Net Neutrality Debate Intensifies In Canada

MrShaggy tips us to news that the debate over Net Neutrality in Canada is coming to the forefront following the recent discovery that Bell Canada was throttling P2P traffic on the access it had sold to wholesalers. Michael Geist's blog notes a video recording of comments from a member of the Canadian government, as well as coverage from Canadian media. From Ars Technica: "The Canadian government has in the past pushed the CRTC to deregulate the telecom industry, an approach still backed by Minister of Industry Jim Prentice. Prentice also wants to stay out of the current net neutrality debate, which would seem to be a de facto vote against the idea. He was asked in the House of Commons this week whether his government would do anything about the current Bell/Rogers traffic-shaping controversy. According to the Globe & Mail, Prentice said only that "we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and Internet service providers on the other."

You canadians are all alike...

[Pikoro]

"The Canadian government has in the past..."

Does that only strike me as having come straight out of a South Park episode?

What the hell.

[moogied]

Is anyone else really confused about these ISP's aren't being sued to oblivion for breach of contract?? I'm no expect(ok, I work with wan lines pretty often, but still), but if I have a serious line(say, a t3?) and I find out the SOB ISP is throttling ANY of my data(or even reading it), I will bring an unholy hell of a lawsuit upon them. The likes of which makes most lawyer's cry themselves to sleep. What the hell is going on??

Re:What the hell.

[Gazzonyx]

Usually, though, a good amount of the fine print doesn't stand up in court.

I think the fine print usually equates to putting on a really thick winter coat under a bulletproof vest; yeah, it's technically extra protection, but if you're at the point where you need it, barring a miracle, you're probably already screwed. You can put anything in a contract, but if it says that you don't have to support your other obligations within the contract, it won't stand.

IANAL and I only took 1 business law class in high school, so I'm more than likely wrong. ;)

Government Regulation isn't always bad...

[Cordath]

Especially in a market dominated by a very small number of giants. When there's no competition, there's no way for consumers to vote with their wallets other than to do without internet access entirely.

I'm fortunate to live in an area where there are *two* competing monolithic ISP's, but if they happened to both engage in these practices I'd be hooped.

Re:Govt Regulation == Bad

[morari]

I suffered with satellite for years. I was among the first one several different systems. I remember having to upload with a dial-up modem in the beginning! If I had to choose between going back to satellite or having a throttled cable connection, I'd choose the throttled cable connection without batting an eye. It may be throttled, but at least P2P activities aren't blocked altogether and threatening to push you over the pitifully small and ridiculously overpriced bandwidth limit.

Only recently was I able to get Time Warner's internet service, and I don't see any other options opening up in the future. I live a little too far out for any to consider me a viable demographic. Just because I don't like the crowding and pollution of the city, go figure. The internet doesn't need regulated, but the providers do. The free market won't work itself out in favor of the consumer when there is no market to compete in (and maybe not even then).

Re:Govt Regulation == Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is the problem. The CRTC says that Bell must provide access to DSL wholesalers who them provide their own access to the internet. Bell started throttling their own service (Bell Sympatico) so customers started going to these wholesalers who buy access at the DSLAM level. Bell then started throttling the wholesalers at the DSLAM preventing them from providing a better service than Bell. This is the important issue because it shows that Bell doesn't want to upgrade the infrastructure, it wants to kill all their competition.

Hello, are you there 911? hello?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another possible issue. If I understand correctly (I'm not yet throttled), the way that Bell's traffic shaping works is that once a certain protocol is detected (Bittorrent, for example), the entire DSL service is slowed down to something like 30KB/s.

So here's a scenario: I'm downloading a torrent of 'Canada's next great prime minister' (ha!), so Bell is throttling my connection. Suddenly, I suffer a medical emergency and need to call 911. I use VOIP for my telephone service (since Bell doesn't offer the kind of features I want). Since my connection speed is now artificially capped for ALL protocols, just how well is that phone call going to sound? Will the operator even be able to understand me? Am I expected to go to my computer and stop my download first?

(Yes, I do use QOS on my router to prioritize VOIP calls over all other traffic, but I have no idea how well this will work in a throttled condition)