Pioneer Internet Has a Monopoly & is Rationing Internet Access

Originally posted by Sublime620
And this is where the real problem comes into play. DSL cannot guarantee 1.5Mb/s, but that is mostly due to packet loss and distance from CO - not from the company not having enough bandwidth for the end user. That is simply unacceptable.

Nobody is arguing that Pioneer Internet is delivering a perfect product. Clearly they have technical issues. That has been determined.

What makes this fodder for a "General Conspiracy" forum? Someone is offering a service with less than stellar performance; and sticking it to ya'. What's new?

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
and the provider is denying any bandwidth throttling. The problem of ISP bandwidth throttling is rampant, and getting worse... and some of it involves domain-specific throttling. If this continues, and ISP's are allowed to control network traffic, one day Comcast could decide not to deliver abovetopsecret.com because we have a thread critical of them.

Hate to disagree SO, but Valhall's post clearly states the ISP and AT&T are denying "responsibility", and therefore tacitly agreeing there is a problem. Additionally, Valhall's post clearly says nothing about domain-specific throttling.....and is not limited to Internet access or 'Net neutrality. Apparently, prime time television programming is given a higher QoS somewhere upstream. That's it....a complaint about bad service.

Originally posted by MrPenny

Hate to disagree SO, but Valhall's post clearly states the ISP and AT&T are denying "responsibility", and therefore tacitly agreeing there is a problem. Additionally, Valhall's post clearly says nothing about domain-specific throttling.....and is not limited to Internet access or 'Net neutrality. Apparently, prime time television programming is given a higher QoS somewhere upstream. That's it....a complaint about bad service.

Oh no - don't put words in my mouth simply because I didn't say it. Let's get straight. AT&T hasn't denied anything (and that's assuming AT&T is, in fact, the Level 3). I have one place I can point to right now simply because they refuse to give the name to the next level up - that's Pioneer.

Do I think the problem is above them? Do I believe the Pioneer domain is being throttled at a point upstream to Pioneer?

Yes I do.

Do I know if it is Pioneer allowing that by being cheap? or is it the Level 3 (AT&T) being the point of throttling and has Pioneer by the short-hairs?

You yourself have shown a tendency to view my area of lesser importance with your farm-house comments and your subtle insinuations that we ought to all feel lucky we even have electricity.

I DO believe there is throttling that has led to the TV datastream priority choking back the former free-flow of DSL internet. It is no longer free-flow - it is queing big time in a very restricted bandwidth now. I do not know who to blame yet. I have to blame Pioneer at this point since they have, by refusing to provide the Level 3 name, decided they want to be blamed.

By the way - so that you understand the situation here. Pioneer is a cooperative! So the "capitalist" nature in which they are operating right now isn't okie-dokie. So, for all intents and purposes I should be able to call and ask any and all questions about who is providing what and what level of switching is being used and whether the Peering is working out. I am not being given answers so this "cooperative" is not running in a public manner, it is running in an extremely secretive manner. For 90% of the TV-watching customers they have when we get a month free service for the year some time around June because the cooperative did so damned good they saved us all a month of service all those folks will sit down and watch TV with a bigger smile on their faces.

For those of us who have had services taken away from us that we are still paying for and can't get answers to track down what's really going on - we won't have the same smile. YES - I believe some one upstream of Pioneer is either refusing services to the domain OR asking a price that the cooperative didn't expect or can't pay or didn't prepare for.

I don't see any of those scenarios as okay from where I sit.

Originally posted by Sublime620
It's the opposite of capitalism.

Oh, it's even more confusing than that....Pioneer Telephone Cooperative. Yup, it's a coop.....now how do we define it?

*I see Valhall has already mentioned this*

Valhall,
Either they are negatively impacting the bandwidth to the entire Internet, as you implied, or they are throttling Pioneer's domain. That's confusing. Pioneer's domain should have no impact on your ability to connect to other domains such as cnn.com...msnbc.com....or connect to gaming sites.

Your initial post claimed all Internet activity was negatively impacted. I still don't see any attempt to throttle specific content or domains.

[edit on 28-4-2008 by MrPenny]

We have an ATS member that has done a great deal of work, research and fighting on this very topic. Apparently some of his work has even been reviewed/published by the government.

He asked that I share this link with you so that you will understand what I am paying $80 a month for...

ultramedia.freehostia.com...

...and to think that just a year ago I had really clear internet tubes. Must be all the Indian casinos in the area clogging them up.

Originally posted by Valhall
and your subtle insinuations that we ought to all feel lucky we even have electricity.

Good huh? It was so subtle, even I didn't see it. Now that's tricky.

Level3 is AT&T (Actually the SWB portion that AT&T acquired).

If your routed through Dallas (Actually Irving, but see why it would be mistaken for Dallas), I pretty much can say its not AT&T's end that is the problem. Might be bottlenecked by AT&T due to your ISP not getting enough bandwidth from AT&T though.

Originally posted by Mytar
Might be bottlenecked by AT&T due to your ISP not getting enough bandwidth from AT&T though.

Right. The question is who is deciding not to provide enough bandwidth at that level.

Originally posted by Valhall

Originally posted by Mytar
Might be bottlenecked by AT&T due to your ISP not getting enough bandwidth from AT&T though.

Right. The question is who is deciding not to provide enough bandwidth at that level.

I meant as your ISP is not buying enough from AT&T.

Well, that's what I'm going with for now. Unfortunately, I didn't see them decrease the $80 internet charge per month when they decided to decrease my internet usage.

Just so we're clear that the problem is upstream of my ISP, here is my speed test results checking between me and them:

Download speed 2.4 Mbps
Upload speed 647 kbps

I should be able to rock the Casbah with that, right? Basically what you're looking at there is a Shelby Cobra in neutral. You can rev her all you want and not get anywhere.

I have a question....

I've been trying to determine where Pioneer gets its IPTV signal. Has it been determined they get it from AT&T? Or are they pulling it from a satellite and delivering it themselves? I ask 'cause the sure did buy a lot of fancy equipment for this launch.

reply to post by Valhall




Did you ever see the Daily Show episode about the "Internet is a series of tubes".

It's classic.



[edit on 28-4-2008 by Sublime620]

Good question, MrPenny! And I think I found the answer:

www.myrio.com...

It appears they are pulling IPTV from satellites.

reply to post by Sublime620


Speaking about bandwidth, I think youtube is running low. I can't even watch videos on there half the time without it buffering every 5 seconds.

reply to post by Valhall


I saw that article......kinda' wanted to find something that clearly says they are pulling a signal. I even Googled images for Pioneer's headquarters, hoping to see some large dishes.

If that is the case, AT&T may have nothing to do with the bandwidth and latency issues.

You may get into a conspiracy angle if Pioneer receives some kind of compensation for adjusting the QoS for network content, and its advertising. Huh....funny how that works.

Hey, MrPenny, is this what you are thinking?

www.entrepreneur.com...

Apparently this is some kind of nifty thingy they pulled off where they are inserting local advertising into the digital TV channels even when they are cable networks and such.

""ETI's VideoDirect provides a powerful platform that enables us to run local content on major networks while providing powerful billing and tracking features."

ETI's VideoDirect 6000 platform works in conjunction with networks deploying either analog or digital program insertion or a combination of both. It uses the same architecture for local or network endpoint applications, using its own host server or standard Video-on-Demand Servers for ad storage and streaming. Interfaces between ETI's ad server and the Video Splicer are SCTE compliant. "

Also, from this link

goliath.ecnext.com...

It states they went with Tut Systems on the Digital TV.

I am a high speed internet tech for a big company in a northern community of about 200000 people. For years we had the monopoly out here but we have been faced with competition for several years now. Our company will not offer anything faster than 7 MB DSL while all third party providers in the same area offer 10 - 18 MB DSL using the equipment in OUR frames. Its a damn crime i tell you.

I'm thinking that MrPenny may have been on to something.

Look what I've found:

First this gives a bit more detail on the IPTV system (but still no firm word on whether it's piped in or brought down by dish):

www.ruckuswireless.com...

But here is where it gets interesting:

blog.itvt.com...

In other CloverLeaf Digital news:

The company says that Pioneer Telephone, which claims to be the fourth-largest telephone cooperative in the US, has launched its DotDaily localized interactive TV service. The service is now providing localized news and information to IPTV subscribers served by 72 exchanges in Oklahoma. It features news and sports coverage from the Associated Press, local weather info from AccuWeather, local movie guides, horoscopes, and local content (including community events calendars, school lunch menus and community slide shows) published by community organizations via CloverLeaf’s DashDaily tools. "CloverLeaf’s localized walled garden contributes to our efforts to provide our customers with content and functionality that they can’t get from cable or satellite," Pioneer’s video business manager, Scott Ulsaker, said in a prepared statement. "CloverLeaf was able to localize their service for every exchange on our network, and we already have several community organizations creating local content with the community content publishing tools."
The company has signed a deal with Digeo to provide walled-garden information services to the latter’s Moxi platform (see article in this issue).

Now - look at this DotDaily.com...

dotdaily.com...

We officially crossed the Red River into Texas on this deal.

i dunno what relevance this may be but, in my part of canada they have started to impose bandwidth limits, rogers and bell this year

40 gigs a month for bell i think, and 95 for rogers upload and download

maybe this is just them getting more money for all the torrent use i dunno but when i saw "rationing" i thought i'd tell ya'll that both internet providers here have imposed bandwidths in the last 2-3 monthes no matter what service you have with them (dial-up to the ultra high speed) with the higher speeds you'd pay more but you never used to have a bandwidth limit

looking at the stuff i get in the mail it from rogers and bell it doesn't seem like you can pay for a service without a bandwidth limit any longer

so in respect to rationing they have put something in place to stop you from downloading too much, unless you want to pay the w/e it is for each extra gig

i know bandwidth limits aren't new, but up until i think feb or march of 2008 you could get an unlimited bandwidth connection for a reasonable price, maybe it's the downloading, maybe it's them trying to save on bandwidth for the TV users before they have a problem in the first place?

i know that torrents, streaming videos and a few other things have been picking up in the last few years that are heavier on bandwidth than the old ways of the internet and maybe it's just business

but maybe it's a coming change in the internet? less internet? who saw the last south park episode? "rations" of the internet were being given out at camps lol it was treated like scraps of water or food during a "depression"

(in canada bell owns all telephone lines, and rogers all cable lines, monopolies all the way)

[edit on 28-4-2008 by OSSkyWatcher]

Let's face it...the place where bandwidth rationing or even a dearth of bandwidth availability hurts the worst is any P2P activity. I just got through reading an interesting study these guys did on whether P2P packets can be checked and passed without loss. An interesting thing was that they had to disguise the P2P by moving to a different port so that the "P2P'ness" of it would not be detected and handled differently.

???

So are we seeing a move to try to quash P2P activity so that the bandwidth can be available for less user-directed activities? i.e. - for what the provider wants to use it for instead of what the user wants to use it for? Are they going to turn our internet tubes on us so they can dumb them down and spew stuff at us instead of us using them for what we want?

That's a scary thought.