Small ISPs say Bell’s Fibe TV service running on shared wholesale IP networks

A coalition of small ISPs is disputing Bell Canada's comments to the CRTC in April that said traffic for its fibre-based Internet protocol television (IPTV) service does not transit over “the shared network.” Toronto-based ISP Interlink Connectivity Inc., an Internet service provider (ISP) specializing in systems integration and outsourced IT services, submitted comments to the CRTC on May 12 saying that Bell's IPTV service, Bell Fibe TV, transits on "substantial portions of the 'shared network'." The company submitted the comments as part of the commission's review of its wholesale usage-based billing policy. Last year, the CRTC approved an application by Bell Canada to introduce usage-based billing rates for its wholesale residential services. The decision allowed the incumbent telcos to charge usage-based rates of Internet resellers that lease access to the incumbents' networks. Aspects of that decision were set to come into force March 1, but following a public outcry, the decision is on hold and under review. A public hearing is scheduled for July. Interlink's comments focused on Bell Canada's submission on April 29, which refuted suggestions from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and Netflix Inc. that wholesale usage-based billing is subsidizing Bell's Fibe TV pricing or that usage-based billing is a way to stymie streaming competitors. “These Comments should be rejected. The Companies do not have significant market power in the broadcast distribution market,” Bell wrote. “The Companies further note that IPTV is currently provisioned through a dedicated network that is separate from the shared aggregation network that is used by wholesale ISPs and is where the Companies are the most likely to experience congestion.” The company said retail Internet traffic runs on shared facilities but voice and IPTV only transits on the "last mile" of the shared network. Bell wrote that its IPTV users do not use a lot of bandwidth and that IPTV traffic is not Internet traffic. "IPTV does not transit through the shared network nor are economic ITMPs implemented to facilitate the deployment of IPTV,” Bell said. But Alvin Starr, president of Interlink, said in an interview that its tests show that Bell's IPTV service transits on the same network portions that Interlink leases from Bell. "If I can buy a service from Bell and I can connect directly to our servers, directly over the Bell network, not going anywhere on the Internet, then those two networks are connected,” Starr said. He said wholesale Internet access services are not run exclusively on Bell's legacy asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network. "They say that the wholesale DSL products are all based on using their legacy ATM service, and that's just not true. There are certain chunks of it that are using their legacy ATM services, but it's not exclusive to that. It also transits across their new services," Starr said. "They've made the claim that the fibre-to-the-node service was running on a completely new network that was not connected to their legacy ATM network. " Bill Sandiford, president of ISP Telnet Communications and lobby group the Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc. (CNOC), a coalition of small ISPs, said the group has also run tests on Bell's fibre network and come to the same conclusion. "They've tried to claim that the TV is a totally complete, separate network. We know that it's not because of the test that we did," Sandiford said. "What we did is we started a download of a free piece of software that was available on the Internet, but a big one, and we watched the speed that it was downloading at. It was nice and fast and then we went into the other room and we turned on the Bell IPTV service and started watching TV, and instantly the download slowed down. As soon as we turned off the TV the download speeds went back up." Interlink Connectivity, which is not a member of CNOC but is represented by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), said that Bell's IPTV service transits through substantial portions of the shared network, which should be factored into the CRTC's review. "We contend that the Companies IPTV service is primarily transiting the shared network structure therefore the traffic generated in the delivery of these IPTV services must be included in the policies for UBB and subject to the same rates and measures," Interlink wrote in its submission. "There's one of two ways of looking at it. Either (a), all of the traffic should be counted, or (b), none of the traffic should be counted. You can't count some traffic from some parties but not count the same traffic when it's from yourself," Sandiford said. But Richard Paradis, president of consulting firm Groupe CIC and a communications program instructor at the Université de Montréal, said in an interview that it's hard to measure how much bandwidth IPTV would use on the shared network. "A sports network takes more bandwidth than a news channel," Paradis said. "There's a lot of things you can do and there's different costs depending on the kind of services that are going through the tube. It depends what usage is being made, who's getting how many services, and to what extent the network is effective in permitting people to bring down services, to using very, very little bandwidth. "I imagine if we were technically very savvy and we went into some of the big telecom companies' services, we'd find they're doing all kinds of things with their service, but that's because they're trying to be in the position where they can offer pretty well the equivalent to what a cable company can offer.” Bell declined to add further comments for this story, but referred to its CRTC submission. Bell told the CRTC that the cable carriers are the “clear dominant players” in the television distribution market, and that Bell does not have any reason to transit its IPTV service on shared networks to the detriment of its Internet services. The company said it would prefer to see its “end-users have a good experience with online video services in order to encourage end-users to leave their Cable competitors' television services rather than provide a bad experience and encourage them to remain with the Companies' primary competitors.” Bell added that “such end-users are more likely to upgrade their DSL products once they subscribe to these services to the benefit of the Companies.” news@thewirereport.ca

Small ISPs say Bell’s Fibe TV service running on shared wholesale IP networks

News | 05/24/2011 8:22 pm EDT

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