Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Government Rejects Net Neutrality Rules
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian Press reports that the Canadian government appears ready to reject net neutrality legislation, instead heeding the arguments of large telecommunications companies . Michael Geist has posted transcripts of the documents which can be summarized as the government thinks that blocking or prioritizing content is acceptable, it knows that this runs counter to recommended policy, and it doesn't care because it plans to the leave the issue to the dominant telecommunications providers."
Put another way, companies that can afford to pay the extra fees will be high-speed, while companies that can't will be on dial-up speed. Wanna go surfing at 1200 bps again?
What was once true, is no longer so
However, VOIP & HTTP requests can be routed with different priorities - VOIP is sensative to lag, HTTP isn't.
The concept of traffic shaping is to provide a QoS [Quality of Service]flagged route for packets which maximizes the use of the fastest, cleanest routes for lag/packet loss sensative protocols, while relegating less sensative packets to routes which may not be as responsive. The Telco extention[perversion] of packet shaping is to convert the selection criteria from protocol needs to accounting balance. Thus some of the Canadian telcos have already started to throttle Vonage service to the point of compromising service quality - remarkably just before they roll out their own service which doesn't seem to suffer the same problems.
Find your MP and put the pressure on, please. I've already called mine (Laurie Hawn), to find his position on the debate. The rep at his office had never heard of the Net Neutrality issue. While I hope this isn't common, I wouldn't be surprised. If your MP is a Conservative, put the pressure about how damaging this will be to small businesses, startups, and our fancy new "Knowledge-based economy" idea. It may be easier to convince the Liberal or NDPs about how damaging this could be to the consumer. I urge EVERY Canadian on Slashdot to put in a courtesy call or two to their local Member of Parliament. While you're at it, contact your MLA to see if you can help pressure your provincial government as well. I'll include links:
Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland
Northwest Territories
Nova Scotia
Nunavut Territory
Ontario
Prince Edward Island
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Yukon Territory
Actually NDP and libs were about neck and neck during the last election (within a few percentage points). No one really noticed because the big story was the conservatives winning. The NDPs greatest obstacle is getting the Canadian population to stop believing that the NDP will never win. They have alot of support. On top of that, because of our stupid voting system, there are ALOT of would-be NDP voters who are scared of the conservative party winning, and end up voting strategically in favour of libs. It is worth noting that all of our small useless parties are left leaning. It is also worth noting that our one big right leaning party was formed by combining two smaller right leaning parties. You can thank our voting system for this stupid states of affairs where the majority of Canadians are clearly and decisively left leaning, but we are ruled by a minority conservative government. Crappy.
I am a bit disappointed in the federal government now though..
I am more than a bit disappointed with this government. Besides hacking away at social programs, increasing taxes for the lowest bracket ( http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2006/01/06/taxes-tor
- Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society...
- I don't know all the facts o-n Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans.
- I've always been clear, I support the traditional definition of marriage.
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In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.
- "I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians
I have nothing else to add except that I am saddened by the current leadership of my country .