Bellch, Part 2: Traffic Shaping

Another reason to boycott Bell: p2p traffic throttling, w/o first contacting customers & resellers.

So much for the claim that because everyone has a dedicated phone line (unlike the supposedly slower, pooled cable lines) the service will be faster and more fair for the consumer.

IT Business reports that Bell is now trying to throttle its p2p traffic.

Luckily, not everyone buys that claim:

In April, CAIP - a group representing 55 third-party ISPs that buy connectivity on a wholesale basis from Bell and then resell it to consumers – petitioned the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for an immediate cease-and-desist order on Bell's traffic-shaping practices.

Subsequently, other groups – such as The Campaign for Democratic Media (CDM) – lent their voices to the protest, urging the CRTC to initiate a "public proceeding" examining the practice. read more

In related news, I'm thinking it might be time to get myself a Blackberry -- the aptly named Bold(t). The Bold isn't available... yet, but I'm hoping when it does finally get released it'll be available through Rogers for less than its current pre-order / unlocked price. $800 for a phone is insane -- even one with gigs of storage and built in GPS & A2DP.

Bellch

I've been screening a lot of calls from Bell lately, but last week I finally decided to pick up and see why they've been harassing me. Turns out -- big surprise -- it's the usual "we miss your money."

I'm with Rogers for two reasons: the now-defunct IBM employee / partner discount, which used to be 20% off the top until one day it just magically vanished w/o explanation, and because the phone lines in this 'hood are old and slow.

According to the Bell rep on the phone, they've fixed that. He couldn't give me technical details, but he said the lines here were "better." Yep, I'm sold. So I can now drop my 7Mb/s Rogers line and switch to a 7Mb/s Bell line, because it MIGHT now be comparable in speed. Before Rogers upped my posted bandwidth rate for free from 5 to 7Mb/s and later I increased my bandwidth limit (because 65Gb/mo is nothing when you 'torrent), I was getting 3-5Mb/s. At the same time, I tried Bell, then later Primus, and never got about 1.5-2Mb/s -- for about the same monthly fee.

He also tried the "but with Rogers it's a shared line, with us it's dedicated." Woo. My neighbourhood is mostly retiree and seniors, many of whom have probably been with Bell for the past few decades and who surely aren't using much bandwidth. I don't mind sharing when I almost always get great speed.

But the real kicker for me was when he started with the high-pressure sales stuff. I rarely buy stuff on the phone or in the driveway, so it was going to be an uphill battle for him no matter how good the offer was. But telling me that the deal he was offering would not be available should I decide in a day or two to call Bell myself, and refusing to send me the details so I could peruse them at my leisure in order to be educated about the deal he was selling? Please. How can any business these days, with the world having a decade and a half of Internet culture under its belt, seriously think to sell stuff without letting consumers educate themselves first? Do they think we're still stuck in the pre-Nader era of illiterates buying what we're told because we're told to do so? Oh, wait, there are the iPhonatics & the Macolytes. But anyway...

In a related news item, Bell and Telus have decided to start charging their consumers for incoming text messages - spam or otherwise. Of course if you buy a monthly plan, they waive that. Cash grab, anyone? If you're a Bell or Telus customer, you might want to sign this petition.

Here's hoping Rogers decides to differentiate themselves by NOT stooping to this level. With consumer confidence levels plummeting all the time, I hope they'll see this might net a few bucks, but lose them customers.

Eclipse Development All-In-One

I'm shocked. Check this out:

Twelve per cent [of those companies surveyed] said they focussed “exclusively” on .Net development while an additional 49 per cent focussed “primarily” on .Net. Only three per cent of enterprises were exclusively Java shops, while an additional 20 per cent focussed “primarily” on Java.
...
But as more companies adopt Microsoft Exchange as their messaging software and SQL Server as their database, the decision to use .Net develop tools is “almost a no-brainer,” Goodall said. (source).

This seems counterintuitive to me. Sure, there's entrenchment. Sure, there's comfort in using Microsoft products as for most people that's who provides their operating system, office tools, and mail software. But c'mon, which companies did they survey? I'd love to find out but I can't find a copy of their survey results online, and even if I could I'm not about to cough up $150 - $990 for a 200K PDF file. Begs the question -- who commissioned this report, and how deep are their pockets? IMHO, there's a fine line between market research and marketing.

Or... is it possible that OSS people just don't have time to answer surveys because they're too busy contributing to their community? ;-)

Pointed pontifications aside, perhaps the real point here is that Microsoft does a better job at selling the 'one stop shop' idea of operating system + office tools + database + mail tools + mail server + dev platform. Sure, all of that is also available in the FLOSS / LAMP world, but are we failing to market it it as a cohesive offering? Is it still too disparate, too complex?

And has anyone thought of building an ubuntu + Ganymede self-contained offering? I know there's some cool virtual appliances out there, such as Grandma's LAMP, but AFAIK there's never been an attempt to bundle Eclipse w/ an OS for an all-in-one offering. Now that there's an Eclipse Store and an Eclipse Donations site, isn't it time for some Eclipse DVDs to complete the trifecta? Along with the new EPP bundles planned for next July, wouldn't it be cool to have an Eclipse Ganymede + ubuntu 08.04 Distro DVD? A collector's item, for sure.

Oh, and with the advent of the EMF4Net proposal (yes, that's EMF for the .Net plaftorm), this all-in-one DVD would also allow people to develop C# apps as well as Java. And php. And perl. And ruby. And python. And C/C++. Whoops, there we go again with too many choices. ;-) Once again, maybe Microsoft continues to dominate mindshare not because they're better or more entrenched, but out of a sense of simplicity.

So, here's my new mantra:

Simple is sexy.
Options are overwhelming.

Agree? Disagree? Post your thoughts here, or blog them and/or link here. I'd love to know your experiences as a customer or as a vendor, as a client or as a developer.

The Pirate Bay files charges against media companies

I just had to reproduce this in its entirety because it's so cool to see TPB once again fighting the good fight against the media giants for their illegal activities online:

Thanks to the email-leakage from MediaDefender-Defenders we now have proof of the things we've been suspecting for a long time; the big record and movie labels are paying professional hackers, saboteurs and ddosers to destroy our trackers.

While browsing through the email we identified the companies that are also active in Sweden and we have tonight reported these incidents to the police. The charges are infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming, all of these on a commercial level.

The companies that are being reported are the following:

• Twentieth Century Fox, Sweden AB
• Emi Music Sweden AB
• Universal Music Group Sweden AB
• Universal Pictures Nordic AB
• Paramount Home Entertainment (Sweden) AB
• Atari Nordic AB
• Activision Nordic Filial Till Activision (Uk) Ltd
• Ubisoft Sweden AB
• Sony Bmg Music Entertainment (Sweden) AB
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Nordic AB

Stay tuned for updates. -- TPB blog, 2007/09/21

Blogged with Flock

Real World Bug Reporting, Part 3: Now we know!

I've complained about the way Rogers treats its customers via email, but I haven't discussed how they are on the phone. Much as I hate their IVR's need to ask me for my phone number (immediately before I get a live human who asks me for my phone number again), or the fact that I can't just ask for "cell phone billing" but instead have to step through "wireless" > "billing" > "cell phone", once you get a live human, life's pretty damn good.

If you argue enough (repeatedly but politely!) to the people in the billing department about not understanding why you're being charged for things you didn't agree to or that their policies are unfriendly (eg., $1 per 1K download with no data plan or $5 per 5M download with plan) or insane, you can get up to $20 back per complaint in "goodwill credit."

You can also be reimbursed for loss of service when there's an outage (especially the planned ones). They're supposed to contact you in advance in writing when there's a planned outage, so if they ever let slip that the reason you've been without internet/cable/phone access for the last 3 hours is due to a *planned* outage (and of course no one emailed or dropped a flyer in your mailbox to warn you), you're entitled to compensation.

My most recent Rogers experience was around the fact that changing my cell phone billing plan can only take effect at the start of next month's billing cycle, but EVERY OTHER CHARGE happens immediately and is prorated from the request date. In my case, this means I got charged $45 in usage fees which would have been free if they'd actived the new plan the day I called instead of 2 weeks later. Given the plan cost jumped from $35/mo to $60/mo (for two phones), I would have paid 14/31 of $25, or $11.30 for the balance of the month. So, being charged $45 - $20 = $25 is forgivable, though still not ideal.

I guess the point here is that every support group has its preferred method of operation, and it's up to the user to find the best way to navigate his options and choose the best route. For example, all Eclipse projects have access to a wiki, newgroup, mailing list, website, blog(s), IRC channel(s)... but each project's committers/contributors/evangelists work a little differently and so they all provide support via their favourite channel or channels.

Anyway, having been on the phone with Rogers at leat a half-dozen times this summer getting erroneous charges reversed, now I know that Rogers Email Support = teh suck but Rogers Phone Support r0x0rs. And knowing is half the battle!

Blogged with Flock

iPhone Unplugged

Well, that didn't take very long. The iPhone (for those fanboys out there who care) is now unlocked.

Details here and here, suggesting that like all things Apple, this too might be more hype than substance, unless you're willing to get out a soldering iron and produce a little lead vapour to help Apple stay near the bottom of the green electronics leaderboard.

Real World Bug Reporting, Part 2

I've given up on Rogers' ability to think outside their carefully cloistered support pillars, but for comic relief here's their final reply in this thread, interspersed with a little froth:

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service.

Gotta love the opening remarks drivel "We appreciate your use of online customer service." Geez, that's fantastic.

In your recent email, you have informed us that you would like assistance so you can view your services online and be able to manage your services successfully.

We apologize that you are experiencing difficulties accessing our www.rogers.com website.

Holding breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop...

We are also sorry to hear that you have not been happy with the customer service you received. The expectation is that you receive world class customer service. If that is not what you experienced, we do apologize.

Silly me, I thought I'd made it clear I was dissatisifed. But by all means, couch your replies with "if", if it gets you through the day. Note also the distinct lack of "... and to make it better, we're going to actually do something other than simply sending this FOAD email to pacify you."

Please ensure that when you are navigating our website you are using Internet Explorer or Netscape as your browser as we do not support other browser types at this time. It is also suggested to clear all your cookies and your cache folder.

Kudos to Rogers for being forward thinking and choosing to mention Firefox here instead of Netscape. Oh, wait, I'm dreaming. Unfortunately, I can't argue the Internet Explorer point since according to some recent stats, they're still about 70% of the planet. I've never seen very flattering stats for Mac or Linux usage, so I guess it's reasonable to only support Windows and its de facto browser. You win this time, tech support. Oh, but wait -- this isn't a browser issue, it's a VBScript compilation error!

You are able to login as many times as you would like on our www.rogers.com website.

Actually, that was the reason I filed this complaint in the first place, and no amount of "just use IE or Netscape" will resolve the fact that this isn't a browser problem.

If you continue using our website and experiencing errors, we do suggest that you contact our eCare department at 1-877-343-5745. They are open to serve you Monday-Sunday 7am-3am.

They are truly our website experts and with further troubleshooting, they will be able to assist you so you can view your services online successfully.

Oh, let's be real. They'll probably tell me that they've never heard of Linux, that Konqueror is a guy on a horse with a big sword, and ask me what version of Windows I'm using repeatedly until I hang up in disgust. I doubt they'll acknowledge the possibility that the browser is not the problem or that it's their code that's causing the compilation error.

We understand that you would like to receive assistance via email, however some matters are more complex and better if we discuss via telephone.

Like the ones where I say, "Read this Microsoft KB article and fix your website accordingly." Yep, that requires discussion.

And true, it's way more efficient to read a screen to someone over the phone than to send him an email so he can read it himself. Besides, manually entering a URL as someone reads it to you is *much* more fun (because errors = comedy, right?) than just clicking a link.

We do appreciate your cooperation concerning this matter. You are a valued customer and we thank you for your business.

So highly valued that they can't communicate between their departments to resolve problems. Ah, well, you can lead a monopoly to water, but you can't make it think.

Anyway, despite this, I'm stuck with these folks for the following reasons: the phone lines in my neighbourhood suck and the best throughput I can get is about 2-3MB/s download. With Rogers over cable lines I can get 5MB, and yesterday I got some junk mail saying they're upgrading everyone to 7MB for free. (It was postal junk mail, not email, because they're not quite *there* enough to send me a free email when wasting postage is an available option.) Ah, Rogers. Always going that extra mile to justify jacking up their rates while giving us a little something extra so we won't complain too much.

So, what can you do? Monopoly, yes, but ultimately, it's all about the bandwidth.

Real World Bug Reporting

I've seen some kvetching lately in #eclipse that people (Eclipse users/customers) open bugs which never get resolved. Also, last night I saw an article from earlier this year discussing whether or not Vista would be fit for purpose, which spawned further kvetching about Microsoft and IBM and how much/little support there is from large organizations with large customer bases.

That said, let me present a real life example I just went through of how much worse life would be in OSS if we, the developers, treated our customers (the world at large) as if we were a monopoly with nothing to gain from helping you out, with an insipid insistence in NOT working together as a community.

Without further ado, I give you ... reporting a bug to Rogers Communications (unabridged).

 Original Message Follows:
 ------------------------
 name: Nick Boldt
 emailId: nickboldt
 replyEmail: nickboldt@gmail.com
 issue: account
 subcategory: other
 problemdescription: Logging in using Firefox or Konqueror browser
 (which normally works), I periodically get this error:

 Microsoft VBScript compilation  error '800a03e9'

 Out of memory

 /web_auth/verifpwd.asp, line 0

 Given you're running a Microsoft server -- maybe it's in need of a
 reboot? ;-)

Dear Nick Boldt,

Thank you for your email.

We understand your concern with this issue.

Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet technical support representatives are qualified to diagnose and troubleshoot issues relating directly to our client software. We will therefore not be able to assist you with this matter, as it is beyond the scope of our support parameters.

For assistance regarding peripheral devices and other software products, we recommend contacting the vendor of the software in question. We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you have any further questions or comments regarding our service, please fill out the online form on our Customer Support page listed below or contact us by phone at 1-888-288-4663.

Regards,
name removed

There's nothing more annoying that people who tell you to solve your problem by repeating what you've already done (namely, to contact the software vendor, who in this case is in fact Rogers).

Guys, this is either one of two problems:

a) your webserver has a memory leak

b) your website relies on activeX controls and therefore doesn't (consistently) work with anything but Internet Explorer

In either case, it has nothing to do with my "client software" -- it's a website/webserver problem.

Please escalate this to your webmaster for review.

Cheers,

Nick

Granted, I was wrong about what the problem here was, but that's why I was suggesting escalation. Besides, I don't do ASP anymore.

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service.

We would be more that happy to assist you with your concerns.

We appreciate hearing from our customers and thank you for your comments and feedback. However, please note that the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed cable internet service, currently supports only Internet Explorer and the Rogers Yahoo! browser. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Please let us know if we may be of further assistance to you.

If you have any further questions or comments regarding our service, please fill out the online form on our Customer Support page listed below or contact us by phone at 1-888-288-4663.

Regards,
name removed

I think the point you're (once again) missing is that it's not the browser (client) that's the problem but the website/webserver (server). Since this problem is intermittent and happens with multiple different browsers, I'm reasonably certain it's not a browser issue.

Further, since VBScript compilation occurs ON THE SERVER, not in the client browser (we're not talking about Javascript or another client-side scripting language, but a server-side one), and since my computer (and thus browsers) have ample memory to load other websites (2G of RAM and a 2G swap) an "Out of memory" error must be caused by a problem ON THE SERVER.

A quick Google search confirms that this is a known problem in VBScript, with an available workaround provided by Microsoft:

Microsoft VBScript compilation error 800a03e9 Out of memory
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174634

That said, if you don't feel this issue needs to be escalated to your web server support staff for review, or that it's perfectly reasonable to expect that at least once a day your website won't let customers sign in (it worked fine a moment ago but not when I first filed this bug report), then by all means, please send me another FOAD "we only support MSIE" note. After all, it's much more fun (and costly for you!) for me to call your support staff instead of using the website for self-service every time it won't let me log in.

Yours,

Nick

Dear Nick Boldt,

Thank you for your email.

We sympathize with your situation.

Please provide further information on the nature of the problem you are experiencing and we will be happy to assist you in any way we can. Information such as error messages or codes you receive may be helpful in determining the source of the problem.

Please include when you are recieiving the error message as well, including the full URL of the site and any other information you can provide about it, may be useful as well.

If you have any further questions or comments regarding our service, please fill out the online form on our Customer Support page listed below or contact us by phone at 1-888-288-4663.

Regards,
name removed

Fine, if you need me to do your job for you, I will.

Steps to reproduce:

1) Go to http://www.shoprogers.com/homeen.asp?CustomerType=Consumer&Language=En

2) Enter username / password; check box for 'Rember my username'; click go or hit enter

3) Marvel at the following error which tends to occur at random intervals but particularly the second or third time I try to log in using the same browser session:

Microsoft VBScript compilation error \'800a03e9\'

Out of memory

/web_auth/verifpwd.asp, line 0

4) Per advice in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174634, fix this bug.

5) Send me a $50 account credit for helping you fix your website. (Hey, I can dream.)

Cheers,

Nick

Dear Nick Boldt,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service.

We would be more that happy to assist you with your concerns.

Although we thank you for your input regarding the Corporate Website, for further issues related to the Customer Service feature, we recommend contacting the support number 1-877-343-5745. They may then escalate such matters to the network administrators, who manage the server.

Please note that the email support team, addresses issues related to the various Rogers Cable services (such as Hi-Speed cable internet, Home Phone, Digital Cable TV, etc.).

If you have any further questions or comments regarding our service, please fill out the online form on our Customer Support page listed below or contact us by phone at 1-888-288-4663.

Regards,
name removed

1. It's not the Corporate Website, it's the public customer website. I'm not a corporate user, I'm just one of your many regular customers. I would have thought that would be obious from the URL: http://www.shoprogers.com/homeen.asp?CustomerType=Consumer&Language=En -- note the "CustomerType=Consumer" part.

2. Why should I have to report this issue a second time to yet another unsympathetic ear when you can just forward this email chain to the appropriate people for resolution? Not only do you need me to document (twice) the problem, but you now want me to report it twice as well? Are your webmaster(s) so afraid of email that they need a buffer of phone-answering lackeys around them to protect them from valid, documented, and solvable bug reports?

3. If your staff "addresses issues related to the various Rogers Cable services", then why can't you deal with issues related to me checking my Rogers bill online -- namely, the fact that about half the time I try to log in, I get the aforementioned error? Shouldn't supporting the website on which my bills reside be part of supporting Rogers Cable services?

Thanks,

Nick

Dear Nick,

Thank you for contacting us again, we appreciate the support you are providing us.

I have read the history behind your e-mail requests along with your current e-mail. First I would like to mention that the Rogers corporate web site is www.rogers.com. I'm sorry if that information was confusing to you.

Second, my question to you is why are you logging in 2-3 times in the same session? (from e-mail sent 7/11) You only need to log on once to do all your maintenance, bill viewing and reviewing of your account. This may be the root cause of the problem.

Third, you need to call the staff in our Internet support office. We are not qualified to help you. We do not do any technical troubleshooting via e-mail. Please understand that we are not equipped with this type of knowledge, we answer a limited range of questions about billing, sales, general inquiries. Please call 1-888-288-4663, they are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and would be very happy and able to help you.

Thank you for contacting us, we hope that this issue will be resolved by our technicians.

Sincerely,
name removed

So, the moral here is that even when you provide steps to reproduce, solve the already-documented problem (via Google and the Microsoft KB), and request multiple times that they simply forward the email chain to someone who can address it, the oh-so-diligent lackeys at Rogers' email support desk refuse to help while claiming they're "happy to assist." Yeah, right.

Contrast that with the 1000s of bugs closed this year for Europa, and I'm sure you'll agree Open Source is much better than dealing with the close-source, closed-process, closed-access monopolies. Not only do we have several documented way to ask for support (bugzilla, newsgroups, mailing lists, IRC), but we actually use them, and the projects & member companies share information and collaborate to solve issues. Oh, and all this without having to pay $100+/mo for "service."

Really, what more could you want?