Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
If you can't provide what you're being paid for, stop overselling the network you have.
'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.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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.
I would prefer they elaborate on this generic "benefit for society" that comes from protecting the copyright interests of corporate entities. I don't really see how this particular item helps all of us lead better lives.
"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.
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.
i thought you were strong and free? why do i feel so disappointed?
"they didn't know it was impossible, so they did it!" - Mark Twain
Anyone who's dealt with Videotron before recognizes their double speak. They have a long history of draconian practices such as capping the bandwidth of their users at a very low level, preventing the use of *any* sort of server, charging $50 per static IP you request, etc.
They go out of their way to rip off their users and then try to impose the same draconian measures on their competitors in order to discourage users from jumping ship. The same applies to Bell.
The Canadian government should outlaw any one company from owning *both* the infrastructure and service components of media services. Right now Bell is abusing their monopoly on phone lines to lock competitors out of the ADSL space and Videotron monopolizes its control of cable lines to lock competitors out of the TV space.
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.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
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.
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.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
No. Net Neutrality ensures no discrimination based on traffic source or destination. This has nothing to do with Quality of Service filtering, which is discrimination based on traffic type. They can still throttle my P2P all they like, they just can't throttle my access to YouTube because YouTube didn't pony up some "high traffic site fee".
What blatant misdirection! There's a huge difference between blocking spam and viruses in order to protect customers against hassle and harm, and blocking access to content because it allows you to make a buck once the content producer begs you to please stop blocking their content. Protecting customers against spam and viruses is a service; blocking content because the content provider hasn't paid you off, on the other hand, is extortion. Net Neutrality is supposed to prevent just this kind of extortion.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
http://www.saveournet.ca/ for supporting net neutrality in Canada.
Maybe we should make the tubes owned by a public company that leases lines to ISPs rather than letting Rogers, Bell and all these other companies do it.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
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.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC