Bell Opens Video Download Store, but Continues to Throttle BitTorrent
Written by Ernesto on May 23, 2008Bell, one of the Canadian ISPs known for its BitTorrent throttling practices, launched its very own video download store this week. So, efficient BitTorrent is throttled for being a bandwidth hog, but customers are still able to download movies at full speed - as long as they use Bell’s service, that is.
In their recently launched video download store Bell offers movies to own for $4.99, and rentals for $1.99.
At the same time however, customers of BitTorrent’s video store - a direct competitor to Bell’s store - and BitTorrent users in general see their traffic being throttled. Why? Bell says there is not enough bandwidth available.
The claim that there is not enough bandwidth to go round is suspicious to say the least, and Bell’s response to this data crisis is even more puzzling. Instead of investing money in their network capacity, they simply slow down the connections of their subscribers while ignoring the source of the problem.
To top it off, Bell decided to launch a competing video download service. So while they throttle customers using the efficient BitTorrent protocol because they supposedly generate too much traffic, Bell launches a bandwidth-hogging download store of their own. Not only does this seem unfair to their own customers, it also negatively affects other video services that base their business model on BitTorrent.
The throttling efforts by Bell and other ISPs actually hurt companies such as BitTorrent Inc and Vuze. These companies both offer products that depend on BitTorrent and they become pretty much worthless when BitTorrent traffic is throttled.
Since Bell now has its own video store, the ISP is actively degrading the service their BitTorrent based competitors offer. That is, Bell users will probably not choose a video download service based on BitTorrent because they can get only a few kilobits per second when the network is “busy”.
Instead of investing in more Internet gateway capacity and peering agreements, Bell instead chooses to launch a video store. Perhaps it’s time for Bell and other ISPs to think ahead - BitTorrent is not going away and there will only be more ‘bandwidth hogging’ services in the future.
Or maybe this just an anti-competitive move by Bell?
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It seems to me that copyright is a good thing: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSPAT25021620080522
“All exam papers have a copyright statement dealing with source material on the back page,” an OCR spokeswoman said. “This one in particular had more detail than is usual in a music paper.”
My win.
Is it just me or does Torrentfreak give pretty sensationalist articles in general. Not that I mind reading them but isn’t it the same thing as what the RIAA etc. do? Write emotional and one sided articles. Only Torrentfreak is agreeing with us.
Perhaps - but how do you want them to report this story? That bell is throttling users and opening a store of thier own which uses more bandwidth than what they claim 5% is using? How else do you report this story? It has a bad side and a good side - the good side is that Bell is getting ready to be slammed on the mat by many!!!
as a BEll customer I have noticed I am not being throttled anymore while friends of mine using so called “third-party re-sellers” like Teksavvy are. It seems Bell has changed its throttling policy to only affect its rivals and not its own customers
Wouldn’t this be deemed illegal if they are “damaging” a rival service?
sorry but I want to believe this article but right now I don’t, as if this was true bittorrent would be suing them for damages, as would customers for not providing a service they signed up for.
http://www.FreeTheScene.net
Sue the bastards. Seriously sue their asses. http://fucktwitter.com
@5 “Wouldn’t this be deemed illegal if they are “damaging” a rival service?”
What do you think M$ have been doing with IE7 and killing competition like Linux for years. It truly disgusts me that they can do such a thing.
As the old adage goes….”Do as we say, not as we do!”. Fecking hipocrites!
“customers are still able to download movies at full speed - as long as they use Bell’s service, that is.”
The ISP’s would love all their customers to exclusively use their [insert brandname]network when downloading or uploading to the ‘web’.
That way they can save bandwidth and guarantee d/l and u/l speeds whilst also making a profit from selling their customers services such as downloadable movies etc…
“Or maybe this just an anti-competitive move by Bell?”
H’mmm [scratches head]
JD2
I just think there is a huge slant on this site and they sometimes ignore or shade facts to serve their purposes. It is much like most other news sites where you have to cut through a bunch of crap to glean the few facts from the article.
I read this and arstechnica. I find this site has a lot of emotion and logical fallacies while ars is more of a factual reporting. Reading both tends to paint a good picture. But I think it is doing a disservice to readers who read only this because many times things are misrepresented.
Back on topic I do think that Bell is doing some very shady things and I am very happy that the Canadian government is calling them out with very pointed questions.
Here’s an idea to all your ISPs out there:
SHUT THE FUCK UP AND SPEND MORE TIME UPGRADING YOUR SERVERS.
Because i’m honestly not interested in your stupid hypocritical statements.
So do me a favour, and go jump off a bridge you dipshits.
They deserve to die, ***ing dumb move, that totally prove that bell doesn’t care about customer.
Torrentfreak has no obligation to appear impartial and they don’t attempt to hide it which is the important thing. Most of us are here because we agree with the “side” we have taken. I don’t think there is anything sensational about this article. The poster draws some conclusions from the presented facts and that’s all. Bell’s actions ARE damaging other services and it doesn’t matter if it appears to be indirect or not. It would be naive to say that Bell is not being anti-competative.
I’ve been using Bell for a long time now, and I’ve never noticed any ‘throttling’. I’ve always hit my max download speed of 250kb/s with torrents, which is also my maximum http download speed.
Quite interesting though. :p
As a “victim” of Bell’s throttling, I am happy that they opened this store because this is one more argument for the other DSL resellers for the CRTC
shape shifting ftw
Conform, sheeps! Get with the program.
LoL
Bittorrent is free, so who will go and buy movies LoL
specially no one will buy TV releases.
Downloading Free is better then pay 10 cent or 1$ :)
I personally myself will never buy from them and download, why not use mininova :)
Funny they have bandwidth for Video on demand but not enough for BT even tho there is countless legit uses for it such as using it as a PVR recorder for TV shows you miss well say WORKING.
19 .
But bittorent.com and Vuze are two paying service using the bitorrent technology !
Are you paying? Next!
> “Torrentfreak has no obligation to appear impartial and they don’t attempt to hide it which is the important thing. Most of us are here because we agree with the “side” we have taken.”
People should also stop thinking TF is a news site or something. It’s a blog.
You mean this is not the BBC?
:(
Bell = Hypocrits
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