Conjor Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Back in February, a Canadian gamer wrote the government's telecom regulator with an unusual complaint: her ISP, Rogers, was allegedly throttling games like World of Warcraft, making them all but unplayable. Even more unusual, the government demanded that Rogers look into the accusation, and the ISP has now admitted that it is, in fact, throttling WoW in some cases. But only by accident.Like other large Canadian ISPs, Rogers throttles heavily, clamping down on P2P traffic and handing out miserly data caps starting at 2GB per month. But the company has always maintained that its throttling accurately targeted file-sharing programs and not other software. In her complaint (PDF), subscriber Teresa Murphy said Rogers was telling "a pack of lies" and that its aggressive deep packet inspection (DPI) based throttling system wasn't nearly so accurate. Rogers' filters are picking up several very low bandwidth-intensive games incorrectly as P2P activity. Provided these games are fully patched, they can play on a dialup connection with minimal issues, and uses approximately 100-200MB of your monthly cap (as stated by a game manufacturer employee, on the game's public forums). It?s really not that much considering a single Netflix video in HD is 4GB. These games are time-sensitive applications (such as VOIP is), and like any time-sensitive application will lose connection if throttled, which is why they aren't supposed to be throttled? I don't use P2P at ALL, and yet I'm still affected by this issue because Rogers sees my gaming traffic incorrectly as P2P? Personally, I wouldn't even care about P2P being throttled, except for the fact that Rogers' filters are so shoddy they're lumping non-P2P in with P2P, making many applications completely unusable. Please continue to look into this. It?s not fair that Rogers customers are paying for a service they can't even use. Canada's telecoms regulator, CRTC, sent a letter to Rogers about the complaint; last week, it received a response (PDF). The problems are real, and they won't be fixed for months. "Our tests have determined that there is a problem with our traffic management equipment that can interfere with World of Warcraft," said Rogers. "We have been in contact with the game manufacturer and we have been working with our equipment supplier to overcome this problem. "We recently introduced a software modification to solve the problems our customers are experiencing with World of Warcraft. However, there have been recent changes to the game, which has created new problems. A second software modification to address these new issues will not be ready until June." Rogers insists that this situation only occurs when subscribers are using P2P applications at the same time, though Teresa Murphy insisted she did not do so. The ISP recommends "turning off the peer-to-peer setting in the World of Warcraft game and ensuring that no peer-to-peer applications are running on any connected computer." Sorry, Canadian gamers?though at least your pain serves the larger purpose of reminding us just how obnoxious this sort of protocol-specific throttling can be. Separately, Rogers just coughed up $275,000 after the CRTC said it had been calling its own prepaid mobile customers without their consent. Sources: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/oops-major-canadian-isp-admits-throttling-world-of-warcraft.ars http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03/27/rogers-throttles-world-of-warcraft-across-canada/ And the original topic on Rogers forums: http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/forumtopicpage/board-id/Getting_connected/page/1/thread-id/557 Link to Rogers CRTC response where they admit to throttling: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9038867/Rogers/Rogers%20letter%20to%20CRTC%20re%20ITMPs%20Mar22-11.pdf I have been affected by this issue for several months myself and have been following for a month or so now. In total there have been 3 direct complaints to the CRTC about this issue. The best part about this, which isn't mentioned in any of the articles, is at what time Rogers was first notified of the issue and when they actually contacted Blizzard about it. When Rogers was made aware of the issue: No later than January 17th 2011 (issues actually started in October 2010 with the release of a new WoW patch) When Rogers finally contacted Blizzard for assistance: Thursday March 17th, a mere 5 days (3 business days) before the third complaint to the CRTC was due to receive a response. When they finally admitted to the public that they are and have been throttling World of Warcraft: March 22nd. Pathetic... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted March 28, 2011 Subscriber² Share Posted March 28, 2011 What a dick move. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firey Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 For a while I was noticing horrible latency with Ventrillo and WoW with Bell (One of the other Major Canadian ISP's), after the latest patch WoW has corrected latency wise, but Vent can be a little iffy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
User6060 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 rogers is pure evil...can't say i've had many good experiences with them when my household was on that cable bandwagon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conjor Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 For a while I was noticing horrible latency with Ventrillo and WoW with Bell (One of the other Major Canadian ISP's), after the latest patch WoW has corrected latency wise, but Vent can be a little iffy. I can give you a good indication as to why that is. August 2010: Blizzard changed the ports wow connects (adding 4 ports previously not used). There were no problems then connecting on a Rogers account. October 12, 2010: Patch 4.0.1 is released. This patch changed the patching process, and added streaming. Still, no problems connecting on a Rogers account. November 2010: People start experiencing issues. In between game patches, so it wasn't Blizzard's end. At approx the same time, Rogers Keith states on DSLR that they're inadvertently packet shaping non-p2p traffic. February 2011, Blizzard reverts to using only 2 ports for connecting to World of Warcraft (no longer using the 4 ports they added in August 2010). Still can't connect properly on a Rogers account. Blizzard reverted some changes they made, which were only part of the cause, because lame ISP's like Rogers and Bell were doing dick all to fix the problem. Reverting the ports fixed the issue for SOME people, but not all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DukeEsquire Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 I don't understand why ISPs insist on throttling games. Most mutliplayer games don't even use that much bandwidth. My undergrad, Case Western Reserve U., throttled games making Warcraft III virtually unplayable. Oddly, they didn't throttle P2P. People could bittorent at 3 mb/s but I couldn't play Warcraft 3 multiplayer. :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malisk Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Wow... It's not even something like streaming video, but a low-bandwidth game. Their only "problem", if any, would be that it's popular. But if their business model can't handle stuff on their network becoming popular without throttling it (and thus ruining WoW performance), they're doing something seriously wrong. This can't be the best solution to their problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Unfortunately in Canada we don't have many good ISPs and most people don't have a choice to go for a crappy ISP :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malisk Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 I don't understand why ISPs insist on throttling games. Most mutliplayer games don't even use that much bandwidth. My undergrad, Case Western Reserve U., throttled games making Warcraft III virtually unplayable. Oddly, they didn't throttle P2P. People could bittorent at 3 mb/s but I couldn't play Warcraft 3 multiplayer. :blink: Ugh, that sounds crazy beyond belief. :s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Un4given Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 And my wife wants me to move to Canada. Not happening. Between internet, phone, and ICBC, sorry but it's full of fail. Just thought i'd note though, i'm not bashing Canada as a country. My wife's canadian, and that would be a dick move. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fid Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 This happened in the UK back in November as well... http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a285785/virgin-working-on-wow-latency-issues.html They blamed Blizzard changing the packets and again the system was detecting them as bittorrent, and therefore throttling it and making the game unplayable. They turned off their system or something for that the next day and it seemed to improve from then on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gallifrey2 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Bell and Rogers have a monopolistic stranglehold on the Internet in this country. Even if you use a small ISP the reality is they piggy back off of one of the big 2. The Government here in Canada needs to force both Bell and Rogers to spin off part of their companies so that they do not have the network backbone and their client services under the same company. Allowing them to run the networks and be a service provider is utter nonsense and has only served to hurt the Canadian people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Bell and Rogers have a monopolistic stranglehold on the Internet in this country. Even if you use a small ISP the reality is they piggy back off of one of the big 2. The Government here in Canada needs to force both Bell and Rogers to spin off part of their companies so that they do not have the network backbone and their client services under the same company. Allowing them to run the networks and be a service provider is utter nonsense and has only served to hurt the Canadian people. In the EAST not in western Canada, that part of the country belongs to Shaw and Telus :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conjor Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 This happened in the UK back in November as well... http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a285785/virgin-working-on-wow-latency-issues.html They blamed Blizzard changing the packets and again the system was detecting them as bittorrent, and therefore throttling it and making the game unplayable. They turned off their system or something for that the next day and it seemed to improve from then on. Yes that is because Blizzard modified the ports that WoW communicated on. Most ISP's were in fact affected and there were lots of issues with multiple service providers. Most ISP's got the issue corrected within a couple of days with the help of Blizzard reps (which was offered freely to any ISP that contacted them). Rogers is one of those companies who did NOT contact Blizzard when the issues started. It took them almost half a year, 3 CRTC complaints, and a loss of hundreds of subscriptions before they did. And my wife wants me to move to Canada. Not happening. Between internet, phone, and ICBC, sorry but it's full of fail. Just thought i'd note though, i'm not bashing Canada as a country. My wife's canadian, and that would be a dick move. There are some areas in Canada which have some amazing (relative of course) internet packages available, most of which are on the eastern coast (NB, NS, ect). Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe those are the only provinces which actively promote and sell Fiber connections to the home, up to 100 mbps down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Another Canuck Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 And my wife wants me to move to Canada. Not happening. Between internet, phone, and ICBC, sorry but it's full of fail. Just thought i'd note though, i'm not bashing Canada as a country. My wife's canadian, and that would be a dick move. No offence taken. You have no idea how much I'd like to move out of Canada (in a few years down the road) due to the sorry state of telecommunications here. That, on top of the fact that our political system is royally ****ed up... I can't take it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom5 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 "Net neutrality by Rogers" :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conjor Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 "Net neutrality by Rogers" :D Throttle everything. And when everything is throttled... nothing will be.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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