Canadian ISP Admits to Throwing Brakes on World of Warcraft

[Chubbs99]

Being with Shaw Cable which is more popular out West, I don't really have a bandwidth Cap. They say I'm only allowed 100gb/mo But ever since I started using Netflix, I haven't even come close to staying under that. Thankfully the horrible UBB got squashed and I can keep using ~200 GB/mo without extra fees.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

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

Hell only thing worth while about there stores was the EB games in the back.

 

[Don Reba]

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

To be fair, it is the best out of the encumbents. Admittedly, that's not saying much...

 

[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.

Eh? Dude do you know that Canada is on the internet more than any other country? (presumably ranked by per capita)

I'm criticizing our past governments not the people.

So what again does Rogers have to do with the Canadian government exactly? I've never seen the Canadian government respond anything but favourably to new technology.

Rogers > Canadian Company > Canada > Canada's Government

Read up on the history of the radio in Canada. The government at the time does not respond favorably to it.

 

[jyork89]

I hate you all!!! T-T
I am paying $80 (NZ) a month for only 30gb of data at a very maximum speed of 1mb/s. However I think this is capped as whenever I download something off steam I get about 10 minutes at 800kb/s before it goes down to about 125kb/s U.U
I even envy Canada

 

[Retosa]

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.

Wait, didn't Marconi's tests take place in Newfoundland?

Anyway, I'm a Canadian just muscling in here for my two bits. We're with Bell for our internet - on PEI of all places - and I have to say, we don't encounter any problems at all. In fact, I was just musing the other day that we get Netflix streaming in HD just fine, things come off torrent or usenet at fantastic speeds, and YouTube streams in 1080p without having to buffer - something I assume people elsewhere have a problem with, given the fact that things like this exist: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lnkdbjbjpnpjeciipoaflmpcddinpjjp. I've got no download limitations, and there's certainly no throttling of P2P or even time-sensitive software - I use Skype without any trouble, and with decent latency and no connection issues. I see websites all the time that say something will take, say, 10 minutes to download, and I download it in one. I play plenty of games online, and I've got average - or above-average - ping times.

I'm worried that people are getting the wrong idea about Canada's internet. Certainly there was a worry about mandatory caps a bit ago, but we squelched that pretty hard. Yep, there are companies that offer caps, but there are similar companies everywhere. But then we have people like the contributor here saying "Canada is one of the few Western countries that doesn't offer broadband plans with unlimited data", and suddenly the forums are filling up with people saying 'yeah, internet in Canada sucks'. The article needs to source things like that, or (in this case, since it's not true) get rid of it.

Problem is, that in larger areas (For example, Ontario, Quebec), there are very few alternative ISPs that don't have a cap. And usually they have slower download rates.

Yeah, it sucks, but it's just how shit goes. Of course, not everywhere in Canada is like that, because the plans and rates, even with the same Company, change province to province. Bell in one area may offer no download cap. While in other areas it does.

 

[Guilen-]

Could you please NOT call this "Canada Hates Warcraft" on your front page? Big dumb paint strokes don't really do us justice (what, are you angry at us for Bioware or something? lol). Here's a similar sounding and equally ridiculous tidbit: "All Americans are like Sarah Palin" hahaha... Just wondering if you have any idea how juvenile it makes your Popular Online Publication sound when simply because a SINGLE ISP has difficulty differentiating between forms of data sharing, suddenly CANADA HATES WARCRAFT. Seriously, you make us sound so exotic lol "Holy crap, there's something going on up there in CANADIA it must be happening -everywhere- there " Professionalism is about being -above- the middle school generalizations, right?

 

[Reed Spacer]

So what?

I use Shaw, a far better server.

I wouldn't play World of Warcraft even if I were given a free lifetime membership, but still.

 

[Ghengis John]

One of the issues here is that WoW uses P2P to help with the patching systems, so it is actually a P2P transfer system itself, this is why ISPs have trouble differentiating between the two.

Bingo. I was about to post this. You'd think Blizz would just shoulder the costs of direct downloads, if anythign they could parse the isp then direct them to their servers regionally.

As for the picture in this story, a human is smiling next to an orc and a tauren? Not for long.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Canada is safe, we shall go there.

 

[strangemoose]

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

agreed love the avatar by the way

 

[Jagji56]

WoW has P2P for patching, so if she is playing it and streaming it, that could be her problem. You can turn that off tho.

 

[MrTub]

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?

34E (which is, incidentally, roughly the same as 50US atm) for 12.5MB/s, no limit. You're getting royally screwed.

Edit: In fact, right now, my provider is having a campaign. 100MB/S for the next 6 months, for only 20E a month. After that, 40E a month.
Really, what the hell are you paying for?

300kr(30euro) for 100mb/s up&down and unlimited (at my fathers place)
270kr(27euro) for 100mb/s down and 10mb/s up and unlimited (at my mothers place)

I cant imagine living with just 3Mbit/s =/

 

[Gnmish]

The fix is simple Rogers, turn off all your idiotic P2P throttling software! Done! The lawyers in the music and film industries would have people believe that P2P is only used for illegal downloading, when in fact it is the most efficient way ever developed to distribute massive amounts of data rapidly (Blizzard can distribute patches to 11 million users with a minimum of fuss).

A similar fight has been occurring here in Australia with one of our major ISPs refusing to interfere with P2P traffic, the film industry has tried suing them and so far have failed! Good news for everyone!

 

[theultimateend]

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

Shame really.

Give it time. US ISP's are trying really hard to start metering everything.

One of the issues here is that WoW uses P2P to help with the patching systems, so it is actually a P2P transfer system itself, this is why ISPs have trouble differentiating between the two.

Bingo. I was about to post this. You'd think Blizz would just shoulder the costs of direct downloads, if anythign they could parse the isp then direct them to their servers regionally.

As for the picture in this story, a human is smiling next to an orc and a tauren? Not for long.

I don't think Blizzard should shoulder the costs of direct downloads because ISPs are too cheap to spend ANY money on infrastructure .

 

[dslatch]

YAY I got Bell, and dropped the WoW addiction a year ago.