Traffic Shaping a la Bell

Posted on April 8, 2008
Filed Under Internet, Networking |

In the past few weeks, “traffic shaping” has hit the news with Bell being in the midst of trying to limit peer-to-peer file sharing on its network. Traffic shaping is a technology that limits how much bandwidth (bandwidth can be loosely thought of as the speed of an Internet connection) a certain application can use.

For example, on your computer at home you have Bell High Speed and you browse the web, check your email, and on occasion download MP3 music. All three activities use your Internet connection but the MP3 music downloads use more of that connection than do the email or web surfing.

“So? I have High Speed Internet, who cares if I download a few music files?” you might ask. Well, that question opens a rather large, and particularly ugly, can of worms.

The Internet is at its foundation, an interconnected network of networks. That is, there is no single “Internet” but rather a bunch of networks – many of them privately owned – all connected together. Data on the Internet can travel through individual networks on its way to its destination and while data is traversing an individual network, that networks owner can potentially control how the data moves through his or her network.

That’s what’s happening with Bell. You see, Bell owns the high speed network that many Ontario and Quebec residents directly or indirectly connect to. And, Bell has elected to limit the amount of bandwidth that file sharing programs can use during peak hours on that network. In our case then, while your web browsing and email checking may be happening at the full High Speed as advertised, your MP3 downloads have been throttled back and capped at an artificially low speed.

Interestingly, Bell has been doing this for over a year now. What’s changed is that Bell is now shaping the traffic that smaller ISPs (Internet Service Providers) buy from Bell. ISPs buy bandwidth and resell it to their own customers and until now, Bell hasn’t tampered with the bandwidth they provide them. Some of those ISPs aren’t happy that Bell’s tampering with it now.

Bell claims that the measure is necessary to prevent file sharing programs from overwhelming its network. File sharing does indeed use a lot of bandwidth (comparatively speaking) and Bell claims that if left unmanaged, a flood of downloads by many users could affect the web browsing and email downloading for the rest of the users.

So the question that arises is, should Bell be allowed to arbitrarily decide what Internet traffic should be allowed and what should be throttled?

And that of course is the can of worms; historically the Internet has been a free, for the most part uncensored place. Attempts to censor or shape portions of the Internet have been met with opposition and the principle of “Network Neutrality” or Net Neutrality has grown from them. Google describes Net Neutrality as:

“Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days. Indeed, it is this neutrality that has allowed many companies, including Google, to launch, grow, and innovate. Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet…”

Vint Cerf, the CIO of Google and the co-developer of the Internet Protocol (IP) – which is the foundation of Internet communications – takes it one step further by saying:

”Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success…A number of justifications have been created to support carrier control over consumer choices online; none stand up to scrutiny.”

I’m not going to enter the debate – at least not here – but that’s what Bell is doing. Knowing the facts, we can all make up our own minds on its merits.

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