CRTC Issues Net Neutrality Rules

An anonymous reader writes "The CRTC today introduced a new framework to guide Internet service providers in their use of Internet traffic management practices. ISPs will be required to inform retail customers at least 30 days, and wholesale customers at least 60 days, before an Internet traffic management practice takes effect. At that time, ISPs will need to describe how the practice will affect their customers' service. The Commission encourages ISPs to make investments to increase network capacity as much as possible. However, the Commission realizes that ISPs may need other measures to manage the traffic on their networks at certain times. Technical means to manage traffic, such as traffic shaping, should only be employed as a last resort."

Comments

As someone living in Canada..

[Anrego]

.. and I know this will get -1 troll.. but I have to say it...

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..

and of course.. FUCK!!

Re:As someone living in Canada..

[Anonymous Coward]

the CRTC really proved who has the pants in the family.

effectively, the ruling says "all we have to do (as ISP's; and let's not forget there are really only 3 flavours here) is provide notice that we are doing...everything we are already doing, and can now do it in a more legitimized way. thanks CRTC, the cheque is in the mail."

this really doesn't bode well for any new competition in any communications arena, including cell phone services, as the only players are the one's mentioned above.

for anyone mentioning that 'they own the pipes, let them do what they want". the canadian taxpayer subsidized the development of the networks involved, they were not privately funded. at the same time, money provided via a service charges on all bills was to go into a further system upgrade. the money seems to have never made it, and the companies continued to charge the fee and pocket the money the entire time AFTER the goverment had told them to stop it. it finally took a supreme court decision (yep, they fought it the entire way) to force them to spend the money on more than just fresh decorating the their offices.

Re:As someone living in Canada..

[BitZtream]

You bitch, but its better than what you have now. Right now they don't have to even tell you.

This doesn't seem to preclude having a different law requiring it to be fair. This is just to make sure it is disclosed to you.

Re:As someone living in Canada..

[Anonymous Coward]

I am surprised that no coverage on slashdot for this:
http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/ Details is on the site.

This is a online petition for Canadian who are dissatisfied with our CRTC. Currently there are 8495 signatures and need another 1505 to go before this petition is submitted to the minster in charge of the CRTC.

Contrary to the name, this petition is aimed at getting a new CRTC from people that cars about Canadians. It is not about removing it let things go to hell as it is already.

>The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was created for the purpose of ensuring broadcasting and telecommunications systems serve the Canadian public and ensure that Canadians have a wide variety of options to create and view works of media or communicate across the country and the entire world.

>We, the undersigned, believe that the CRTC has become a burden on the Canadian public and are failing to perform their duties in the interest of the Canadian public and that of a fair and unbiased telecom policy.

Re:Ownership

[Anrego]

"Their pipes" were built with government money.

As someone who pays taxes.. I expect the people who run the network I paid for to do so in a way that best serves me..

Useless

[foo fighter]

ISPs will be required to inform retail customers at least 30 days, and wholesale customers at least 60 days, before an Internet traffic management practice takes effect.

Most locales have de facto ISP monopolies. This ruling will just give customers 30 days warning of a rape, with no practical way to avoid it. Arguably better in theory, but no different in practice.

Last resort

[darthwader]

We tried positive visualization, prayer beads, and yelling really loud at the routers. Nothing worked. I guess we'll have to implement traffic shaping now.

Shaping vs Crippling

[Adrian Lopez]

An ISP would therefore need to seek the Commission's approval before it implemented a practice that would:

        * block the delivery of content to an end-user, or
        * slow down time-sensitive traffic, such as videoconferencing or Internet telephone (Voice over Internet Protocol) services, to the extent that the content is degraded.

So ISPs can't slow down time-sensitive traffic without prior approval by the CRTC, but there's no restrictions on slowing down other kinds of traffi, perhaps even to the point where the link is useless without being completely blocked? That's exactly the reason why I fear traffic shaping. Far too often it's used as a way to cripple people's connections rather than provide clients with true "quality of service".

Thank you, CRTC

[yamfry]

We appreciate that you are encouraging the incumbent oligopolists to "make investments to increase network capacity as much as possible" by providing them with an incentive to do the exact opposite. I guess that's what happens when friends regulate friends.

Re:Ownership

[causality]

Yes, just like the railroads in the 19th century that were paid for by the government. There's a reason we called the people who then refused to give any money back to the government or listen to government legislation about the railroads "robber barons." Fun fact: When this was going on, one of the strongest opponents of the robber barons was Ambrose Bierce whom you may know as the writer of an "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "The Devil's Dictionary." If he were alive today he would likely be railing against this sort of poor treatment of net neutrality.

I am not fond of putting it this way, but it happens to be the truth. The robber-barons were successful for one reason and one reason alone: the government and the citizens didn't have the balls to do whatever it took to hold them accountable. They caved and they kow-towed. So the robber-barons were enriched, no one liked it, and no one did a damned thing about it.

Had the government instead revoked their corporate charters and sold all their assets at public auction for failure to comply with the legislation, we would all be telling a very different story. Even more so, if this had been accompanied by a widespread boycott of all rail services, with the intention not of reforming them, but of driving them into bankruptcy. I am not fond of it and I don't like it, but every now and then a message along the lines of "don't fuck with us" needs to be delivered. This seems perfectly acceptable when corporations take minors to court over copyright. I see no reason why the citizens should hold back and refuse to take every lawful action available to them to keep the corporations in check.

Uhm, no

[Senjutsu]

Did you read the ruling?

ISPs don't get to throttle at a whim. They can throttle, but if they do, they have to demonstrate to the CRTC that the throttling is as narrow as possible to solve the problem and, importantly, economic measures like tiers, or building capacity would not solve the problem. They're also not allowed to throttle any protocol so hard as to effectively block it, or throttle things like VOIP without advanced, explicit permission for the CRTC.

That's a big improvement over the status quo at the moment, which has allowed the ISPs to throttle for years with no oversight for any reason they felt like.