Rogers and RBUA singing from same hymnal over abusive servers

The recent war of words between Internet users and one of Canada’s largest cable operators is being attributed to miscommunication, with both sides realizing that they are in agreement on basic issues. They hope cooperation will lead to fewer disruptions on the network. The matter arose when Rogers Communications Inc. set out a mass emailing in February to customers of its high-speed Internet network regarding the use of servers. "Please be advised that all servers are a violation of section 7.(k) of our End User Agreement and Acceptable Usage Policy," the company wrote, while quoting the appropriate clause. "Your account will be checked in the future. To avoid any interruption in service, please remove all servers immediately while connected to the Rogers network." That abrupt wording of the email surprised the members of the Residential Broadband Users’ Association (RBUA). The RBUA has always maintained that casual servers, those using low bandwidth, carrying no advertising, and secured against outside intrusion, are perfectly legal. It pledges to defend those using casual servers, while backing any crackdown on those who abuse the system. "We think they should go after people who abuse the servers because these people really do affect the performance of other people in a network," RBUA president Chris Weisdorf tells Network Letter. "There’s people who do 50 gigs a month. It’s kind of crazy. I know how difficult it is to do a gig in a day." "I will tell you right off the bat, the language could have been better," Rogers Cable VP communications Taanta Gupta admits to Network Letter. "It could have been better, we could have been clearer what we were really after, and we were not." The cableco was so concerned about the effects of servers on its network that it sent out the mass mailing. It now plans to be more selective in its approach, even though this would be time-consuming."We’re trying to isolate those people who in fact are using the service in such a way that are impacting other customers. And we just can’t let that happen," Gupta asserts. She attributes some of the difficulty to inexperienced users who have installed new software programs incorrectly. The company has asked those subscribers to double check that installation was done properly. But Weisdorf knows of a couple of cases where people were cut off from service even though they were not running abusive servers. He is attempting to get more details on one situation to help the aggrieved party and Rogers reach an agreement. He is championing someone else who was running a number of low bandwidth servers. The user was in compliance with all technical specifications, the RBUA maintains. Disconnected without warning "He took down his FTP server as per the email that he received yet he was disconnected anyway, without warning," Weisdorf states. "They just said he was running a server, they disconnected him. That’s not acceptable to us." The RBUA president has been doing his own work ensuring that networks are not overloaded. When he has encountered cases of his friends hogging capacity by using servers excessively, he has warned them to stop. In most cases they complied, he reports. "But Rogers has never asked nicely," he notes. "I think they would have better results if they asked nicely. But they don’t want to. I don’t know if it’s perception of weakness or they’re admitting fault that they can’t provide unlimited service." Weisdorf believes all users should be aware of the potential for abuse that high-speed Internet networks face. The possibility is the same whether one is using DSL or a cable modem.

Rogers and RBUA singing from same hymnal over abusive servers

News | March 12, 2002

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