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Gov't Docs Reveal Canada's Net Neutrality Enforcement Failure

Posted by Soulskill on from the stop-or-we'll-say-stop-again dept.

An anonymous reader writes "An investigation into the enforcement of Canada's net neutrality rules reveals that virtually all major Canadian ISPs have been the target of complaints, but there have been few, if any, consequences arising from the complaints process. Michael Geist obtained internal CRTC documents on all net neutrality complaints and found that Rogers was the top target, primarily for throttling access to World of Warcraft. Other notable cases include Bell throttling access to hotfile.com and Barrett Xplore, a satellite Internet provider, rendering VoIP unusable. Despite the revelations, there have no fines, no audits, and the CRTC has even refused to investigate some cases that appear to raise obvious net neutrality concerns."

5 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Bell sucks by Tsingi · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Bell Canada was fined recently for lying in advertising about how much their services cost. They were levied a fairly huge fine, several millions of dollars. They refer to this as an "Administrative" cost.

    Internet in Canada is expensive and slow, and it will stay that way until the CRTC stops pandering to Bell and Rogers.

  2. Regulators by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Regulators should be like engineers, personally responsible for a failure to do their jobs. They should be paid well enough to accept those risks. This will draw more competent people away from lucrative public sector jobs, and ensure that they actually do the job they are required to by law.

    As of now, if a regulator refuses to enforce regulations, what recourse do people have? They are not elected, so we can't vote them out.

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  3. Um... by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So we have misleading headlines, and misleading stuff by Geist again. Big shock. Here's the thing, we don't have net neutrality rules in Canada. There are voluntary guidelines. And people got 'upset' and threw a hissyfit the last time the conservatives were going to rip the mandate away from the CRTC on internet related stuff.

    And yet the CRTC is continuing the status-quo. So what's the problem fellow Canucks? You want one, but don't want anyone to do anything about it. And you don't want those 'evil conservatives' to remove the mandate but you want the CRTC scrapped.

    You blow my fucking mind.

    I suppose the upside is old Von Cough(Konrad von Finckenstein), will be gone in a little bit with a new chairman.

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    1. Re:Um... by Chryana · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your complaint does not make much sense to me. Check the websites openmedia.ca and saveournet.ca. I don't see much criticism of conservatives on either websites, and Michael Geist's article does not even contain the word "conservatives". As for wanting the CRTC scrapped, again, neither website I have mentioned nor Michael Geist appears to have spoken in favor of that. In fact, Michael Geist speaks of having stronger enforcement of the guidelines crafted by the CRTC, hardly a call to disband it. As for your point on people getting upset because the conservatives wanted to change the mandate of the CRTC, I can't remember it, and I've been following this issue to some extent.

  4. so how do you deal with "natural" monopolies? by Chirs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    An unregulated telecom business would have no coverage in rural areas because the density isn't worth the effort. It wouldn't have universal 911, it wouldn't have interoperable services, and you'd have totally unfettered monopolies.

    No thanks, telecommunications and utilities should be owned by the people (i.e., the government).