What Canada Can Teach the US About Net Neutrality

blottsie writes If there are two ways in which the Internet is similar in the United States and Canada, it's that it's slow and expensive in both places relative to many developed countries. The big difference, however, is that Canada is looking into doing something about it. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission—the northern equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)— is examining how the wholesale market, where smaller Internet service providers (ISPs) use parts of bigger companies' networks to sell their own services, should operate in the years ahead. The industry reaction to this proposal provides insights to the potential consequences of re-classifying broadband in the U.S. as a Title II public utility.

Comments

Need a better opinion

[rogoshen1]

Could someone (who is preferably a frequent contributor) explain what this article is about in no less than 20,000 words?

Thanks.

Re:Need a better opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, aboot the fact I'm an AC Canadian eh.

Bud, in Canada, there are two main companies: Shaw and Telus. Telus does adsl and Shaw does cable. Alright, time for a beer eh, brb....Okay back! Sorry about that!

Shaw and Telus have stingy rates and stingy services. Only a hose-head would use them. However, there are other companies who use Shaw's cable and Telus' lines and provide a service through them for a MUCH cheaper rate. That leaves more money for your pet beaver, and groceries like bacon and poutine.

For example: A company called Lightspeed offers 6 MBPS/1MBPS ADSL for only $29.95 where as Telus' cheapest plan is $58/month for 15 MBPS and probably offers the same speeds due to caps and availability. If you really want the 15MBPS, it is still much cheaper to go with lightspeed. Lightspeed uses the EXACT same infrastructure as telus for 3/5s the cost. F*ckin eh bud! Take your computer out for a rip! When you first hook up internet to your igloo, usually Lightspeed will even send a Telus contractor to hook it up directly to your outer wall.

Same goes for Shaw, there are a few companies (including lightspeed) who sublet cable companies. Probably is, when there is a hockey game and everyone is using cable, your internet becomes as slow as frozen maple syrup. So usually everyone uses ADSL.

Sources:
http://www.lightspeed.ca/personal/ratesadsl.html
http://www.telus.com/en/ab/internet/plans/internet-15/

If you Take Off to the Great White North, you better get 'er done with Lightspeed.

Sorry I did not use 20,000 words. Sorry!

Re:Nope

[davydagger]

I know right, I mean we should let edge networks decide policy on the internet, who are these silly little congresscritters anyway.

The US doesn't need to be taught

[quietwalker]

This isn't a matter of lack of knowledge or understanding. The US doesn't need to be taught, or led.

The US is currently on the divide between protecting consumers from potentially abusive practices or allowing businesses to run rough-shod over them. It's a debate regarding priorities between business, consumers, the economy, and social welfare, and despite my strong feelings on the subject, on a national level, there's no silver bullet answer that 'fixes it', especially since Canada hasn't actually done anything either, but commission a study.

In fact, studies of the sort that are being done in Canada have already been done in the US, at several different points in time, and the recommendation they had then was one of non-interference. With the inability for congress to act in any way other than to block action, that's likely how it's going to go.

What we could use is a surefire way to figure out how to light all the democrats and republicans on fire, and replace them with politicians that actually care more about the people they're meant to represent than their next elections, party, or party politics. If you've got one of those, let us know, cause THAT's what we're in dire need of.

Re:The US doesn't need to be taught

[Guspaz]

In terms of net neutrality, the CRTC did a heck of a lot more than commission a study, they put their ITMP framework into effect. It's essentially regulation requiring net neutrality be preserved. It's been enforced in the past (when the country's largest cable company was throttling some online games) and has issues currently under review (for a case where mobile phone companies were not counting their own video streaming apps against transfer caps, but were counting apps like Netflix).

It wasn't complicated or simple. We didn't have network neutrality. Then they put some straightforward regulation into effect, and then we did have network neutrality, and a framework for what consumers can do when they need to report a violation.

It's worth noting that the CRTC review of both of the net neutrality violations that I mentioned above were instigated by regular consumers filing a complaint, without any lawyers getting involved (on the consumer side). In the first case, the CRTC ruled against the cableco, and in the second case it's still in progress.

Re:The US doesn't need to be taught

[Em Adespoton]

It's more of a choice on which companies you want consumers to get screwed by. Content Providers or ISPs. NN gives content providers a huge financial break at an ISP's expense which is inevitably passed onto consumers. Non-NN gives ISPs leverage against content providers. Either way, some set of large companies will win. Myself, I prefer to let my dollars go to the ISP rather than let some large content providers (who I don't use) get a free ride on the network I'm paying for.

I can see why you posted AC, as this is a logical fallacy understood by anyone who thinks about it.

If there were no content providers, just individuals (like in the early days of the Internet), then the individuals pay their ISPs for a connection to the network. Those ISPs have peering agreements so that they can share the data sent by their customers.

Add in the content providers. Wait. Aren't content providers just virtual individuals with large amounts of data someone else wants? Doesn't that mean that they're ALREADY paying their ISP for their connection to the network? Isn't that data already being handled by peering agreements?

There's no free lunch, but some of the big ISPs want to get one anyway, by double-charging (that is, charge their customers for access to their peers, and then charge their peers' customers for access to their customer base). If it actually costs them that much money and they're attempting to lower costs to consumers by shifting some of that cost to content providers, then that's not network neutrality; that's cost shifting, and needs a contract. Amazingly, most "large content providers" are more than happy to sign those contracts and absorb some of those costs in exchange for having distribution points inside the service provider's networks, instead of depending on peering. Oddly, those ISPs often refuse to deal with the CPs, instead using the desire for the CPs and their customers to talk to each other as a pressure point for gaining advantage in their peering agreements over the other ISPs. Some CPs like Google have responded to this by creating their own networks and in some cases, allowing consumers to route around the ISPs putting up gateways between their customers and their desired content.

Meanwhile, the ISPs who are pulling these stunts are also either in, or attempting to get into the CP racket, and produce content to compete with that hosted by their peers. They can do this by hosting that content inside their own networks, just like they've been refusing to let the competition do.

Why does this work? Because these ISPs have legislated limited monopolies -- their customers can't just go somewhere else for the most part. In Canada, the tit-for-tat regarding having that limited monopoly is that there's balanced legislation saying "if you want that monopoly, you have to play by these rules and not abuse that monopoly". In the US, instead of that balanced legislation, there's a few decades of sweeping things under the rug, lobbying, and hubris. I'm fine with AT&T & co. blocking net neutrality, as long as they give the government back all the money that was given to them over the past 30 years to build out the network -- they've obviously failed to meet the requirements the government listed in the agreements, and so should not be getting taxpayer's money and a limited monopoly in the marketplace as well as control over what packets come into and out of their network.

I'd like to see the government say "No Class II? Fine; give us our money back, and you no longer have marketplace protections, which means any municipality or start-up can enter your market and there's nothing you can do about it. And if they want to play by our rules, maybe we'll give them some of that money you've failed to invest in infrastructure, to offset the hardware monopoly we gave you via land lines."

Re:The US doesn't need to be taught

[ppanon]

No, I expected the telecom company to simply start treating the data fairly. And several of the mobile companies did just that.

I bet the people who used to have unlimited streaming of telecom-provided feeds are just all warm and fuzzy that they now have a cap.

Well, since the traditional behaviour of telecoms is that, once they've eliminated the competition, they raise their prices and rent-seek, if the telecoms had been allowed to wipe out the competition then those "unlimited" plans would have suddenly become a lot more expensive. And that is a very real risk because content is licensed per country, so that as, let's say, Netflix's user base dwindled, it would lose economies of scale in licensing content to its Canadian customer base and have a harder time providing a competitive catalog. The Canadian Netflix already has a significantly smaller selection than the US service because the Canadian audience is smaller, limiting its licence purchasing power.

To also address your point about the users of the unlimited service being sad, their unlimited service was effectively a (substantial) discount, subsidised by every other user of the same common infrastructure. That was in effect very much a parallel to abusing monopoly power in market to obtain monopoly power in another, although the monopoly power actually was monopoly in one segment (cable vs. ADSL) of the consumer data services market.

It provides an incentive to the mobile companies to raise their caps.

So your answer should have been "Yes, I expect the companies to lift their caps." What good is incentive to do so if you don't expect them to do so in return? And how does this help the former unlimited-data user who was consuming only telecom streams -- he's still wound up with a cap, and he's now going to have to worry about paying extra.

Yep, he's lost the (ephermeral) benefits that he was obtaining at the expense of every other user of the common infrastructure, and which he would have paid for in higher subscription fees as soon as the telco was satisfied their service was sufficently dominant to present high barriers to entry for any potential competitors. Because they've proved over and over again that that is exactly the kind of market they like - one where they can command margins that you wouldn't get in a competitive market.

It may have no impact, but at least all services are on an equal playing field.

Why shouldn't services that cost less to provide cost less to the consumer, even if it's just a little bit less? All services are not equal cost.

Because the service cost difference in entertainment media is negligible. What the telcos were doing was subsidising the bandwidth cost of their media content users and spreading the cost to all their other users, who often didn't have alternative ISP choices.

What is it?

[jamesl]

No posting on Slashdot about Net Neutrality without including what you think Net Neutrality is.

It is many things to many people. Most wrong.

What is it? I don't know. Tell me.

Re:What is it?

[Skarjak]

It's what happens when you mix basic net with acidic net.

Re:Nope

[davester666]

Yes, it will totally be better for 10 ISPs to decide which web sites will work properly or even be accessible by their customers.

"Hi. Would you like to sign up for turbo-speed AT&T Internet? Yes we have AT&T Facebook. Sorry, there is no AT&T Youtube, but we are working with Google to bring it to you soon."

What Korea can teach US in true broadband

[Taco Cowboy]

The US of A was the world's first nation in implementing broadband, to pave the road for the "Information Highway". That was a few decades ago

Now, the US of A trails behind Korea, Japan, Estonia, and a few other countries in the availability of TRUE BROADBAND that is affordable for the masses

The US consumer not only have to pay through their noses for broadband, and what they got are miserably slow, in compared with what the Koreans (for example) are getting

US of A should learn from other countries to find out how to remedy and rectify the current pathetic situation

Re:What Korea can teach US in true broadband

[Harlequin80]

Of course S.Korea has an internet capability funded by the government with multiple low cost loans provided to infrastructure builders over the past 20 years. In addition they have actively blocked any moves towards monopoly status.

Re:What Korea can teach US in true broadband

[currently_awake]

As opposed to the USA, where the government GAVE huge bags of money on condition they roll out high speed.

Re:What Korea can teach US in true broadband

[Harlequin80]

It is the regulatory environment that is different. I'm basing this on what I read here so it could be miles off. But the US seems to have given monopoly status to companies to service an area. And then when someone wants to come along and build a second line they are blocked in the courts.

S.Korea has actively worked against that situation. There will still be monopoly holders in the sense of 1 company owning the only physical connection but they are required by law to allow access to their network at the same cost they provide it to themselves.

Re:What Korea can teach US in true broadband

[WillAffleckUW]

This is correct.

What is sad is that America thinks it's a First World Nation, when it's broadband is barely Second World tier.

Even sadder is there are 100 GB/s and 40 GB/s ports at all major US research universities that make the paltry 1 to 20 MB/s speeds consumers get look like a turtle that has been frozen.

Yes, 50,000 to 10,000 times FASTER than you get thanks to the lack of competition in the US.

What is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only one correct definition and the rest is noise. Net neutrality is the idea that all packets get equal treatment, regardless of source, destination, or anything in the packet's payload (especially in layers 4+).
Net neutrality has _absolutely_nothing_ to do with usage-based billing or unlimited rates or flat throttling of all traffic after reaching some threshold. This is where I think all the confusion is.

Basically, it's the principle of treading network traffic as a dumb utility like water, where the only metric which should be used to make any sort of decisions (and bills) is the volume; the number of bits moving in and out of a port.

Doo-doo de-dupe

[seven of five]

What the US Can Learn From Canada's Internet Policy

Re:Nope

[BradMajors]

If I had a choice of 10 ISPs, at least one of them would offer net neutral access without any government regulation.

Re:Nope

[davester666]

Course, I was referring to the current situation, where there are roughly 10 ISPs [cable, dsl, wireless] for the majority of the country, with the usual 1-2 wired choices and 3-4 wireless choices.