Bell Canada may have to pay for violating net neutrality. A May 29 class action filing says Bell should reimburse each subscriber 80 percent of their subscriptions and $2,100 in penalties for throttling traffic to a fraction of advertised speeds and invading their privacy.
Bell had over two million DSL subscribers, and $3.6 billion in data service revenues, in Quebec and Ontario in 2007. The proposed lawsuit could reach hundreds of millions. The filing affects only Quebec residents. But it could spread: Neutrality has been a hot topic since Bell’s throttling of a national TV show made headlines.
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5:26 PM PT
[...] points out. Class action lawsuits might make people care — particularly if there’s a $2,000 windfall at the end of [...]
7:51 PM PT
[...] of monthly subscriptions and 2,100 per susbscriber for traffic shaping, false advertising and prihttp://gigaom.com/2008/05/31/dsl-subscribers-want-carrier-to-pay-for-shaping-their-packets/Pajamas Media ? Hillary: Should She Stay or Should She Go?May 6, 2008 … She should definately GO! [...]
6 comments so far
5:15 PM PT
I’ve been finding that my Bell Sympatico connection has been slow as molasses for the past 15 months, maybe longer. I do have a Wi-Fi setup over the cable connection, but it was much faster when I installed everything around late 2006. It’s so bad these days that sometimes it takes 2-3 minutes for a single page to draw. Unfortunately, because Bell doesn’t “support” anyone who adds a Wi-Fi router, I can’t really call them to complain. I know they’ll blame it on the Wi-Fi.
11:14 PM PT
Whooops! I made a big boo boo. My cable/DSL connection is Rogers Cable, and I use a Wi-Fi router on that. This connection has been horrible for well over a year.
I also use Bell Sympatico’s “wi-fi to go” type of router that actually runs on their cellular network. This connection was very fast up since last October up until about March 2008. Then I found my connection sometimes got throttled. Or so it appears. This especially happens when I’m on video sharing sites, or if I’m uploading to YouTube or SplashCastmedia.com
11:14 PM PT
You should report on the SaveOurNet.ca coalition (link)
3:02 PM PT
Good, I think that ISPs need to realize that if they continue down this path of invading privacy and throttling traffic they will get a tremendous push back from its users.
I’m happy to say that my ISP doesn’t throttle my traffic at all and from all of the tests I’ve done they don’t even do any packet analysis, but if they started I’d be switching to an ISP immediately.
9:06 AM PT
I have several friends that are super anti the wireless connection. Considering what I generally do online, it’s not too big of a deal to have a little slower just to have the convenience of the wireless connection.
12:15 PM PT
Wow, hopefully Bell will have to pay up, which will send a message to all the other ISP’s. That there job is to simply provide access to the internet. Other than that, butt out.
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