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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."
Canada is unfortunetly under the minority rule of a conservative government that doesn't want to intervene too much in the economy etc. so it's normal that they reject net neutrality rules since they love big telco lobbying as well. This won't last too long. It's been a year since they've been in power and already the canadian population has become sick of this goverment. I predict elections this spring and with the result of a minority liberal government that will pay more attention to these netneutrality rules when time will come.
Adi
Well, at least Ma Bell knows best. They know what's best for their customers. Riiiight.
It's a series of tubes, ya hoser.
"it knows that this runs counter to recommended policy, and it doesn't care"
Yeah! Screw the people! It's not like we work for them anyhow.
We are all just people.
are we fucked? I actually had hopes in the Canadian government but it seems all they are capable of is causing shit. And what kind of a government would leave a thing such as THE WORLD WIDE WEB in the hands of business'?
Q: Know why Canadians do it doggie style? A: So they can watch the hockey game.
Hell, some of us in the States do it for the same reason.
I haven't thought much about Net Neutrality until Comcast disconnected my HSI service and terminated the account because I used the internet too much. Now I'm finding people all over the country who have had similar problems including a journalist for the Deseret Spectacle.
I've found other people throughout Utah who are dealing with this problem. My search has lead me to other states with people asking the same questions I have been asking .
This is just a couple of instances where Comcast has demonstrated unfair business practices. I'm wondering if Net Neutrality would curb this sort of abuse from companies. I'm ok with following the rules (don't get me wrong). But to be expected to minimize Internet usage without knowing what the rules are is pure B.S.
Heck, I've had people on my blog accuse me of all sorts of stuff. Unfortunately, it's not even close to the truth.
If I'm misunderstanding what Net Neutrality is please enlighten me.
BTW, if you are from Utah and have been disconnected by Comcast please contact me by posting on the blog. I receive all messages. I'm compiling a list and plan on passing it along to Bill Gephart. We've been working for the last few weeks to resolve this. He's already begun interviewing people I've found. Thanks!
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Let companies prioritize their delivery, but when they advertise performance, they're only allowed to use the lowest common denominator. Time Warner can then stream HD stuff just for their customers, but when they advertise 4 megabits down, they aren't allowed to throttle anyone below it.
Seems like a "blamecanada" tag actually is appropriate, at least if this sets a precedent...
It's been a year since they've been in power and already the canadian population has become sick of this goverment.
Let's hope. I can't wait to see Bush-lite in the unemployment line.
ok. so. FUCK. i can't vote, but that wont stop me from bugging my mp. everyone else, please do the same. remember, it's only a minority government. liberals plus anyone else is a majority.
Don't blame Canada. Blame The Tory Government, of Canada.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
A bunch of hosers, eh?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Government regulation is not incompatible with a free market. In a free-market society, government exists to enforce agreements between people. It is itself an agreement between the people to create a set of rules by which other disagreements can be resolved.
For example, if the people say, "Dumping pollution into the rivers is bad", in a free market they get together to define "pollution" and enforce the rule. Government is only the mechanism by which that happens. The market is still entirely free.
Of course, actual governments are composed of people who can be persuaded not to do their jobs properly. And the final results are always far more complicated than "don't pollute". That's why conservatives (confusingly also called "classic liberals" by economists) tend to prefer less government rather than more: the less there is the easier it is to see where it's going wrong. Just like in code.
So I'm reluctant to let the government enshrine net neutrality rules before we see what the big companies actually do. It restricts the ability to innovate, not just by big companies but also by small ones. Once the big companies actually start engaging in nightmare scenarios (e.g. forcing you to use their own download services rather than a competitor's), then regulation will be in order.
Agreed. Anyone, telcos included, who thinks they've accomplished something by getting this government to agree is just blowing smoke. The Conservatives aren't going to last more than a few more months, and the polls indicate that their chances of returning are pretty low.
Of course, the odds are that whoever wins, it will be a minority government, and the Liberals are every bit as much the ass-whores of big business as the Conservatives.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Since the government controls and often forbids people laying fiber or cable across public land they have a responsibility to make sure the companies they granted rights to are controlled to meet the needs of the people or they should authorize everyone and we can have a rat's nest of fiber all over. I like the rat's nest idea, because it's better than being a slave to Telus.
Um, freedom of information? Or do you like the idea of living in a world where there are "great firewalls" everywhere a la China?
Haven't you heard of net neutrality before? This also have NOTHING to do with blocking content. Please look up what it actually is before you comment further.
ISPs are not the ones "providing" any content in the first place. What they provide is a means by which to reach content provided by other sources, regardless of ISP. So by going against net neutrality in any small way, ISPs are simply restricting content, not providing it.
And Charter doesn't seem like it will do this either. it sucks that other companies that want this are getting their way.
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
Funny after all the complaining and ranting about US being a bunch of sick bastards for not wanting to surrender the internet, the complainers ended up being none other than more politicians who wanted the power for themselves. What power hungry leader is a US hater to idolize?
Ma Bell had to swear to uphold net neutrality for a certain duration of time (two years?) when they merged with Bell South. If they didn't agree to that, the merger would've been shot down.
I'm willing to bet that that time frame was set because it would give the dems enough time to pass Net Neutrality legislation. Yay for the FCC.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
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
I all honesty, what hasn't the Harper gov /not/ fucked up. In fact, every decision they've made, everything they've done, ONLY benefits the rich. Anyone surprised by this hasn't been paying attention.
Also, there's absolutely nothing that can be done. They'll just "go it alone" and do whatever they want to do anyway. All that without communicating at all with the media because they want our journalists to write down the question before press conferences and our journalists refused (yes we have real journalists here).
Hey, US people. We now have an un-government too! Now all of North America is fucked!
Once again it seems that large corporations have managed to win the day because people are stupid and/or lazy. Whenever a remotely complex topic arises, they manage to confuse the issue by making claims that the topic being discussed is really something else and they're against that something else. In this way, they and politicians lobbied by them can argue against that something else, while voting against the topic at hand. People with party loyalty can simply choose to believe them, and most everyone else is confused enough by the disconnect so that the big boys get their way.
In this instance, the issue is net neutrality. Basically, it was asserted that since much of the infrastructure was funded by the government and since many of the last-mile providers have government enforced monopolies, maybe it would be wise to ensure that companies are forbidden by law from discriminating against traffic on their network based upon who sent that traffic. For example, this would mean AT&T cannot intentionally slow down or lose VoIP packets from some company unless they treat their own VoIP traffic the same way. Let me repeat the important part here. Net neutrality is about stopping discrimination based upon who sends something, not what is being sent.
So the big companies hire some PR firms to make up a new issue, which they can claim is what the net neutrality laws are really about, and which the average person might conceivably be against (since no one in their right mind could argue that net neutrality as described above is a bad idea). So they claim that Net Neutrality is about stopping telecos from discriminating based upon the type of traffic. They use the example of file sharing networks as "bad" traffic they want to be able to run slower. They use VoIP as traffic they want to ensure runs faster. All the while they make sure to outright lie and claim that the proposed net neutrality legislation would stop Quality of Service traffic shaping.
Every time an expert looks into it, this is shown to be false. How many evaluations have we had now that say QoS is not restricted by proposed net neutrality legislation? And what about encryption? Widespread deployment of encrypted tunnels makes discriminating based upon the type of traffic useless anyway, and would certainly be adopted (and has been) to foil and attempt to use QoS to discriminate. So the entire argument is bull crap.
The net result of all of this is most people who have heard of net neutrality being completely misinformed about what it is, or scratching their heads in confusion while the large network operators laugh their asses off and prepare to discriminate against competitors and start extorting money from certain Web services providers who don't have anything to do with them other than the fact that some of their traffic ends up transiting their network, providing an opportunity to waylay it like some sort of internet highwayman. Hey Canadian government, I hope you're proud of yourselves for helping to undermine the most important innovation in the last 20 years.
I don't know about Canada, but here in the USA the so-called conservatives and liberals are both populists. From your comment, it sounds like it's true up there, too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I agree completely. It makes perfect sense to throttle large http transfers in order to provide low latency on VOIP packets, for instance. That's what QoS is all about.
If an ISP is providing stupid service, people will move away from it eventually. That's what the free market is about. If an ISP is too oppressive about their traffic shaping, people can find another ISP.
Yay flamebait... but I'm cold, so what the hell.
The internet is a marketplace and the ISPs are at the doors. If you're, say, Youtube, and have a really swell stand at the market selling refrigerators, they can in theory extort money out of Youtube by not letting people in to see the refrigerators at all, or by only letting people pass through turnstiles, thereby precluidng the purchase of refrigerators.
At the same time, they can fool people coming into the market by advertising having a really big gate that funnels down to turnstiles that you can't see from the outside. You pay to pass through the big gate and are later screwed at the turnstiles because you realize there's no way you can leave with a refrigerator. All this would be fine if the number of doors was large as market forces would dictate price and availability of access, but doors are few in any one area and it's hard to build new ones.
In the long run, the market may die from this, but it may not, and at any rate I don't like the situation.
How's my analogy meter?
On the upside, if there is an upside, the days of the current Canadian government are numbered. We have what you might call a multi-party system (multi > 2) and the current party rules only on account of tentative support from other parties, and that ought to run out on one issue or another sometime this calendar year. We can only hope they don't pass any legislation regarding this (or any other) matter in the meantime.
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
These situations make me embrace the idea of Québec's independance from Canada. The companies have much less influence on the Québec government than Canada's.
iTx Technologies: Open source development in Montreal
We are talking carriers. Bandwidth providers. They want the privilege of being allowed monopolies for laying cables on public lands and other functions, and then they want to be able to tell the people how they can use said monopoly granted resources that the customers are paying them for. They get to provide monopoly services for the good of the public, and then they also get to define "good of the public". Seems a bit fishy to most.
... impeding competitive market outcomes....rigid net neutrality legislation may prevent such innovation. Except that user's don't have choices in ISPs. There are usually only 2: the local telecom and the local cable company. That's not enough to allow market forces to kick-in. Hence the need for regulation.
...previous business models that attempted to limit consumer access to content (e.g., AOL, Compuserve, otherwise known as 'walled gardens'), have failed... This is completely different. AOL and CompuServe were not ISPs, and they didn't advertise that they were ISPs. That was pre-internet and doesn't apply. Besides, we are talking about subtyle slowing-down internet traffic, not walling it off.
...without differentiated treatment, there may be no incentive to pay for the actual costs, resulting in under investment. The usual FUD about how Google gets a free ride, which isn't true. People think it makes sense if they don't know about peering.I wrote a quick-and-dirty anti-FUD article in an attempt to correct these misunderstandings. If anyone is fooled by the above arguemnts, point them there.
Except most yankees do it to watch foossball.
Of Code And Men
That our government - like most Western governments - is firmly in the grasp of big business, and no longer really represents the will or interests of the people. Welcome to the "Illusion of Democracy". Government seems to consistently represent the interests of corporations over the interests of the people, at least at the Federal level.
:(
Unfortunately, the Conservatives got in based on support of a lot of the older demographic, mostly in reaction to the horrid Liberal Government we had for years. The only thing I can't believe is that they were willing to elect Stephen Harper. The guy seems so insincere, so slimey, I wouldn't buy a used car from him. I can't believe hes head of the country at the moment. Its a sad period for Canada.
Time to contact your MP and protest I suppose, although I no longer have much hope that can accomplish anything. Our country seems to have the best politicians money can buy
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
If by "populists", you mean "lying assholes", then yes, you're right.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Well, I pride myself on not being "most yankees". Football, at least the USian version, used to just be one day a week in the afternoons. I could hold out through that. This season it was what, 4 days a week, with some in the evenings? Don't know. Now, hockey can be seen almost every evening during prime "not at work and not asleep" hours, so... Sometimes you just HAVE to multitask.
I wish the moderators hadn't marked this as a troll
... think of it as the local neighborhoods vs. the interstate.
The problem is that there are local ISPs, and then there are the 'Tier 1' folks who have the big networks where data flows through
I haven't looked at the wording of this bill, but many of the 'net neutrality' bills that I've seen would cause exactly the problems you're talking about. So, suddenly, as if 'CAN-SPAM' wasn't bad enough in legitimizing spam, we'd end up with the spammers calling 'net neutrality' when some ISP tries to filter out their crap. (same with any other mass filtering done at the ISP level).
I'm okay with ISPs filtering or doing rate limiting on traffic that starts or ends in their network. I _am_not_ okay with them doing the same for traffic that passes through their network. (even for spam -- I want to judge what is or isn't content that i want).
We're in a free market -- if an ISP gets a rep for censoring / traffic shaping / etc, it opens up the market for an ISP that doesn't do that, and can offer its customers better service. I don't know of any way to police the big guys, except contractually through peering agreements. (let's see if brand 'X' continues to shape traffic, when no other Tier1 ISP will talk to 'em)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I wonder how much a canadian MP costs. Love to buy a couple. Sad to see that Canada is for sale.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Is anyone really surprised? This is the same guy who undermined our national interests by widely circulating calls for action against Canada for our smart decision to stay out of Iraq in 2003. His buddies at the US based "National Review" even called for bombing Canada for our decision to stay out of that idiotic war. This is the same guy who has regularly called Canada and Canadians "stupid" and refers to us as a "northern european welfare state". The guy hates Canada, he wants us to imitate every policy of the US government, and would probably be happiest as "state governor of Alberta" rather than a Prime Minister of Canada.
ISP use to only provide a conection. Now almost all ISPs, especially broadband, have their own services that they want to provide. Mostly either VOIP or video downloads. To clarify, the DSL providers want to provide streaming video, and the cable providers want to provide VOIP. This has created a turf war. To add to the problem, most local goverments have different laws and regulations for phone companies and cable companies, which each is using to push the other out of their turf. A hypothetical example would be phone companies being required to give 30 days notice to the city to install phone lines on an easment, and the cable company needing a permit. This is compounded by the two fighting over things like, is streaming video over the phone regulated by FCC guidelins for broadcasting or telecomunication. Many companies have already started loosing packets or slowing them down for competitors services. As they fight over these things, they are keeping an eye on sites like google and seeing dollar signs. As they gain more control, and the regulations are straitened out to give them a level playing field, they will start providing more services as well as connections so that they can maintain some monopoly status. Net neutrality is about what the internet will be like in 10 years, not next year.
Remind me again what makes Canada so superior to the USA. I seem to have forgotten at the moment.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It seems clear that some Internet providers (large and small) have some interest in limiting, censoring, or otherwise filtering their customers' content. Likewise, governments appear to have little interest in banning those same providers from doing just that (not to mention little ability in drafting legislation actually aimed at banning it). Companies have all kinds of reason to limit content (which they consider a benefit to their customers), and governments have little incentive to stand in the way of what could possibly be a better system.
If providers are going to do it, and governments aren't going to stop it, what can those of us who aren't convinced this will be better do? The obvious solution is to prove the providers wrong: new providers specifically targetting customers who don't want this service. The problem is that many of the providers who want to limit content control a disproportionate amount of the Internet itself. So how about instead of trying to force providers not to limit content, governments and consumers aim to force them to provide uncensored content to other, smaller, providers?
That's it. First this right-wing government gets in, then Bev Oda starts pushing RIAA-like rules, and DMCA crap comes along.. and now anti-net-neutrality! I'm done. I'm moving to The USA where they don't have these prob.... oh... hrmm... Engla... no.. France? ehhh... Russia, here I come!
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
I completely agree that shouldn't fix a problem that doesn't exist yet, and may never exist.
I'd like to remind people that Rogers (an enormous cable internet provider in Ontario, and elsewhere) are using traffic shaping with Bit Torrent traffic. Would net neutrality fix that problem? If so, I'd say the problem is already here!
We do not need tolls on the information highway. Imagine applying the non-neutrality logic to our road systems. Cars restricted to only the inside lanes or the local roads while the big fleets dominate the middle and passing lanes because they pay a fee to get such access. No thanks. If the telcos want more revenue then they should focus on infrastructure and greater bandwidth. Whatever happened to fiber? If the Canadian government cows under then they are toast.
The way it works is as follows:
... never mind, I don't want to get sued for slander.
We elect Liberal 'the natural ruling party' governments. After some years they get arrogant and lose touch with the electorate. We punish them by electing the Conservatives. The Conservatives do something stupid/rotten/illegal/immoral during their first term but the electorate doesn't figure out how bad they got screwed until the second term. 'The natural ruling party' is elected for a few terms until they get arrogant and the cycle repeats.
As in all things there are good politicians and rotten ones. The actual thieves (there were only one or two) in the Liberal party are gone and the really arrogant morons are mostly gone. Things should be good for a few years but power does corrupt. Bev Ota (Conservative minister in charge of bringing in evil copyright legislation; if she can get away with it)
Without net neutrality Slashdot's parent company could have blocked any attempts by Digg to prosper. Microsoft could have blocked Google. YouTube wouldn't have amounted to much compared to Google Video. Net Neutrality helps great ideas become reality. We would never even know about many of the little startups that have become the great sites that they are today.
Matthew 10:21
I agree that if an ISP has the ability to prioritize traffic there could be benefits to the users. However not all ISPs may be as good intentioned as the one in your example. I could see an ISP not wanting a lot of gamers using up their bandwidth and throttling their rates back instead.
What about big telecoms who have a vested interest in not allowing VOIP to cut into their profits?
It does worry me that spammers may use net neutrality laws to prevent their networks from being black holed.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
How long will it be before the Culture Nazis in Ottawa start requiring ISPs, etc, to prioritize their notion of "Canadian Content" over other traffic on the net?
What's next: Every 4th byte of traffic passed by an ISP has to originate in Canada?
dave
It's a sad, sad day... :(
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
I am not Canadian but it seems to me like you are having the same problem that the US is having with elections. You only have two major parties. As long as we limit ourselves to two parties and flop back and forth between them because the party we elected last term did something we didnt like, the system is never going to change. I think the only way to see real reform is to throw both parties out and find a third option. I am not sure about elections in Canada but I know it is possible for independants to run for office. I think it is high time we really taught both partys a lesson and evicted them.
I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
Sorry, had to nick pick.
Oh man, Bell must be rubbing it's hands together with glee. Considering that many smaller ISPs in Canada are acutaly resellers for Bell, I wonder if this means Bell can also slow down any content that is flowing through their resellers' accounts.
The day I notice this in my day-to-day browsing is the day my ISP gets a call from a VERY pissed customer. I bet ISPs who don't do this will get a flood of people switching to them.
Sorry, but this got modded insightful?
Let's wait until we're in the middle of the problem before we look at fixing it? That's like saying don't fireproof your house until it's on fire.
This sort of reactive approach to legislation is moronic, since it's very hard to remove entrenched abuses of the public good as compared to precluding them from happening in the first place. The whole thing gets bogged down in the courts while the status quo persists in the real world.
It's obvious that what the telcos are after is revenue streams (nothing evil here, it's what all companies are after), and unless there exists legislation or profit-related reasons to prevent them they will exploit any and all control they have in any way they can conceive to further grow their revenues. Let's be clear, the only group in all this who could feasible stick up for the common good are the gov'ts involved, and only because if they don't they fear we'll vote them out of a job next election.
I wonder how much more $ it will cost the Canadian Government to keep their internet presence, er.., snappy?
I know that they would like to keep their hands off but this might be an exception.
Somehow I don't see Google or MS paying Videotron in Quebec to get "better service".
I hope google and Friends just blackout Videotron to teach them a lesson.
Also, what happens if I get an email from a friend that's a Videotron customer.
did Rogers pay Videotron, yet?
did Videotron pay Rogers, yet?
Man this gets dumb very quick.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I haven't thought much about Net Neutrality until Comcast disconnected my HSI service and terminated the account because I used the internet too much.
How much did you use? Did you get a warning letter or just summarily dropped? Local franchise agreements might have something to say about this.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The ma bell comment is worth modding up.
The whole "net neutrality" debate is built on the assumption that the communication system will continue to be a either a monopoly or cartel with a very small number of players in the market.
Personally, I think the best solution to the bandwidth puzzle would be to have a vibrant infrastructure with a large number of companies providing backbone services. If there are enough players in the market, the market will help minimize prices.
With net neutrality ruling the universe, you cut out the ability for smaller providers to sneak in a grab lucrative niches here and there.
Of course, actual governments are composed of people who can be persuaded not to do their jobs properly.
I only learned this term last week: Regulatory Capture. It's very useful while discussing lots of what gets debated here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The parallels between Harpers Administration and the Bush administration are almost universal. Except that Harper is actually more the brilliant strategist like Karl Rove than he is a Bush like figure. He keeps an extremely tight reign on the press and his MPs. The only info that you get from the conservatives is completely vetted by Harper. Harper is the new conservative party.
I have a lot of respect for his ability. Which is the scary part, because I completely oppose him. Nothing is more frightening, than a very skilled operator who opposes everything you believe.
The more I observe, the more I am convinced that we are going to wake up and say how did we elect Harper twice? The first time everyone understands. It was a time to punish the liberals for scandal(though I still voted Liberal). This time I expect ultra slick campaigning from Harper, a wedge issue here and there. The attack ads from the Conservatives have already started. Brilliant really keeps the Liberals from wanting to force an election. If they do you have a head start.
Years of watching US politics has me well versed in the Karl Rove play book, but I don't think most Canadians will see it that way. His base will get energized by the wedge issues, the attack adds and their attempt to paint themselves green will win over the middle.
Harper majority? Can you say private health care accounts? Scary times.
Now it's being used for commercial purposes, but it isn't designed to give a fair service (I'm subsidising heavy users), nor does it have proper accountability so it's difficult to know who is screwing around (worms/botnets etc). Basically it doesn't reflect any reality/real-world/firmly-grounded/tried-and-teste d system that I'm familiar with. The result is rapidly moving towards chaos. Time to close those open ends.
I've just watched Mark Russinovich's video on malware/rootkit detection and removal, and keeping in mind his closing remarks and my own thoughts on the subject I am going to do what a friend of mine has done : open a 2nd bank account that is never accessed via the internet and shove the bulk of my money in to it with a 'standing-order' to keep my normal account healthy. You may think OpenBSD is the solution, but the fact is the cleverer blackhats keep their discoveries to themselves; so we really can't ever know how vulnerable we are.
Forget net neutrality: someone dismantle the internet. Come back Compuserve/Cix/MSN: all is forgiven.
First, what do you mean here by "free market"? The only consistent definition I've run across for the term essentially means a nonaggressive market society (i.e. a society where ethical/moral behavior is defined in terms of property rights, homesteading, and contractual transfer of ownership). However, since governments are defined by "legitimate" aggression -- any organization that was not considered "legitimate", or did not employ aggression, would not be called a government -- the very existance of a government, much less government regulations, is by definition impossible in a free-market society. In a free-market society a "government" has no legitimacy -- from the definition, there can be no legitimate aggression in a free market -- and is thus no different from any other criminal organization.
On the other hand, you may have been making the common mistake of confusing "perfect competition" with "free market". That seems to occur all too frequently.
I think this is closer to the definition of the common law than to that of government. The common law is a protocol for resolving disputes -- and completely compatible with a free-market society. Government, on the other hand, does not primarily resolve disputes; it may occasionally do so, but its core purpose is closer to social engineering via organized aggression than genuine resolution of disputes between private parties.
This example is interesting because pollution was originally a common law, issue resolved through the courts; it had nothing to do with government rule-making. Some time during the Industrial Revolution, though, the courts decided to drop the property-rights approach to pollution disputes in favor of an ideology rooted in merchantilism and utilitarian calculus. (This ruling would never have been accepted in private arbitration, for obvious reasons, but this was a government court and its rulings thus generally beyond challenge.) If the courts had just done their job at the time and ruled according to property rights there wouldn't have been any opportunity for government to get involved, and the market would have remained free in that area.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
We already have too many laws, we don't need more! If you don't like what your ISP does, then move to another ISP, or start your own ISP! If people want cheap, and fast internet, then the ISP has to make money somehow...
This isn't a Conservative decision. This is a decision by the CRTC. While the CRTC is technically a part of the government, it isn't even really run by the government (it's run by a judge that wasn't elected by the government). The only way the government has power over the CRTC is to pass laws to contradict what the CRTC decides, which is obviously a major pain in the ass and a very slow way of doing things. The Conservatives plan to disband the CRTC as soon as it is feasible because of this sort of stupidity, along with the fact that many Conservative supporters are immigrants and are being prosecuted for paying for foreign TV from their homeland (illegal in Canada, by CRTC rule, unless the CRTC has granted them a license to broadcast in Canada, something many stations with only a few hundred possible subscribers just don't care to do).
This is unlike all other parties that *want* the CRTC to intervene in *more* decisions because without the CRTC, according to the CRTC, we would never see another Canadian show again and all TV would come from the USA (this despite the well known fact that it is much cheaper to create shows here than in the US -- I guess Americans don't mind buying from here when it's cheap for goods [like lumber and electricity], but hey, when it comes to cheap labour and filming rights, studios love to pony up the cash to stay true to the stars and stripes. L Oh Friggin L!)
What's next, blaming the local school board for traffic jams?
Agreed.
The really scary part for me is that Canadians are getting/have gotten that "I don't listen to 'outsiders' b/c they are 'morons'" attitude that average Americans have. To me, that means that at least a signifcant portion of Canadians will not have that realization. They'll think everything is fine. That is unless they are directly affected. Which is unlikely b/c they go along with the party line.
We live in frightening times, indeed.
You lease politicians. You can never really buy them. You lease them for a few votes then return them back to their parties - just like a leased car going back to it's dealership.
Use your postal code at this site, and you can find out how to contact your MP.
Oh, and Liberal or Conservative, it's all the same mess. The Liberals were a bunch of criminals and it's likely the Conservatives will end up that way if they stay as long as the Liberals did as well. Welcome to politics. These days, one party only does something because the other party doesn't want to. Remember why you hated the popular kids who ran for student council? Yeah, they 'grow up' some day too. Half the reason we have half the problems we have today is that the people in charge everywhere are the people who want to be in charge, not necessarily the people who should be in charge.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
I can ensure that my car moves faster than yours if I ensure that your car moves slower than mine.
only if you're considering them relatively.
if both sites a and b load in 2 seconds, you can double the speed of a in two ways
1. leave a alone, but make b load in 4 seconds (relatively faster, though a still takes the same time)
2. leave b alone, but make a load in 1 second (absolutely faster, as a takes less actual time)
it's a pretty fundamental differance and i personally consider method 2 the only acceptable one for the "b doesn't pay the companies for faster (really the same as before, rather than restricted) access, but a doesn't" example.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
That I'm glad I don't live in Soviet Canuckistan...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
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
STFU, all of you, we all know this is slashdot and no one here gets laid nearly ever !!! Let alone watch hockey or football. Now go play world of warcraft!
The more I observe, the more I am convinced that we are going to wake up and say how did we elect Harper twice? The first time everyone understands. It was a time to punish the liberals for scandal(though I still voted Liberal). This time I expect ultra slick campaigning from Harper, a wedge issue here and there. The attack ads from the Conservatives have already started. Brilliant really keeps the Liberals from wanting to force an election. If they do you have a head start.
No, while I agree that Harper's approach is inspired by Rove, I don't think it's going to play out like the U.S. Harper got in because of the sponsorship scandal and Martin's pathetically desperate campaign.
The current situation favours the Liberals. For this to change, we will need to see either a very tempting carrot dangled by Harper (along the lines of the GST cut), or a major mistake made by Dion. Either of these are still very possible. I think Dion is painting himself into a corner with his position on Kyoto, and I think bringing on Garth Turner was also a mistake.
I think don't think Harper will successfully be able to paint himself green. His image is too much that of an Alberta oil guy to achieve this. His goal now will be to keep the government from collapsing until after the fickle public's eyes have wandered away from the environment file.
http://www.saskndp.com/history/mouseland.html
The story you quote was, a you obviously know, often told by Tommy Douglas. For those who don't know, he was elected the greatest Canadian. http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/ He was an honorable man even when nobody was looking. Even in my darkest most cynical hours, I am forced to admit that there was at least one unimpeachably good politician.
lol.. This isn't neccesarily any problem at all. The problem is that the argument against net tutrality can actualy be seen in a way that doesn't hurt consumers. In the process of delivering it this way, it also can make the argument for net nutrality seem rediculous. And when this happens, one has to wonder why net nutrality should be supported.
The american FCC chairman said it best and the telco's are adopting a position simular to it. As long as the comitment to the consumer is met, there shouldn't be a problem. So the telco's are saying that if they sell you s a customer 3 eg access. You will always have files at 4 meg reguardless of were they come from. No without net nutrality, It will be possible to charge google a fee and get their services delivered at 4 or 5 meg with the priority being delivering their content at that speed compared to other actions/services the user/customer might be doing/using. And we structure this to pay for needed upgrades that will bring better services to the customer. In this scenario how could you lose? You still get high speed and google get a better presence.
The problem lyes were the scenarios being presented don't show the history of telcos publicly claiming they want to get rid of competing services using this same method. If you take the stated positions form previous engagments literaly, you will notice they want to give you 4 meg access, limit how fast google will present services to below this 3 meg unless they pay a tax on top of the service. So in order for the customer to recieve thier agreed apon service from the telco/ISP, someone will either have to pay or suffer delivery problems. And the politicians don't know this as well as the other side isn't preenting it directly to them in a way they can understand.
In the end, the net nutrality concerns apear to be based on the complexity of getting a better service to market as well as extra expense of negotiating the new speeds with all the networks it passes though.
In reality, the telco's have been succesful in taking the meat from the complaints of the net nutrality crowd, at least from the surface. You don't need to be utra conservative or ultra liberal to see this either. You may have a few politicians who are more up to speed on the real issues but they are either unconvinced of the real problems or unable to present them in a convincing way to their collegues. The telco's even made the claim it would cost the consumers more money if net nutrality to happen. For this to be true, then they mudt be convinved that a raise in rates will happen and the only decision will be to charge service providers more or the consumer. Net Nutrality would mean every consumer.
So instead of blaming this on a political party, lets look at the efforts being made, forget we already know the details and device how to make hanges or develope a program that is simple enough for all the outsiders to see the problem as it is (or we fear it is) and the best solution is our way (net nutrality). It doesn't matter what lobby they love, If we present the facts properly to the people, they will find it neccesary to follow their will or look like someone shilling for greedy companies. And no, calling them evil and greedy isn't going to be enough on their own.
I'm definitely disturbed by this news. However, this is more a case of TELUS flexing their political muscle than Harper flexing his non-existent political muscle. Technically TELUS already violates net neutrality; there's a special gateway for routing Google (traceroute www.google.ca from the TELUS network). Not surprisingly, no one has complained yet.
d ian-customers yet, but this is definitely the writing on the wall. I haven't said it in a while, but they definitely deserve it for this bullshit: Screw you TELUS! I haven't wanted to give you money in 5 years, and this is yet another reason I don't. Burn in hell beside Microsoft and Novell!
However, TELUS has a terrible tendency to overcompensate when they actually do something. Don't like certain servers sitting on residential line? Block incoming ports on residential service and call it an anti-virus policy. I don't want to pay TELUS anything and still have DSL service -- not possible because you need a phone line and you can only get one from TELUS. They just lurk in the shadows for ages, then BAM! they have a policy they want implemented -- and it happens. Keep in mind that the infrastructure that made TELUS big was paid for largely by Canadian Taxpayers and now once again, we have to sit back and watch TELUS make self-serving decisions with property that was given to them by the Canadian Public.
This is crap. I don't care if Google loads 2ms faster or is available even when other sites are not. We haven't seen the pay-TELUS-or-your-blog-gets-slow-delivery-to-Cana
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
How can some one (or some organization) that has a vested *monetary* interest in the outcome of such a decision possibly be trusted to act in the best interest of the public?
Answer: It cannot!
This is utterly ridiculous and I can only hope that Canadian citizens protest this move and protect their rights to net neutrality.
Unbelievable! If this passes I'm scratching Canada off my list of places to go after I pay my debt off and leave the country.
So reading a bunch of comments here and I've done a bit of research on net neutrality and as stated by other posters it more or less gets rid of QoS. Now I understand why this is so troubling for the majority of the people because it could affect services they use.
But my question is, how would they implement QOS? I recall when I did my comp science degree, in my 3rd/4th year networking classes they showed us inetv and diffserv (if my memory serves me correctly). These were router based protocols that would allow QOS. But the thing is it wasn't really feasible because these protocols required EVERY single router had to have it which when you look at the grand scheme of things wasn't going to happen thus never becoming reality.
So, how would they implement such a system now a days? Has things changed that fast? Please correct me if I'm wrong on my info:) Thanks
Since the big telcoms plan to begin this silly business of selling speed to providers, it is time to begin the infrastructure for alternative internet provision. What alternatives can we craft that provide reliable, unbiased internet service to home without their interference? Many ideas come to mind, most of them involving wireless.
Foo
Oh god, someone get the clearisil
Trout's epitaph: Life is no way to treat an animal.
Are the "That's it! I'm moving to the US!" comments :-)
No, no, silly. It will be, "That's it! I'm moving to Sweden!"
And I've read Ayn Rand; as Tom Wolfe said about Marshall Macluhan, she hit some "very big nails not quite squarely on the head". She was right about many things, wrong about others, and slavishly quoting her is a sign of intellectual poverty.
What was once true, is no longer so
Hmm... where could we find that kind of money... If people cared about public works, and actual societal improvement instead of entertainment improvement, it would get done.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Harper majority? Can you say private health care accounts? Scary times.
Yeah, it would be pretty terrible if the residents of a free country could legally spend their own money on decent health care services instead of dying on waiting lists. We must put a stop to this Harper fellow.
There are 3 things that are loosely connected to "Net Neutrality"
1.QoS. QoS means giving, say, VoIP packets first dibs at what bandwidth is available and then giving, say, BitTorrent the rest of the bandwidth. If no VoIP packets are being sent, BitTorrent would be able to use 100% of the bandwidth (assume for example purposes that only VoIP and BitTorrent are ever being sent over this link). This is something ISPs SHOULD be allowed to do and shouldn't be charging extra for.
2.Traffic Shaping. This means restricting the amount of bandwidth that BitTorrent (say) gets regardless of what else is being sent. Even if BitTorrent is the only thing on the link, it still cannot use the entire bandwidth available. This is something ISPs should NOT be allowed to do.
and 3.Discrimination. This is what people talk about when they talk about giving more bandwidth to CNN than to YouTube or giving more bandwidth to Comcast VoIP than to Vonage. This is also something ISPs should NOT be allowed to do.
Many large ISPs (via their PR and marketing flunkies) will claim that unless they are allowed to do points 2 and 3, they will be unable to provide service at all because all their customers will sit on BitTorrent or YouTube all day downloading large videos. This is a blatant LIE. ISPs DO NOT need to throttle or discriminate in order to provide good service. They are only going down that road because they don't have the guts to do the RIGHT thing and make the bandwidth hogs pay more for their service. And with the monopoly markets we have now (at least in America), customers will have no choice but to accept the new download limits.
ISPs who have "download limits" but wont tell you exactly what criteria (how much traffic etc) will get you cut off or limited or whatever are the worst.
I'm sorry, I had to say it.
Seriously speaking, no matter what government is in, it's big business who lobbies to get things like this. As previously stated, the CRTC is in charge of this so quit bashing our current government. They won the election fairly so suck it up, we had to while the Liberals were in power.
The problem we have is this: Telus does cell, Internet, land line, VoIP; Rogers does cell, Internet, cable, land line, VoIP; Bell Canada does cell, Internet, satellite; Shaw does cable, Internet, etc. See the pattern here? Vonage comes in and undercuts the telcos with VoIP and they get scared. How can they defend themselves? Simply reduce the priority of their competitors so their product appears to be the 'best'.
With Internet television and on-demand products from whomever wants to offer the service competing with them, they have to do even more drastic things to make their service look like the best. It's kind of like the ISPs going after Google (months ago) for people using the search engine. Google, along with these other providers are paying their own fees to their providers and shouldn't be impaired because they don't give into extortion.
Fellow Canucks, call/mail/email your local MPs and ensure they know what's going on and what your opinion is. If you don't let them know, stop complaining!
The Canadian government is taking a more libertarian approach than the Americans? Colour me surprised.
I don't know about Canada, but here in the USA the so-called conservatives and liberals are both populists. From your comment, it sounds like it's true up there, too.
If only. Populists would mean that they're actually in some way responsive to the population; in reality, both parties pay lip service to the citizenry while their true loyalties are to the corporations that bankroll their parties, and effectively get them elected.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Yeah, it would be pretty terrible if the residents of a free country could legally spend their own money on decent health care services"
Nothing stops you from spending money on health care. You can always jump the queue by going to the US if you have a lot of money. Harpers mentors pet project is to get rid of medicare and replace it with private health care accounts. In other words the end to universal health care and millions of uncovered Canadians.
I am sure that sounds wonderful to selfish rich bastards.
Before you go spouting off, it helps to do your homework.
I used to work for an ISP, and unless things have dramatically changed in the last 5 years, the ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) are required to keep the phone service side of the company separate from the ISP side. (of course, as they offer package deals for phone/internet/tv in some markets, I don't know how much the rules have changed).
As a line provider, they fall under the FCC definition of 'Telecommunications Carrier':
As a common carrier, they're regulated by Title II of that act, which states:
Although the ILECs are a government regulated monopoly, they are required to set tariffs so that others can purchase line services from them, and they are required to be non-discriminatory. Personally, I don't like that the ILECs are selling port services (ie, connection to the internet, vs. the physical line to the premesis), as I feel it gives them an unfair advantage. They are in fact two seperate services that are necessary for a connection to the internet, and that most end-users never see, as they only pay a single bill to their ISP (unless they're on dial-up, but then they rarely think of things in these terms)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The situation in Canada, as in most of the civilized world (which excludes the USofA), is that the Internet is unregulated, but ISPs can buy transport from regulated common carriers. Canadian telephone companies are common carriers. That means they must provide service at a defined price to any willing payer. And the CONTENT of the service is ENTIRELY off limits. The telephone company, in other words, is not even allowed to know what ISPs are doing inside their payloads.
Canada also has a rule that cable companies who offer cable modem services must offer them to unaffiliated ISPs as well. This has NEVER been the rule in the United States. The Supreme Court upheld this in 2005 (the Brand X decision) and the FCC totally misquoted them in saying that telephone companies need no longer provide common carriage to ISPs. So in Canada there are usually two choices, vs. zero in the USA.
When there are many ISPs, "neutrality" just happens. ISPs figure out what to carry and what not to, at what price. ISPs determine who's a spammer and who's not. A free market operates. That's why there have been few real violations of neutrality in the US so far -- the FCC revoked common carriage as of August, 2006, and the biggest phone companies are under two-year weak neutrality obligations, as part of merger conditions. Plus IT TAKES TIME to install the deep packet inspection filters that will break neutrality. Verizon and SBC/ATT can work as fast as they know how to (not very) and would still need until, say, the 2008 campaign is under way in earnest before they are technically capable of slanting what you can get over their wires.
Canadian phone companies can muck with their own in-house ISPs (what most DSL subscribers take, to be sure) but if they get bad enough, they have to let other ISPs use their wires. That's why neutrality rules aren't needed. The US should restore common carriage, not regulate every ISP's content.
You're essentially blaming the rich for being rich. That's pretty lame.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
To answer UbuntuDupe and to give additional information ontop of jZnat's post:
Yes, you can abuse network and get yourself a better treatment by falsely labeling your traffic.
Of course it will work only until everybody else start falsely labeling their traffic too which will at the end work as if there is no QoS (i.e. like today, but for greater price - QoS have to be implemlementd in network equipment and then this equipment will be processing QoS).
hany
>>If I invest my money to run a wire from mofn to bfe
Nope. Its not YOUR money. It's OUR money taxed from us to and given to YOU as subsidies so that YOU can lay "pipes" to regions that are generally not profitable for you.
And when its our money, You better pull your head out of your as* and do as WE say.
As you are so fond of saying, "when its my money, i damn well will do as i want."
You are damn right. Its OUR money and we damn will force you to do it out way.
Oh, BTW read pages 234-247 of Ann Ryand to really understand what it means.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
"You're essentially blaming the rich for being rich. That's pretty lame."
No I am saying anyone in favor of private health care accounts (that screw the poor and middle class) is essentially as selfish bastard and also rich. I have no problem with the rich who understand that it is better for everyone if we have social programs like medicare.
I would be better off if we scrapped all social programs, let everyone keep the money instead of taxing them for these programs. Then fend for themselves when illness or tragedy struck. I would come out ahead on this, but a big swath of people would not, and suffer under such a system.
IMO anyone who advocates for the increased suffering of others so he can have a few more dollars in his pocket is a greedy selfish, mean spirited bastard.
Clear now?
That all very fine, but you fogret one thing, the telcos did not buy the land where they run the wires. I read Atlas Shrugged, I suggest you read it again, nowhere it there I found something saying there should be governement approved monopolies that can use the public land for free to put their equipment and then charge the public for it.
the liberals only pay attention to self-promoting issues
Unlike the Conservatives? You mention trust funds (I think you mean income trusts, genius. Trust fund is what enables Mulrooney Jr to spend all his time at pissups)? Do I need to remind you that your precious Cons campaigned on the promise to eliminate those trusts? And then reneged on their promise and weren't going to do it until the opposition hammered them to do so in parliament?
Also, how about Con Heritage Minister Bev Oda and her tax payer funded limo to the Junos? Or how about how Bev Oda is thoroughly owned by the Recording Industry? You know, Hollywood's Member of Parliament?
I think the Libs deserved to get ousted, but anyway you slice it, he Cons are worse.
They did nothing about it (or anything else for that matter) when they were in power.
You're right. Far worse to do nothing than to sell out your nation to corporate interests.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, but keep in mind that the system in place is non-legislated net neutrality (BT traffic throttling aside). Ma Bell hasn't started charging Google yet. The whole net neutrality thing is intended to force the status quo to remain the er... status quo.
The free has proven itself time and time again as the most efficient method to get systems up and running.
I think that the one false assumption in your argument is that companies competing in the market have to have a full fiber network connecting every city. A much more interesting structure is one where there is a large number of companies in the market handle smaller sections of the data communications puzzle. In such a situation you may see a large number of players in competing for traffic between New York and Washington DC. Basically, where there is a bottleneck, different players would jump into the market with capacity to help relieve the bottleneck.
This really isn't quite as much of a pipe dream as it sounds. A decent ISP or a decent web host will have contracts with more than one carrier, and they will distribute their load through different carriers. Carriers often have multiple contracts with other service providers. If you do a tracert from distance, you will often find your packets going through switches and cables owned by different companies.
A vibrant market would have a whole mix of different types of companies. Some companies would own only switches. Some would own cable between on select demographic areas. The one thing I would want to avoid is a situation where one company owned the whole shebang.
Q: Know why Canadians do it doggie style? A: So they can both watch the hockey game.
No one is advocating scrapping the public health system. Anyone who claims that is just fear mongering. The most anyone is advocating is a parallel private system, much like the UK, where people who can afford to can get quality care. Not only would this be more in line with a free country, it would relieve a great deal of the financial pressure on the public system.
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We already have private health care for lots of things (drugs, dentists, physiotherapy, etc.). All most people want is the same freedom for primary health care.
I don't know who you think these selfish rich bastards are, but anyone who is actually rich already gets care in the US when they need it. Paul Martin, Belinda Stronach, etc.
And let us not forget that champion of the Canadian health system, Jack Layton:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.htm
"No one is advocating scrapping the public health system."
t ephen_Harper.htm
That is precisely what Tom Flanagan, Harpers closest adviser, advocates.
-- not to mention Flanagan himself. He has never blanched at owning up to his most contentious beliefs: scrapping medicare in favour of personal medical savings accounts --
http://www.notacolony.ca/101104A_The_Man_Behind_S