acanac are two that service Ontario, for example.

 

[insanelich]

So WoW is only throttled if you use P2P software at the same time... P2P software like the official patch downloader?

 

[Torrasque]

Yeah, man Canada's got internet issues.

It's probably one of the only things about the place that I dislike enough to not move there.

Uh, my post disappeared.

But essentially the last line of this article is wrong. Canada has several providers that offer unlimited Broadband connections. They are just not the big telecom companies like Bell and Rogers.

Teksavvy and Acanac are two that service Ontario, for example.

I've had Rogers for years and it works fine for my WoW. I get disconnected from xblive sometimes, but that is a technical issue, and not my internet to blame.

There are dozens of ISP you can use, but Bell, Telus and Rogers control most of the internets that the smaller companies use as well (and give to you for cheaper, lulz)

But if you're not going to move to Canada because of a small problem like MMOs (apparently) not being able to play just right, then you are an idiot.

 

[kurupt87]

Virgin Media in the UK suffered from this too, though I don't know if it still does. So did one or two other ISPs, over here in our sunny isles.

 

[Jumwa]

WoW itself uses Peer-to-Peer file sharing to update, as does many legitimate programs. So this self-righteous "we're clamping down on file sharing!" crap doesn't save face with me.

 

[icyneesan]

Canada has a history of freaking out over new technologies that allow people to communicate. Remember the radio? *facepalm* The way our country freaks out over tech makes me ashamed.

 

[Hiphophippo]

Doesn't the blizzard updater for WoW work off of torrents? I know it used to years ago.

 

[Woodsey]

Canada officially took a blemish with this one. Thought it was a great nation but Internet is really important to me.

Shame really.

Why would the mistake of a private Canadian company bother someone who is Dutch? And why would it tarnish their image anyway? Its not like its an official act on the part of the government, or a referendum that the public has voted on.

 

[thiosk]

Theres going to be a disconnect, not just in canada but elsewhere as well.

People use the internet. A lot. Billions of bits. Gigabytes of pr0n swirling through the lines and through the air, mixing and melding with swords of a thousand truths and tweets about constipation.

I pay approximatly 15 dollars a month for unlimited cable service-- but I have bandwidth limits of 180 kb/s transfer rates.

I hate limits, and so does everyone else, but we're going to have to expect to pay more for what we've got. Its just a sad reality, bandwidth doesn't grow on trees and its going to cost billions to keep pace with demand.

Note: these canadian companies still blow monkeyballs

 

[fenrizz]

Yeah, thsi is among other internet issues we've been dealing with here lately. The CRTC is thankfully helping us out, but it's proving fairly difficult to stop the big ISP's from being the money grabbing bastards that they are.

(I'm paying about $50/month for ~1.5-2MB/s down and 60GB/month)

Is this common over on your side of the pond?

Seems very expensive for such a poor service.

I pay about $50(US) (although the US dollar is very weak at the moment) for 3MB/s down and no limit.

After all, what is the point of broadband if there is an arbitrary limit on it?

 

[DTWolfwood]

Canada is one of the few Western countries that doesn't offer broadband plans with unlimited data.

still unbelievable no matter how many times i hear it.

/hugs his 50mb/s wideband connection with no limits ♥

in layman thats 6.25MB/s down