Canadian ISPs Speak Out Against Net Neutrality

Ars Technica reports on a proceeding being held by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission regarding net neutrality. They requested comments from the public as part of the debate, and several Canadian ISPs took the opportunity to explain why they think it's a bad idea. Quoting: "One of the more interesting responses came from an ISP called Videotron, which told the CRTC that controlling access to content ... 'could be beneficial not only to users of Internet services but to society in general.' As examples of such benefits, Videotron mentioned the control of spam, viruses, and child pornography. It went on to suggest that graduated response rules — kicking users off the 'Net after several accusations of copyright infringement — could also be included as a benefit to society in general. ... Rogers, one of Canada's big ISPs, also chimed in and explained that new regulations might limit its ability to throttle P2P uploads, which it does at the moment. 'P2P file sharing is designed to cause network congestion,' says the company. 'It contributes significantly to latency, thereby making the network unreliable for certain users at periods of such congestion.'"

Comments

Stop overselling

[broken_chaos]

If you can't provide what you're being paid for, stop overselling the network you have.

"Designed"?

[SanityInAnarchy]

'P2P file sharing is designed to cause network congestion,' says the company.

Yes! Clearly, when designing a P2P protocol, my first concern was to make absolutely sure that your network would be congested, because I hate the Internet!

This isn't all about you, ISPs. It's about us, and what we want to use our bandwidth for. And yes, P2P filesharing does have design goals other than clogging your tubes.

Re:"Designed"?

[BradleyUffner]

p2p was designed to cause congestion in the same way that cars were designed to cause traffic jams.

Re:"Designed"?

[Anonymous Coward]

HTTP wasn't designed to congest networks, but as it is unicast, if lots of people "tune in" online to watch the latest Presidential address, the networks get congested. Arguably, P2P would be better in this, and multicast streaming would be even better.
Should ISPs prioritize P2P above HTTP, and multicast above P2P?

Re:"Designed"?

[Jurily]

And yes, P2P filesharing does have design goals other than clogging your tubes.

The way I see it, the portion I paid for is my tubes. And unlimited means unlimited.

People with handcuffs and shackles on

[Microlith]

are hard pressed to hurt others. Indeed, we are quite safe when everyone is controlled and limited. Sadly, Videotron is playing the typical "think of the children" and "trade freedom for safety" thing because they think it'll get them in good with the media companies.

Or something retarded like that.

accusations

[JustKidding]

"kicking users off the 'Net after several accusations of copyright infringement"

notice how he used the word "accusations" instead of anything that would imply the necessity of evidence.

Re:want the old slashdot back?

[Creepy Crawler]

But that's just the genertional gap just being shown.

Back in the old days, /. was a purists tech site. They had some funnies as in (groan), but mostly was discussion and Linux advocation. Then, we really didnt care about the legality of whatever. As long as it was technologically feasible and interesting, it was worth doing.

Fast forward past the Napster years....

We now live in a world of "Papers Please", and surveillance tech. Most of our cool ideas have been deemed "illegal", as they were gray first. The 2600 judgment said that just linking was violating. Now, most of our efforts are to try to turn this tide around, telling politicians how stupid their policies really are.

We now talk about network neutrality, but that's solved by encryption. Next they block encryption and we set it up to look like html over http "share servers". And then we have the 750-35000 dollar fine if we are found trading. Look at NewYorkCountryLawyer for those situations. He's a techie geek lawyer who fights on our side.

o, canada...

[emart]

i thought you were strong and free? why do i feel so disappointed?

Net neutrality

[Kingrames]

Net neutrality is like highway neutrality.

Would you be upset if companies were allowed to contruct paying-subscriber-only lanes on the freeway? Or if they were able to just throw out traffic cones wherever they wanted?

It really is that fucking simple. There is no benefit from any deviation from net neutrality.

Videotron as everything to loose to P2P

[Anonymous Coward]

Videotron is not not just an ISP.

They are also a cable company, phone company
and they own stores where you can rent dvds
and games.

The are own by Quebecor, which is a publishing
company, which also owns TVA, a tv station,
and stores selling video games, and the list goes on and on.

Basically, they tend to be a monopole which
wants to make you pay for everything you watch and
play.

They are certainly not neutral about net neutrality.

and that makes Videotron a .....

[zappepcs]

Fantastic shining example of why we NEED network neutrality; to stop companies like this from having a monopoly on all entertainment and in doing so drag your business and information needs into the same quagmire of unregulated information highway robbery.

Time for an information age robin hood?

This sort of greed is disgusting.

Re:"Benefit to society."

[nine-times]

Don't you know that nothing had been invented before patents? And nothing was written before copyrights?

Well that made my decision easy

[nightfire-unique]

I was about to cancel my subscription to Teksavvy (a fantastic ISP) to go with Videotron because, being cable, it's slightly faster.

Now that I'm aware of Videotron's stance on Net Neutrality (something Teksavvy is fight vehemently for), I'm canning the idea. Videotron will not be receiving my money.

Thank you, slashdot.