Bell Canada Justification of DSL Throttling (1 of 3)

As a DSL user of a non-Bell ISP I have a personal interest in this subject. I also have at times in my career being intimately involved in network architectures and network planning, and I have dealt with broadband off-and-on from the time it was merely a gleam in an engineer's eye. Having read a bunch of articles on the recent disclosure of data by Bell the CRTC ordered, I wasn't satisfied by what I read, so I decided to add my voice.

Too much of the purported analysis of the Big Bad Bell Business Behaviour has been superficial. This is partly due to the deliberate (and likely justifiable, I believe) reticence of Bell to release overly-revealing data. I cannot say I've seen all the voluminous body of published articles and subsequent commentary, so it is very possible I have missed some very good analysis. It's just that what I have seen is not the best. Some of it seems skewed by a bias against Bell Canada and in support of the authors' personal interests as DSL consumers or resellers.

Can I do better? Perhaps. Everyone outside of Bell, including myself, is limited by imperfect knowledge of Bell's current network, both in how it is architected and how it is operated. Despite these limits I believe it is possible to get a reasonable handle on the matter.

The first thing, however difficult it may be to do so for those involved, is to be dispassionate about the topic. Yes, those of us who use DSL have an interest, even a deep interest, in the matter, and if we had our wishes fulfilled our broadband service would be cheap, fast, reliable and unencumbered in any way. DSL is simply a business however, and business is amoral; business is always (always!) about money first. This is not a social issue, not politics, and no one is in this business simple to do favours for us. There are diverse interests among the parties, including suppliers, consumers, resellers and regulators, which need to be understood. Simply turning up the volume of the discussion is not likely to be successful. Bell knows this, and so should its critics.

I will deal with this subject by attempting to answer the following the two questions in following articles:

1. Is there congestion in Bell's network?
2. Is Bell motivated to invest in its DSL network for the benefit of wholesale service?

The first question is actually the easier of the two. As for the second, how much I type about it depends on my interest continuing to motivate me to keep typing.

If you're not already deep into this subject, places to start reading some background material follow (and it is only a start):

• CRTC: most recent data disclosures by Bell Canada
• Broadband Reports: article and commentary

Disclosure: I do not hold any position in BCE stock or that of any of its competitors. I subscribe to DSL via a 3rd party ISP that purchases wholesale DSL from Bell Canada. I once subscribed to Rogers High-Speed Internet. I do not use P2P and never have, nor do I plan to do so in the foreseeable future.