Rogers accidentally throttling World of Warcraft players

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Canada's second largest cable Internet provider has fessed up to throttling non-P2P traffic. Last month, Canadian gamer Teresa Murphy wrote to the country's telecom regulator (PDF) accusing Rogers of throttling games like World of Warcraft, rendering them unplayable.

Investigating the matter, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) contacted Rogers over the complaint and the ISP replied last week, admitting that its service has been throttling certain game-related traffic -- albeit unintentionally.

"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."

The provider explained that it introduced a software modification to solve the issue, but a new problem has arisen following changes to the game. Rogers will have to issue another software tweak to address the new problem, but this won't be ready until sometime in June.

Although the service is mistakenly throttling WoW traffic, Rogers says this anomaly only occurs when users are running P2P applications at the same time. Murphy insists that she doesn't use any P2P software and "many" of her applications remain affected by the issue.

That said, it's worth noting that Blizzard's patch client may be the culprit as it uses P2P technology to distribute game updates among players. You can disable P2P connectivity in Blizzard's Downloader by going to View > Preferences > uncheck Enable Peer-to-Peer Transfer.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/43027-rogers-accidentally-throttling-world-of-warcraft-players.html

 

[Raswan]

Doesn't sound like an accident from here. Nice try Rogers, no one believes you.

 

[gwailo247]

Amazing how decisions on how your software will run are blamed on hardware and either end of the pipe.

Why don't they just come out and say it: We want people who buy HUUUUGE bandwidth packages, and then all they do is check their e-mail or facebook once a day. That way we pull in tons of cash, with virtually no cost. And once we get rid of people who ungratefully and deceitfully took us up on our UNLIMITED offer, which was clearly never meant to be taken seriously, and get rid of their bandwidth using asses, we make tons of money. So if you're someone who is going to be actively using their internet for over 1 hour a day, please go elsewhere.

 

[Guest]

I noticed this.

 

[lawfer]

No more WoW?! Noooooo!

 

[war59312]

A mistake, my ***!

Nothing like this happens by mistake. I can guarantee you that this was done on purpose. They were just hoping not to get caught.

And what the hell kind of fix takes two plus months to fix? Yea right!

 

[Tanstar]

Why is there no way to report posts here?

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

There is, you just have to do it on the forum and not on the front page. Click the "Subscribe to thread" link below (you don't have to check the box) then click the red triangle on the offending post.

 

[Lokalaskurar]

war59312 said:
Nothing like this happens by mistake. I can guarantee you that this was done on purpose. They were just hoping not to get caught.

Well, even though many, me included, agree with you to some extent - we all have to see both sides of the coin here. Perhaps the ISP's local servers are too old and/or using an outdated software protocol and/or too hot to operate normally and/or to cramped to upgrade into something more suitable?

And what the hell kind of fix takes two plus months to fix?

You know what happens if you put a fresh wooden log in the ground? (There is a reason why ISP-technicians doesn't use wooden shoes, you know? Yea... kinda like that )

 

[yorro]

Article meant "Rogers accidentally trolling World of Warcraft players"

 

[Guest]

Paying full price for what? Throttling everything is possible. On end you can check your email really fast. )

3web is way to go. 3web is using Rogers cable but there is no limitation in any cinde. No throttling and no monthly band limitations. Best of all faster and cheeper then Rogers. After 1pm you is about 30mp/s, usually about 15-20mb/s for download and 1mb/s for upload. check this out and forget Rogers.

 

[xempler]

The major Canadian ISP's here are a joke. They advertise amazing high speed internet service and tell you how great they are.

In reality, they throttle everything under the sun and limit your bandwidth limit to almost nothing. Basically you pay a ton of money so you can check your email and watch a few youtube videos.

These guys just don't get it. With streaming video, gaming, music downloading, etc. they should be increasing their technology and useage. Instead, they are doing everything they can to try and limit the customer.

 

[Guest]

Rogers, no one believes you and we all want you to die! You're causing too much aggravation for WoW players which makes game play not enjoyable.

 

[jeremy1982]

Definately some shannanigans right here!! Totally messed up, I would be asking for a refund lol!!

 

[lchu12]

Wonder how long this will continue...

 

[Guest]

Here's a copy of her (extremely thorough and rational) note to the CRTC (pdf)... http://is.gd/YfTKNs

 

[Guest]

I'm @RogersMelanie and I'm with Rogers.

To provide some details here. While we have fixed some issues with a software modification, new problems have emerged that we expect will be addressed with a second software update in June.

We believe the problem occurs when P2P is running while simultaneously playing the game. If you are experiencing problems we suggest you turn off the peer to peer setting within the WoW game and ensure no other P2P file sharing applications are running while playing WoW. WoW does use P2P for software updates, but with this setting changed you should continue to automatically receive software updates through other methods.

We want to stress that this is only a temporary solution. We continue to work closely with the game manufacturer and our equipment supplier to help resolve this issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience while we have been investigating issues related to World of Warcraft.

@RogersMelanie

 

[Guest]

Funny how this story is just coming to light now... This problem has been happening since September 2010 when Rogers started the heavy traffic shaping.

Anytime someone called to complain or posted on the Rogers forums we were all told it was a problem with our own networks and everything on their end was working as intended.

Also they state they have been working with Blizzard to resolve this issue however as of a week ago reps from blizzard who have been trying to contact Rogers to get this matter resolved went unanswered and ignored by Rogers.

The fact Rogers is coming out with this info now only after the CRTC stepped in just shows how they are willing to rip their customers off for long periods of time and pointing blame elsewhere.

Sad just sad...

 

[Guest]

No more WoW? More like no more Rogers. Looking at their customer commitment page, this whole incident seems like a slap in the face to us paying fools. http://www.rogers.com/web/content/support-terms/customer-commitment

Not only are they not supposed to be throttling but they are also alienating WoW gamers alike.

Thanks Rogers, it was fun while it lasted. There's a nice thread in the WoW community forum about this.