Bell can invest in network upgrades to solve congestion problems: independent ISPs

Bell Canada is grossly overstating its network congestion problem and where there is congestion, the company can easily afford to fix it by investing in newer equipment, according to documents filed by some independent ISPs with the CRTC this month.Acanac Inc., an independent ISP offering services in parts of southern Ontario, notes in its comments that Bell is capable of processing so much traffic that its congestion figures - 4,500 ATM cells dropped per day - are statistically insignificant. According to the small ISP, which isn't a member of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), one Gigabit Ethernet line can process more than 20 Terabytes of data in a single day and since Bell has many Gigabit Ethernet lines capable of transporting trillions of ATM cells per day."Consequently, the total data loss (4,500 cells per day) is statistically insignificant when compared to the sheer amount of data successfully delivered," the company writes to the CRTC. "Acanac submits that the effects on Bell's network and on the Internet experience of its customers is therefore negligible."Acanac acknowledges that parts of the Bell network that haven't been upgraded may be experiencing congestion, but questions why the ILEC has to use traffic management software on its entire customer base. "Even if one were to accept that certain portions of Bell's local access and transport network was still ATM-based, this does not explain why Bell has decided to throttle all of its Sympatico customers, as well as its wholesale GAS customers that have been migrated off of the ATM-network and on to its Ethernet network, where there are no congestion issues," the ISP writes.Acanac, as well as the Coalition of Internet Service Providers (CISP), point to an analysis done by Dave Burnstein, editor of US trade publication DSL Prime of Bell's congestion data. He concludes that Bell is either using "severely outdated" DSLAMs - a device that aggregates all the local DSL links and then connects them to a single very high speed line - or the connections from the DSLAM to the fibre aggregation link are too slow.Interveners say the solution for Bell is simple: upgrade its network. The cost to do this would be insignificant for a service provider of Bell's size, according to Burnstein. It would cost Bell about $4 million to upgrade 400 exchanges with Gigabit Ethernet, or the equivalent of $2 per DSL customer. Alternatively, the company could upgrade current ATM links to OC-12 - four times faster than current speeds - for about $40 million or $20 per customer.Burnstein says for a service provider the size of Bell, these are reasonable costs given the revenue and profit margin from DSL. Annual per customer revenue from DSL is about $400 with a margin of about $200, and therefore requiring a $2 to $20 per customer investment is "insignificant" for Bell, he suggests.Bell has until July 10 to reply to the interventions.

Bell can invest in network upgrades to solve congestion problems: independent ISPs

News | July 9, 2008

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