Canadian ISP Admits to Throwing Brakes on World of Warcraft

[Ickorus]

Takes that long to disable a filter? That ISP is gonna lose a shit-ton of customers.

 

[moretimethansense]

EDIT: Whoops, wrong thread.

Erm, to the best of my knowledge, P2P software isn't illegal in and of it's self anyway, this is frankly pretty upsetting news.

 

[OniaPL]

Canada wants more money.
Because striking wont work, they will block WoW.

 

[LogieBear]

Naww Canada doesnt have unlimited bandwidth plans?
Damn that sucks =( I pay $60 a month for unlimited

 

[Anton P. Nym]

You're Fucking nuts dude. "Speech crime"? I might not care for the WBC, but they have a right to say what they say. As long as it isn't something that poses immediate danger (like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater), you should be allowed to say it.

Where do you draw the line? What if the government decides that speaking out against its policies is a "speech crime"? Then you're pretty much fucked.

It's not that simple; if you don't stop people from spreading hate propaganda, or at least counteract it with historical evidence, you can end up with another witch hunt. I remember when Simpsons writers could count on a Fox audience understanding that villainous "Communist Nazis" stealing UNICEF pennies was a joke...

That being said, I'm a bit concerned with our "hate speech" laws as-written but that's not really a subject for discussion here. Rather than hijack the news thread et's just leave it at "it's more complicated than it looks."

-- Steve

 

[jklinders]

The blame for this lies with Roger's and the CRTC which seems to be squarely in the pocket of all the big ISP's. I live on the East Coast of Canada which seems to be one of the few places that has competition outside the big ISP's. So far the caps which have been placed in every other market I am aware of in Canada have not hit us. The CRTC seems bound and determined to end that though. I am pretty certain our gov't would have let it happen too if there was not a near certainty of a spring election. I've not had Roger's service but I am fairly certain it blows and I would like nothing better than to see people leave their service like rats off a sinking ship over this.

 

[ModSquad]

You know what the funny part about all this is? This has been going on in the Rogers public website forum for almost half a year. Since last november of 2010, people have been complaining in a single thread (Now its actually 37 pages long full of complaints).

The kicker of it all, Rogers customer support has been saying up until now, "Its your fault, reset your router and go away"

 

[Enigmers]

And this is why people should learn the difference between P2P file-sharing and internet piracy.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

You're Fucking nuts dude. "Speech crime"? I might not care for the WBC, but they have a right to say what they say. As long as it isn't something that poses immediate danger (like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater), you should be allowed to say it.

Where do you draw the line? What if the government decides that speaking out against its policies is a "speech crime"? Then you're pretty much fucked.

It's not that simple; if you don't stop people from spreading hate propaganda, or at least counteract it with historical evidence, you can end up with another witch hunt. I remember when Simpsons writers could count on a Fox audience understanding that villainous "Communist Nazis" stealing UNICEF pennies was a joke...

That being said, I'm a bit concerned with our "hate speech" laws as-written but that's not really a subject for discussion here. Rather than hijack the news thread et's just leave it at "it's more complicated than it looks."

-- Steve

I think it is pretty simple. I'm not saying that people shouldn't speak out against hate speech. I'm saying that they shouldn't rely on the government to do so. Stopping propaganda is the job of the media, not the government. The government is a servant of the people, and if the people become hysterical and hate filled, then so will the government. The best way to stop a witch hunt is to prevent the government from ever taking part in witch hunts, and establish laws that prevent people from having witch hunts. That's why we have police at peaceful rallies. They're just there to make sure that speech doesn't turn into action.

But you're right, it is more complicated. If the government is taking scientific facts as their dictum for their official stances, then why don't they outlaw certain religions as well. Hell, the very term "witch hunt" is derived from a religious form of zealousness, not a nationalistic or racist one. If it's the government's job to prevent any speech that may cause fanaticism or witch hunts, I'd say that Christianity and Islam would be at the top of the list for things to ban. They've been the cause of such behavior more than anything else in history. Sure that's generalizing the religions, but isn't it also generalizing racists to say that all racism will lead to fanaticism? There could certainly be peaceful racists out there that would just wish to keep with their own kind and don't pose a threat to society. Though I grant that they might be the minority in the racist community (which, might I add, is a very ironic thing to be).

 

[Shirokurou]

Shut it down altogether for all I care. Maybe then people will stop copying it.

 

[dibblywibbles]

it's true. we do hate world of warcraft. we hate rogers as well. and pretty much anything to do with the crtc. basically we hate the majority of all telecom companies. we hate technology for the most part, basically technology hit its peak when you could make quality beer from city water.

 

[randar007]

Sightless Wisdom (an appropriate name) said quote "Yeah, this 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)"

Number 1. How exactly is the CRTC "helping us out" They and the big ISP's are of the same thought. CRTC chair Konrad Von Finckenstein himself said and believes that Internet bandwidth should be treated like any other utility like gas,hydro,or water. So I'm confused as to how they are "helping us out" when they are just as corrupt if not more than Bell Canada or Rogers.
Number 2. You also said quote "it's proving fairly difficult to stop the big ISP's from being the money grabbing bastards that they are." And just who is stopping them except for the 470,000 Canadian people that signed the http://openmedia.ca/meter website petition. It certainly isn't the CRTC. If they had their way, you would right now be paying between 2 to 4 dollars CDN for going over a 25 gig per month bandwidth, when it costs them mere pennies to increase a neighborhoods bandwidth. No legal business that I know of makes those kinds of profits.
Number 3. You said quote "I'm paying about $50/month for ~1.5-2MB/s down and 60GB/month)" Well after the statements you just made in the above paragraphs you deserve to pay a lot for your internet My god man do a little research, read a newspaper for god sakes before you start typing about things other people might think are actually true.

Now for those Canadians who want to save money on their cable or DSL internet and get faster speeds, go to Teksavvy Solutions (a reseller)at http://teksavvy.com/en/default.asp where you can get DSL Unlimited Up to 5M/800k Yes I said Unlimited $39.95/Month. And Extreme cable Up to 15 Mbps down, Up to 1 Mbps Yes I said Unlimited for $54.95/month. And no I dont work there, I am their first DSL customer from back in the day and can't stand Bell or Rogers / Shaw .
Or you can stay with Bell Canada and Rogers /Shaw have slow internet and be poorer .

 

[vxicepickxv]

no unlimited fata! what the fuck!

Another country that doesn't have unlimited data is the United States.

Naww Canada doesnt have unlimited bandwidth plans?
Damn that sucks =( I pay $60 a month for unlimited

Damn I wish mine was that cheap. 87 bucks a month "Unlimited"(with a 250GB cap), 10 up 2 down. Damn I miss my Japan speed and pricing. Unlimited at 40 down, 10 up for 22 a month.

 

[dex-dex]

what a shock! Rogers making mistakes. they have been doing major fuck ups for years!
there is a reason why my internets or phone is not with them.

 

[Baldr]

I've been calling on the industry to support net neutrality the day AT&T told the FCC that video games were not essential internet traffic and could be subjected to throttling.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94717-AT-T-Says-Gaming-is-Not-a-Core-Broadband-Service

 

[Pebkac]

They'll also put you in prison for denying the holocaust, saying anything racist or various other thought crimes.

No, they don't.

AFAIK the only "hate speech crime" that can get you jail time is advocating genocide.

There's a huge difference between saying "I don't believe the holocaust happened" and saying "We should kill all the ".

Back on topic: ISPs, and cell phone networks get away with stuff like this all over the place. It's always due to lack of competition.

I think a big part of the problem is that countries tend to regulate these markets by requiring the company to be at least 50% local. It's partly an economic decision, but I suspect it's also part security issue. Wire-tapping your own citizens is pretty bad, but wire-tapping an entire other country would be pretty messed up.

 

[redisforever]

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

Shame really.

Same here, and I bloody live in Canada!

 

[McShizzle]

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)

Ditto. I hear ya brother, Rogers f-ing sucks!

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

Shame really.

The problem is that two companies, and their affliates, own something along the lines of 95% of the market place, they don't need to be competetive, since they also "own" the fiber, so they have no need to compete

Canadian monopolies weren't and aren't always a bad thing. The problem is the gradual erosion in Canadian telecom from public to wholly corporate interests. We now have a regulatory board/regulators (CRTC) that are in companies pockets, or at best have conflicts of interest. Also, it doesn't seem like consumer advocacy groups are making enough noise, when we should be screaming bloody murder. Even if we did make a lot of noise the current brand of Conservatives might not listen. I don't know what to do.

 

[Tron Paul]

To be honest throttling P2P altogether is pretty deplorable. I know 90% people on this site scream in anger at "pirates" and "torrenters" but those aren't the only users of P2P, not by a long shot. Ever hear of the Pando Media Booster? You may have noticed it when you wanted to install games like League of Legends, or Lord of the Rings: Online. It's a program that uses P2P to enhance download speeds just like Blizzard's patcher does.

P2P is a great innovation and I hope to see more things use it in the future. (Steam, Netflix, etc)