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Net Neutrality Bill Introduced In Canadian Parliament
FeatherBoa points out that the New Democratic Party in Canada has introduced legislation to limit the amount of control Canadian ISPs can exert over their subscribers. The bill would amend the Telecommunications Act to "prohibit network operators from engaging in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions." Support for net neutrality in Canada has been building for quite a while now. Quoting CBC News:
"'This bill is about fairness to consumers,' said Charlie Angus, the NDP's digital spokesman. It also looks to prohibit 'network operators from preventing a user from attaching any device to their network and requires network operators to make information about the user's access to the internet available to the user.' The proposed bill makes exception for ISPs to manage traffic in reasonable cases, Angus said, such as providing stable speeds for applications such as gaming or video conferencing."
Just what are these "certain exceptions"? The very fact there are exceptions, even if they aren't related to freedoms now, should be a little worrying, since the exceptions can probably be added to.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
...subject to certain exceptions. Doesn't this one line pretty much negate most of the positive potential in this bill?Several celebrities came out in favour of the ammendment, stating that they were "excited, because their online content would now deliver all this new internet money". Other celebrities were not as elated about this bill, arguing that "You're not my buddy, guy".
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
because they think it's an ice-hockey term (Sorry MetaMystics).
Disclaimer: I'm a card-carrying NDP member.
Now on to things...
I was at the TekSavvy Net Neutrality rally in Ottawa on May 27th. While it was a great rally, we found ourselves competing against a parliamentary sex scandal for press coverage. Sex sells. Arcane concepts like net traffic throttling don't, so much.
Let's look at reality. Customers of most ISPs in Canada are now traffic-shaped, with a few exceptions:
Videotron[Cable] (which substitutes shaping for a 50GB usage cap on a 50Mbps/1Mbps Docsis2.0 connection)
Telus[DSL]
A few ISPs such as Primus[DSL-wholesaler] and Colba[DSL-wholesaler] with their own equipment in Bell DSLAMS
There's a workaround to bypass Bell's throttling using MLPPP, only for subscribers to TekSavvy[DSL-wholesaler], but it requires some Linux-savvy or a modded router. To their credit, I believe Acanac[DSL-wholesaler] has set up an ssh tunnel for the same effect.
Otherwise, Bell[DSL] and Rogers[Cable] both shape encrypted traffic on their networks.
I see a lot of opposition for Net Neutrality regulations from people concerned about their impact on VOIP and such. Well, that's what exceptions in the law are for! Good on the NDP for finally stepping up to bat on this issue. That makes them the only party in parliament who can be bothered to take notice.
To anyone still opposed: Look at the massive, pervasive presence of the Internet in people's everyday lives, especially those under 30. It's about time we started treating it as an essential service. It's become one. Essential services (generally) have their quality regulated by government, and this bill is a step in the right direction.
Let's face facts. Canada is falling behind in the quality and penetration of broadband service. It's time to force the greedy telcos to invest in infrastructure instead of trying to save money by throttling their users and degrading the network for everyone!
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
That's the bill in question.
In the highly unlikely event that this private members bill makes it through to royal assent, it will have almost no effect. Telecoms will all make use of the exception in clause 2, subsection a:
'Reasonable cases' is in the area of VOIP.
One of the biggest concerns is the use of VOIP and the internet interfering with it. Some providers offer a VOIP based service with their internet package.
This is the 'exception' case that is to be allowed.
I just don't see how or why people like to scream bloody-fucking-murder on everything. The point is that for once someone (well, a group of people) is finally taking notice to an issue that has been around for a while. I know it's slashdot, but please... grow up.
Even here in Greece I see typical DSL performance which is to say the least crapulent. Being charitable I'll pretend OTEnet (the former state monopoly) isn't traffic shaping (heh - that's why my torrent of ubuntu dropped dead to 10Kb/s)...
Funny that it does that after about an hour regardless of time of day...(well not always but too often to be attributable to teh interweb being busy from Greece).
A car which may or may not be able to hit 100kph with the wind behind it being sold as a Ferrari wouldn't be acceptable (unless you're a retro Citroen freak).
A Ferrari with three wheels one of which refuses to be circular on wednesdays if we're driving to visit a mistress (hey i'm in southern europe not the puritanical domain of the U.S) wouldn't be acceptable.
Some traffic shaping is inevitable. But it's a stopgap measure not an acceptable solution. If 90% of new traffic is e.g. bittorrent then the answer is either to make this premium usage (and spell it out in the contract) OR STFU and put more capacity.
Should be really simple - either *BE* a provider with acceptable use spelled out transparently or *DIE* in the marketplace.
BTW I think the "exception" is to soften the blow for ISPS so they don't end up sued to death. YMMV. Remember - legislators are mostly (ex optional) sharks^H^H^H^H^Hlawyers so there will always be exceptions. Good luck Canada. Now if we can only persuade the UK to tighten the screws and torch the bloody Phorm thing - which ought to worry everyone much much more than traffic shaping...
Which leads me to a truly dumb idea. Allocation of the RF spectrum is controlled internationally via the ITU (A UN organization). Given the nature of the Internet shouldn't it be regulated the *same* way? (Running for bomb shelter and donning asbestos undergarments right now...).
Andy.
Good use of crap, roses. Bad use of crap - Vista.
VOIP might be a reasonable case for prioritising a single protocol, but unless the bill spells specifically states VOIP and nothing else, then it seems likely that the telcos will continue as they are now, and claim each instance of throttling is allowed under the "reasonable cases" provision.
Hence the question - who decides what's a reasonable case? You clearly have your opinion, the ISPs will almost certainly have a different one, their customers are likely to have yet another, and the opinion that matters will likely end up being that of a judge - which may or may not reflect the intent of the bill. If the author had listed specific cases then this bill might have some value. As it is, it stands an evens chance of enshrining into law the ISPs right to tamper and throttle to their hearts' content.
I don't think "who decides what is reasonable" a particularly childish question. Rather, it cuts to the core of the matter: if this bill is to achieve its apparently purpose, then which cases are and are not reasonable need to be specified with far greater precision.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
The UK rail system. It is universally acknowledged that privatization was a disaster just to make the fat cats fatter.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
The idea would be that the IAPs should split their bandwidth fairly among all their users. In its bandwidth share, the user should prioritize its outgoing traffic. The IAP should shape the incomming traffic fairly between each of its user. In this scenario, low latency network applications are dead (video conferencing/telephony/video games...): in an home network lan, the momy is watching a HD internet TV channel, the boy can forget playing online its favorite FPS and the girl cannot have a decent IP phone line call. That's why there is a exception to let the IAP to shape further specifically on low lantency protocols... but they will never be able to embrace all past-present-futur low latency protocols on the net. Of course they could favor only the protocols of big bucks corporations. So you could trash any open low latency protocols...
But there is a another way: IPv6. Indeed the protocol does have labels that let you tag traffic. Its means the user network apps can tell the IAP equipement what type of traffic they send. So the IAPs can apply shaping rules based on that type of traffic on cross-user boundaries. Nethertheless in a traffic priority class, the IAP still has to provide fairness among users. Basically, fairness among user is not applied on traffic as a whole but on a per traffic class basis.
Of course in the real world, low latency traffic will have to be shaped to very small bandwidth... smart users would push their P2P traffic on high priority. The idea on high priority traffic classes is to have just enough bandwidth to let signaling, highly compressed voice, intense action FPS game data. Of course, you can have several high priority classes. BUT there is a BIG exception to all of this, emergency services: for instance you want to call from the net the "internet US 911". In this case the IAP equipement will have to know without IPv6 label that you are calling an emergency service (IP based shaping, but amount of IPs must be minimal to avoid overloaded routing tables and increased latency that will degrade internet quality significantly).
I let you imagine what it will be when users will have Fiber To The Home with upload bandwidth on a 100's of Mb scale!
This does mean, rewritting many network applications. Deep IAP topology reconfiguration. More expensive IAP equipements: must be able to perform shaping extremely quickly in order to minimize the latency cost(=forget high level protocol shaping or shaping based on too much data(IPs)).
And the last but not the least... IPv6!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Would that not fall under the whole reasonable exception part? Looks to me like the bill allows for QoS and so your VoIP connection could reasonably be prioritised. IANAL though so please correct me if I'm wrong
Silly rabbit
These regulations' only justification was the inherent inflexibility of the particular markets. If a consumer dies from food poisoning, he will not be able to switch to a different supplier. If a building collapses, (most of) its occupants will not be able to opt for a better builder next time. This provides some justification to government's preemptive interference in some cases.
Internet Service Provision is vastly different. A dissatisfied customer remains perfectly healthy and is able to switch to a competitor very quickly. Ensuring availability of wide variety of such competitors is what government should concentrate on.
Instead, we may well get saddled with very few very big ISPs, who will negotiate a (near) monopoly (a'la AT&T) from the government in exchange for the on-paper adherence to various regulations, which may be too cumbersome to pass through as laws ("net-neutrality", porn-filtering, cooperation on eavesdropping, etc.). The companies will then, inevitably, outsmart the regulators making the rest of us (far) worse off.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather just switch ISPs, than file complaints with government bureaucrats... Free market is usually the best regulator.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.