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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."
But isn't this sort of thing traditionally covered in the fine print of the contract?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
They're not throttling dedicated lines, they're throttling oversold DSL/Cable and it's covered in AUPs. Neither is there anything wrong with traffic shaping, I don't want my SSH/FTP connections slowing to a crawl because some drooling tard is bit-torrenting Hentai with a high upload ratio.
Net neutrality is a different debate entirely.
This is a case where a problem is being solved by law vice technical means.
Much like the SPAM problem, you'll never be able to legislate the Internet.
Consumers should vote with their money. If ISP#1 is throttling, then stop subscribing. No other ISPs in the area? Get satellite access.
In the mean time, engineers should start working on things like TOR, Freenet, and encryption to ensure that the content on the wires stays free.
In any event, if you allow government to make inroads into what can and can't be legislated online, pretty soon, they'll legislate everything.
This is one Pandora's Box that should not be opened.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
The Free Expression of Thought is never useless. Just because you think "classic video games of the 70s" is a waste of space does not mean the owner, or his visitors, think it's a waste. Don't be elitist. Support egalitarianism (where all people have a right to pursue their own hobbies, and share their thoughts with the world). Don't sit there and say what is or is not "acceptable speech". It is ALL acceptable because we ALL have an inalienable right to speak our minds freely.
CANADA:
What will likely happen is that Rogers (the consumer) will located a new ISP provider that will not throttle their bandwidth and then say, "Goodbye Bell". That's how the free market works.
We vote with our dollars.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Who's to say that your Downloads are any more important than the Hentai downloads?
In a society where all our treated equally under the law, such a distinction cannot be made.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
You mean a few selected stores selling a small selection of goods to a price that's marginally lower than in the real world, without any possible competition at all since the airport decides who should be allowed to sell?
Sounds pretty much like what we'd get without net neutrality, and what the big telcos would like to see.
c++;
yeah, right. Let's all pretend that you couldn't tunnel content in ssh or that ftp was never used for wares ( or hentai for that matter).
The idea of traffic grooming is fine as long as the customer knows what he is buying into. Most customers wouldn't know bandwidth grooming from overbooking & this is why it happens.
If they did know, if they were made aware of the fact that their spanking new DSL advertised at XKb/s is worth X/10 worth of their favourite content, they'd likely choose alternatives -- If any were to be had.
Truth in advertising, content labeling shouldn't just apply to vodka, medicines or peanut butter.
Oh, yeah, Bell Canada was selling "groomed" bandwidth to wholesalers who, being just as unscrupulous, passed the ersatz access on to unwitting customers. I guess they all subscribe to the W.C.Fields school of customer relations
--caveat suconis
Shaping isn't realy the issue most ISP's will shape if theres high load on the network but this isn't what is happening with Bell and Rogers they don't have a bandwith problem in most places. In major cities there is a giant pile of dark fiber. Rogers ran as bundle as big as my head a couple of blocks from were I work 2 years ago, the point is the invasivess of the shaping based on application, meaning they are monitoing the protocols and what is in the packets not the overall bandwith thats the problem
http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=162439
explains some of the issues in simple terms better than I can
Regardless, it's not my fault or problem that my Hentai torrents are slowing your SSH/FTP connections to a crawl, it is the fault of the ISP that you paid for bandwidth which you are not getting and your fault for continuing to pay them. Why should my Hentai torrents be faulted when I am merely using what I paid for?
This is one of (many) places where conservative economic/free market politics just don't work.
While the right wing economists tout the free market as the solution to everything, arguing that an unregulated market is the only way to approach pretty much everything, there are cases where the market is dominated by 1/2/3 players that cannot be avoided. We, as consumers, are not able to vote with our dollars - we have no choice. We did have a choice - Bell was allowing ISPs to resell DSL and manage the data themselves, but when they realized that meant that people (who know/care about such things) were flocking to the unrestricted ISPs, they squashed that avenue to unrestricted net access.
The other competitor, Rogers, hasn't opened their network up to competition (that i know of), so they can do whatever they feel like.
That leaves us with the occasional small wireless isp with leases lines, satellite (slow), or of course, leasing our own line. Yes - we have options, but no, none of them are good for the consumer. Without government regulation, and with the small size of our market (ie: very little competition), the few major ISPs will control our destinies, and it's only a matter of time until they start with tiered data speed.
Web - sure, fast as you'd like, it's highly compressible, proxyable, no big deal.
Email - sure, but you can only have small attachments, but we'd prefer you use our free webmail service.
Music? Only if you buy from our store (or from stores that we have deals with), otherwise, we're going to filter you. Otherwise, we'll limit you.
Video? Only if you buy from our store (or from stores we have deals with). Otherwise, no bandwidth for you.
Overall data? Sure, your unlimited plan will apply, if you shop in our stores. Otherwise, here's a cap. enjoy!
I think the real problem is that Bell/Rogers/etc have been severely overselling their networks without paying the money to upgrade them. Our monthly fees have been slowly creeping up instead of dropping (you'd think I could get high speed internet for cheaper now than I did 10 years ago, but you'd be wrong, for the same level of service). Our connection quality has been dropping. The service level at the ISPs is consistently poor. However, Rogers and Bell are turning out huge profits every quarter. Why? Because they've managed to find a way to provide the minimum of service for the maximum of profit, and their shareholders love it. And ultimately, in todays world, the shareholder is the more important measure of a business than their customers. So long as the share prices stay up, the businesses will continue to do whatever they want. Once the prices start to slip, and they will, or once a better level of competition is introduced/forced, then we might see customer focus becoming a priority.
There are some that say any regulation in business is bad for the economy, that we should let businesses set their policies, and the customers will go where they feel is best. But when there are no reasonable choices, when there is no competition, then the customer loses and big business wins. The government must step in and regulate, until such time as market conditions exist to enable the free market to take a go at managing themselves again.
Positive reinforcement hasn't worked so far, it's time for negative reinforcement. Bad doggy, no treat for you.
$0.02 CDN.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
Ahhh, spoken like somebody who truly doesn't know what they're talking about.
First of all, Bell owns pretty much all the lines, the "last mile" required for any ADSL connection. That leaves pretty much Roger's as their only major competition, as they are a cable-internet provider (they are not a consumer).
There are many other ISP's that offer ADSL services, but they all use Bell lines, and the big issue currently is that Bell is throttling the traffic of their customers. Many of these companies, such as my own provider - Teksavvy - offer reasonable and good service, and have been quite vocal about how Bell is interfering with their services.
So really, the only choice other than Bell is... well.. Rogers. Unfortunately Roger's has a lack of affordable premium options (static IP's, etc), also throttles, port-blocks, and is in general known for service no better than Bell.
That means that:
viable options for the average consumer = 0
The saddest part is that Bell is still getting a cut from all the companies that are leasing lines to provide ADSL service, while doing almost nothing themselves. I would know, because as I've mentioned before, I'm on an ADSL connection that is craptastically slow due to the fact that Bell has overextended the connection to their CO, rather than adding a local repeater/node.
The only other option I could think of would be the local hydro company's (in Toronto at least) wireless offerings, but unfortunately those only work in certain areas, and mine isn't one of them (I've heard that the service is fairly decent though).
But that's impossible. Bell controls the phonelines, i.e. the 'last mile'. There are only two currently viable methods to get broadband to the consumer, cable (Rogers), and the phoneline (Bell).
The free market works great, when there's competition. But there's no competition going on here. Little guys like teksavvy only exist because Bell is mandated to lease their lines.
While I wouldn't be so hasty to jump on the conservative hate-wagon, I have to agree that Mr. Jim Prentice is a gigantic waste of governmental space. The man has proven time and time again that he serves only the interests of big business, and in his tenure in office hasn't done a single thing for us consumers. If this was my country I'd have the man tried for treason - he's failing to represent not only his constituents, but ALL constituents in Canada.
If he is promised 6M on the download, and that's what he uses, then I will have to disagree with you. It doesn't matter if he uses the pipe getting hentai (care to share?) or is using it to chuck linux ISOs about. He is not using it beyond the specifications outlined. He is using 6M and no more.
You're missing the real problem. I'm gonna pull numbers out of my ass, because I have sinus problems and pulling them out my nose right now would prove impractical. If net company X has a total of 100M of bandwidth they can sell, and they only sell it in 5M chunks and only to 20 people, then everyone can download at their max speed, no one notices, everyone is happy. Sadly, that's not what company X is doing. They have 100M of bandwidth, this is sure. They sell it in 5M chunks. But instead of only selling it to 20 people, they sell to 40. If all 40 people use the 5M of pipe they were promised, company X shits bricks, at best each customer is only getting half of their promised bandwidth, and people are cranky.
The point is, in that scenario, it doesn't matter what each customer of company X is DOING on the bandwidth they are promised. It shouldn't matter. They were promised 5M a piece, and because company X OVERSOLD the bandwidth to make more money, assuming their customers would not use the full potential of what they were sold, everyone gets screwed. Everyone except company X who is now making more money, probably gives shitty customer support, and won't use the money they got to upgrade infstructure and equipment.
FYI, I use Cox Cable in Oklahoma. They're a pretty decent company, but their up time ratings SUCK ASS.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Might be a good time to start up a ISP that doesn't throttle.
Actually, in my business life, I'm part of "big/medium business". My business interests generally align with my personal interests. So far I've seen little evidence that Mr. Prentice has taken my comments seriously, either from a business or a personal perspective, so I wouldn't say it is because he is all for big business.
While I was formerly an active PC member, I have no interest in this Conservative Party. They aren't making friends even in places they should be.
The industry minister's response is like saying in the controversy concerning battles at the arena, the Industry Minister said "we will continue to leave the matter between the Christians on the one hand and the lions on the other".