Canada Upholds Net Neutrality Rules In Wireless TV Case

An anonymous reader writes Canada's telecom regulator has issued a major new decision with implications for net neutrality, ruling that Bell and Videotron violated the Telecommunications Act by granting their own wireless television services an undue preference by exempting them from data charges. Michael Geist examines the decision, noting that the Commission grounded the decision in net neutrality concerns, stating the Bell and Videotron services "may end up inhibiting the introduction and growth of other mobile TV services accessed over the Internet, which reduces innovation and consumer choice."

Comments

Blame Canada!

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Internet collapses, it's their fault!

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Common sense. Wow.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Common sense. Wow.

I think it's indicative on how corrupt our government has become here in the States.

The more money you have here in the States, the larger your voice is with our government.

Re:Wow

[Lunix Nutcase]

The more money you have here in the States, the larger your voice is with our government.

There's a country that has a government where this isn't the case?

Re:Wow

[silfen]

How is forcing Bell to charge customers more "common sense"?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was just demonstrated that Canada isn't totally in the hands of its corporations. (The oil industry notwithstanding because of the current Conservative gov't)

Re:Wow

[tom229]

They're forcing Bell to play fair, which ultimately is good for Canadian citizens as it limits the power of the telecom oligarchy. I would agree that it's far from "common sense" though. Drowning an industry in regulations rather than curing the underlying problem is lazy and short-sighted. If you want my 2c, the entire telecom infrastructure needs to be appropriated and put into the public domain. Maintenance and access to it can then be contracted out, much like we do with traffic infrastructure.

Re:Wow

[Anrego]

I imagine it's more likely they'll end up charging everyone less in order to make their service actually usable.

Re:Wow

[Anrego]

Hey now, normally the CRTC is as corrupt as they come. This is a group that has been heavily infiltrated by big media, who tried to institute 1996 level data caps, and who's outgoing president whined that the internet is their biggest obstacle to controlling what Canadians watch.

I'm actually somewhat baffled by what seems to be a series of decisions on their part which appear at face value to be in the interests of the Canadian public and not their telecom friends.

Re:Wow

[Dr J. keeps the nerd]

The person who brought the challenge to the regulator's attention was a graduate student. I don't think he has very much money, just training and time.

Re:Wow

[Guspaz]

The CRTC isn't corrupt, although they can sometimes get a skewed view of reality. They sometimes give too much weight to incumbent filings or taking on faith that the cost studies submitted by incumbents are accurate.

It's difficult to examine the cost studies, because they're filed under seal, so when Bell files a cost study that defines the tariff rates that independent ISPs have to pay, nobody can challenge the cost study.

Ironically, in one of the rare instances where Bell did expose a small part of one of their cost studies, it was found that they were costing out huge routers and then assuming a tiny usage of them. I think the specific case was Bell would include a 48 Gbps router in their cost study, and then claim that they only used 1Gbps of capacity on it. This meant 48x the cost for that part of the study, letting Bell charge more.

The CRTC did correct Bell's costs for that instance, but that is just the rare public thing we know about. How many other instances of fudging is there in cost studies that nobody ever gets the opportunity to challenge because they're filed in secret?

The independent ISPs have been asking for years to get the right to examine incumbent cost studies and other things that are filed under seal. The indies have proposed restrictions that would protect incumbent privacy, such as nominating a tiny number of people to see the data (such as a lawyer for the indie ISP), and to be under a nondisclosure agreement... the CRTC still hasn't done anything about it though. As a result, incumbent ISPs charge absurdly inflated costs for capacity to indie ISPs. I think Videotron is charging $23 per megabit for capacity on their last-mile network, and that's on top of all the other fees they charge like the cost of the DSL or cable line itself.

Re:Wow

[nblender]

Now will the CRTC force Shaw to count as bandwidth the time spent watching HD channels? I mean, they're just packets; they just don't have an IP header.

Re: Wow

[sonicmerlin]

Sounds pretty corrupt to me,

Re:Wow

[silfen]

I imagine it's more likely they'll end up charging everyone less in order to make their service actually usable.

I doubt it. Their competitive advantage is that they own the towers; their competitive disadvantage is that they know nothing about the online movie delivery business. If they can't take advantage of their strength, they are just going to get out of the business.

Re:Wow

[Altrag]

charging everyone less

bwahahaha best joke all day!

Re:Wow

[silfen]

They're forcing Bell to play fair,

I don't see what is "fair" about this. Bell built and owns the infrastructure that those packets run over, Netflix does not. Forcing Bell to do things with that infrastructure against their will is no more "fair" than forcing you by law to let my dog defecate in your yard.

Now, you may counter that Bell got their ownership of the hardware through lobbying and other unfair means, and I would agree. But you can't fix the fact that infrastructure is unfairly regulated and uncompetitive by piling even more unfair regulation on top of it.

In fact, that's how these things spiral out of control: regulators screw up with some regulation, and then rather than fix the original regulation, they pile more regulation on top of it, which causes more problems, and yet more regulation, etc.

Re:Wow

[mrbcs]

Just fyi, I get 10 hours of "streaming" on my phone with my cell package.

Few issues:

1. I can only watch what channels I have subscribed to on my satelite. (fair enough)
2. I can only watch what they "let me" watch. Not everything live or anything available.(utter bs)
3. The service is absolute shit. It just doesn't work. The network can't handle it. Most useless "service" I've ever paid for. (most useless app on my phone)

Re:Wow

[tom229]

I'd agree with you almost entirely except for your subtle compassion for Bell. Telecoms love to claim that the infrastructure is theirs because they built it. The only problem is, in the majority of situations, the tax payers have actually subsidized the infrastructure cost. Even where they haven't they are still permitted to absolute control over assets on government land. It seems pretty brazen to me to insist they can install their infrastructure on public land without oversight.

Bell, Telus, Rogers, and Shaw realize record profits... year over year. This is simply because, together, they enjoy what is the bane of capitalism: monopoly. Individually none of them hold a monopoly, but together they hold a monopolistic cartel over us. This is why I, and everyone else, pays $100+ a month for telecom services. You're smart and stream most of your media? Guess what, they have a plan for that too. I know a few people on the inside that tell me telecoms have open meetings about raising internet service prices to offset (what they call) "cable-cutters".

Our system of government, flawed as it may be, is completely broken by monopolized industry. This is why industries like banking and telecoms are so heavily regulated. I'd agree that regualtion isn't the answer, but not for the same reasons as you do. Regulation in this sense is like putting a bandaid on gangrene.

Re:Wow

[mjtaylor24601]

Forcing Bell to do things with that infrastructure against their will is no more "fair" than forcing you by law to let my dog defecate in your yard.

How about forcing me by law to let Bell dig up my yard to run cables for their network? Because they do that all the time.

Re:Wow

[silfen]

I'd agree with you almost entirely except for your subtle compassion for Bell. Telecoms love to claim that the infrastructure is theirs because they built it. The only problem is, in the majority of situations, the tax payers have actually subsidized the infrastructure cost.

They have. That's wrong. But you aren't going to fix that by stacking more arbitrary rules on top of already exiting arbitrary rules.

Our system of government, flawed as it may be, is completely broken by monopolized industry. This is why industries like banking and telecoms are so heavily regulated.

No, sorry, you got that backwards. Telecoms and banks are "monopolized industries" only because they are so heavily regulated; it's government regulation that causes these monopolies. The more you regulate, the more monopolies, the more crony capitalism, and the more rent seeking you are going to get.

Note that Bell's history is that it start off as a private company (granted monopolies through patents), then was effectively nationalized, and then was privatized again. The dysfunctions you see today are largely due to that history, and that history is largely a history of government regulation and government-created monopolies.

What?

[ArcadeMan]

The CRTC made a sound and reasonable decision? What Universe is this?

Re:What?

[Thanshin]

It's the Time Machine Quantum Experiment!

They were playing with forces no human being should meddle with!

Reality is unravelling!

Re:What?

[disposable60]

Canada.
A slightly less thoroughly corrupt system than the one to their South.
Is there some correlation between probity and proximity to a pole?

Re:What?

[StrangeBrew]

QUICK, Blame Harper... wait! What?

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Still a fucking miracle with Harper and the current CRTC. The major players had a lot of victories in recent years.

Re:What?

[gstoddart]

Give him a little time ... I'm sure they'll come up with something moronic to give the telcos what they want and pretend they're doing something which benefits consumers.

Re:What?

[ArcadeMan]

Elections are coming up, that's what. We should have elections every six months, then politicians would always make the right decisions.

Re:What?

[BarbaraHudson]

I would have said "look at the other nordic countries", but then there's Russia. So much for THAT theory :-)

Besides, we have the government refusing to hold a real probe into the murder rate of Aboriginal women (28 times higher) because it would expose their "tough on crime" stance as all show, no go, and a flawed allocation of resources that could better be used in prevention. And their craptastic treatment of returning veterans with injuries, especially PTSD, which is more along the lines of the Canadian equivalent of "dont' ask, don't tell."

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that they have punched the telcos down at every opportunity, keep wishing.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there some correlation between probity and proximity to a pole?

Possibly. Although Point Pelee is only 42.0 N. So a Finn might consider Canada's population centers to be a long way south, as Helsinki is 60.2 N (and I live at 62.9 N). Then again, the corruption indices for Canada and Finland are not too far apart (Finland=3 out of 175, Canada=10 out of 175). Only Denmark and New Zealand are considered less corrupt than Finland.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

the murder rate of Aboriginal women (28 times higher)

Rate over time? Rate over other crimes? Rate per capita? Rate based on gender? Rate compared with other peoples?

What is this rate comparing against?

Re:What?

[Dragonslicer]

Elections are coming up, that's what. We should have elections every six months, then politicians would always make the right decisions.

Oh man, I'd love to have a six-month election season.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahaha, no it wouldn't.

4 Years is even too short in the US, because the last year is spent wasting resources at getting re-elected. In fact the entire US system is pretty awful. The Canadian system makes more sense because we throw out all the politicians we hate at once, rather than alternating every few years like in the US.

What should happen in both Canada and the US, in order to save money, and cut the amount of political influence corporations have over politicians is:
1) Hold all elections for a specific office at the same time. eg Electing the president, should be done at the same time as electing the house and senate, this would waste less time, and we can have several consecutive years without talking about elections, and less "saving the goodies until election time"
2) Synchronize all federal elections on the continent, as this would remove a lot of meddling and media attention from attack ads.
3) Hold all state/provincial elections in the same time frame as federal elections. eg if Presidential/Federal elections are the first week of July, then state/provincial elections are in October.
4) Hold all city/municpal elections at the same time (these usually span several days) but put them the year directly after the state/provincial elections.

Or alternatively, make all elections synchronized to always be the first week of July, eg Year 1 - Federal elections, Year 2 - state/provincial elections, Year 3 - municipal elections.

The reason for synchronizing all of these elections is to reduce the attack surface the media makes available. If all elections are held in the same year, people would vote less because it would be much harder to vote, or even know what they are voting for. Which is why it only makes sense to put federal and state/provincial elections in the same year as people know they are electing for the people who control the income taxes. Municipal elections often have uncontested positions, and in the case of Canada, Vancouver actually has political parties at the municipal level. Since all the municipal elections are held at the same time, there is less media attention given to "safe votes" and a lot of media attention given to the mistakes made by incumbents.

Re:What?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Really?

To all intents and purposes, they required the companies involved to take money out of their left hip pocket, and move it to their right hip pocket in the name of net neutrality.

I mean, "we're required to charge ourselves for data usage by us" is a bit bizarre, when all is said and done....

Re:What?

[flyonthewall]

For now. If the current elected bunch had free reign (e.g did not have to face elections) those tea party wannabe would cosy even more to the corporate.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

GP mis-remembered the number. The murder rate of aboriginal women is 3-4 times higher than the murder rate of non-aboriginal women in most western provinces (link). (So, to answer your question: per capita, compared to the same statistic for non-aboriginals.) For example, aboriginal women represent 28% of all female homocides in Alberta, and "As of November 2013, there are 19 unresolved missing Aboriginal females and 28 unsolved murders." (link).

You can find many more links online. Most of the statistics come from reports released by the Government of Canada, or by the various provinces. What's news-worthy is that, despite releasing these reports, the government refuses to actually do anything about them.

Re:What?

[rhazz]

What's news-worthy is that, despite releasing these reports, the government refuses to actually do anything about them.

That's not true at all. The current government been undermining Statistics Canada since taking office. Soon the quality of data surrounding these issues will be so poor that they can just say the problem doesn't exist anymore.

Re:What?

[aristotle-dude]

Still a fucking miracle with Harper and the current CRTC. The major players had a lot of victories in recent years.

Sorry but how is it a miracle? Have you not seen the commercials from the Harper government about changing the wireless industry in favour of the consumers? Did previous governments even attempt to reform the CRTC or how the wireless industry treats consumers? The answer is no so why the anti-harper rhetoric? Previous governments either did nothing to improve the industry for the benefit of consumers or made it worse by appointing industry cronies to the CRTC board. If you want to blame why it was bad, look at previous liberal governments.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no surprise that Harper would want to dick Bell, they're Eastern Canada business. That and the fact that our perpetually being screwed by our Telcom industry looks to be an election issue. One of the few good uses of a millennial; they're old enough to vote and the ones that have to pay their own cell bill have noticed it costs money to Tweet! Hell, I even got asked by my Mayor-to-be what I thought of alternate voting methods like that new-fangled Internet. Strange new world!

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to know who murders aboriginal women, you'll want to take a close look at aboriginal men.

We don't need another inquiry to tell us what 45 other ones already have. Yes, 45.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's already had WAAAAY too much time.

Re:What?

[ArcadeMan]

1. Remove lobbying and all forms of donations since it's bribery. All parties are allocated the same budget for advertising, the only difference is that they each decide how, where and when to spend it as long as it's advertising (movies, TV, radio, print, Web) for themselves and no one else.

2. Make it illegal to talk about the other parties. Tell me what you have done and what you are planning to do instead of shitting on someone else with half-truths.

Re:What?

[ArcadeMan]

Bell and Videotron, for example, would like nothing better than to crush Netflix, iTunes, etc and basically force us to use their streaming services instead. This levels the playing field and may actually force them to make the monthly quotas higher if they want people to subscribe to their services.

Re:What?

[CanadianRealist]

"we're required to charge ourselves for data usage by us"

And saying that it costs nothing to transmit our bits to our customers but transmitting someone else's bits does cost money is more reasonable?

I guess it's because all of their competitors are still using those old style fat bits that clog up their network, while they themselves are using the new style teflon coated slimmer bits that flow much more readily through the network.

Re:What?

[Dixie_Flatline]

It's a miracle because those commercials are lip-service. There are a bunch of things they could legislate fairly quickly that would force competition in the space, but it's unclear that they're really interested. They're budging a bit because popular opinion is so vociferous, but they're not what I'd call a tech-savvy government. They're decidedly anti-science and they're incredibly secretive. They don't even LIKE the CRTC.

That said, I don't really have a good sense of what the other parties would do. In general, they tend to be even MORE protectionist (Bell, Rogers and Telus are garbage, but they ARE Canadian) even at the expense of competition.

But this is what you get when most of the people running for office (and winning) are old white lawyers. They don't know what's going on, and they're not interested in learning. The current Minister of Science and Technology was an *insurance broker*. I'm sure he's doing what he can, but it's a deep pity that there aren't any scientists or technology people in those Ministerial positions.

Re:What?

[Solandri]

Wasn't there a Dr. Who episode based on something like that? Where the public got to decide at any time if an elected official's performance was not in their best interests. And if they voted that it wasn't, he was summarily executed?

Re:What?

[Mashiki]

FYI it's the current governments dislike of the CRTC and them pissing all over consumers by having "golf meetings" with members of the industry that caused the CRTC to think carefully. Especially after the threats to rip away their mandate regarding the internet.

Re:What?

[ArcadeMan]

Given that teh intarweb is made up of tubes, that makes perfect sense.

Thank you, CanadianRealist!

Re:What?

[Obfuscant]

All parties are allocated the same budget for advertising, the only difference is that they each decide how, where and when to spend it as long as it's advertising (movies, TV, radio, print, Web) for themselves and no one else.

This would require closing the loophole already in the election funding laws where non-candidate organizations can buy ads. If all it takes to "bribe", I mean "donate" money to a candidate is to pay for ads to support him instead of him paying for them, then you've accomplished nothing except dipping into the taxpayer's pockets to pay for ads.

And if you close THAT loophole, you've essentially eviscerated the first amendment.

Tell me what you have done and what you are planning to do instead of shitting on someone else with half-truths.

So outright lies told by a candidate about himself cannot be countered by facts from the opponent, and are thus more acceptable than half-truths someone says about the other guy. Hows that "Hope and Change" working out?

Re:What?

[aristotle-dude]

So basically you are saying that you are saying that voted liberal or NDP and that you love the CRTC and that harper's people are mean for challenging them and you possibly work for one of the companies that makes up ROBELLUS? You seem also be a fanboy of "science" which is a field of study which wants you to stop anthropomorphising it and stop assigning political or idealogical bias to it. Science is a useful tool for discovery but you need to learn to think for yourself and not be afraid to not believe everything someone tells you just because they have a specific title. Don't be so damn naive.

Re:What?

[cheesybagel]

In Athens they had them every day. Well it was more like a vote of confidence and if it failed they would immediately elect someone else.

LOL

[Lunix Nutcase]

But doesn't Canada know that Net Neutrality is going to equal government censorship and all the telcos will immediately stop any infrastructure investments? Verizon, AT&T and Comcast said so and they would never lie about anything like that.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

They say masturbation kills kittens, but the real connection is all those jerking it were using Comcast as their porn service provider.

Re:LOL

[ArcadeMan]

How the fuck is that comment insightful? Verizon, AT&T and Comcast have Slashdot accounts with good karma? What the hell is this?

Re:LOL

[gstoddart]

Perhaps your ability to detect sarcasm needs some adjustment?

Or ... whoosh!

Re:LOL

[gregsmac]

Just ask the Obama Haters they will explain it to you.....sort of

Re:LOL

[silfen]

But doesn't Canada know that Net Neutrality is going to equal government censorship and all the telcos will immediately stop any infrastructure investments?

Nice hyperbole, but the effect of this decision is simple and obvious: wireless providers will continue charge all wireless video towards your data plan. Since that uses data up much too fast, you will effectively not be able to watch movies wirelessly at all. What a great victory for network neutrality. Aren't you proud of yourself.

Re:LOL

[Lunix Nutcase]

Aspergers man says what?

Re:LOL

[Lunix Nutcase]

I agree. The public statements made by those very companies saying that are hyperbolic. It was almost as if my post was lampooning the absurdity. Naaah, that couldn't possibly have been it.

Re:LOL

[gstoddart]

Now, let's take the contrary to your position:

The wireless provider is no longer allowed to treat their own subscription offering as being different from, say, Netflix by pretending data which they're sending you is magically different than any other data -- which prevents them from undercutting other services by making those services artificially more expensive.

This basically allowed them to make competition obsolete by giving themselves an exemption, and treat their data packets as special.

This didn't help consumers, or competition ... it helped them get an unfair leg up because they own the network and could cheat.

Do you think people are well served when a company can undercut competition by rigging the system?

Re:LOL

[BarbaraHudson]

I see from the other responses that you should have included the tag. Neither Verizon nor Comcast nor AT&T are players in Kanuckistan's consumer cable / mobile /internet markets.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice hyperbole, but the effect of this decision is simple and obvious: wireless providers will continue charge all wireless video towards your data plan.

On what planet would they have ever done otherwise?

Since that uses data up much too fast, you will effectively not be able to watch movies wirelessly at all. What a great victory for network neutrality. Aren't you proud of yourself.

You can't effectively do that now. But Net Neutrality was never about enabling that.

Re:LOL

[Minupla]

So we'll see innovation in other places.

Take Plex for example. When I'm at home, on the wifi my plex client on my android phone downloads any subscribed content from my server. Then I have it in local storage till I watch it, when it's deleted.

Way better then over the LTE anyways, fewer dropouts. Sometimes adversity breeds innovation.

Min

Re:LOL

[ArcadeMan]

I saw the sarcasm in the comment itself, but a sarcastic moderation? That doesn't help anyone.

Re: LOL

[jd2112]

But on the other hand, Apple and Google would have to port all of their apps to run on BlackBerry which will clearly result in a resurgence of a once powerful Canadian corporation. There is no way the BlackBerry CEO would lie (or be totally clueless) about this...

Re:LOL

[gstoddart]

It may come as a surprise to you .... but well used sarcasm can be insightful.

Sorry you don't feel you were consulted, but that's been true for a VERY long time.

You don't have to like it, but you should probably get over it.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

"The wireless provider is no longer allowed to treat their own subscription offering as being different from, say, Netflix by pretending data which they're sending you is magically different than any other data"

No magic involved, if they're serving their own data they don't have to pay to shift it from elsewhere along with the extra maintainance and support...

"Do you think people are well served when a company can undercut competition by rigging the system?"

If they can now afford to watch TV on the move because they don't have to pay data costs then yes, yes I do.

Now I want my internet pipe as dumb as possible but as long as I can get anything I want at the same speed I don't give a fuck if my ISP offers deals or inducements for their own services.

Re:LOL

[Solandri]

This sort of thing is more easily prevented by prohibiting the provider of the pipes from also selling what's sent through the pipes, and vice versa. So if you sold cellular data service, you wouldn't be able to also sell a video streaming service. That's how electricity and natural gas is sold in most places. One company gets an exclusive contract to lay down the wires/pipes, but are prohibited from selling electricity or gas. Instead, other companies sell those utility services (sometimes using the pipe-owner as a billing intermediary, other times adding an "access fee" to their bill to cover what they have to pay the pipe owner).

Unfortunately, we're in a funny in-between state right now because phone service is moving from point-to-point to packet-based. That is, your phone calls used to require a dedicated line(s) between you and the call recipient - a line you had total and exclusive access to for the duration of the call. There is no distinction between pipes and the content in the pipes in this model. Now we're switching more to a VoIP model where voice traffic is sent as data packets over shared pipes, and the distinction makes sense. Until this transition is finished, entrenched companies will be able to argue against separation of the pipe business and content business.

Re:LOL

[Obfuscant]

So if you sold cellular data service, you wouldn't be able to also sell a video streaming service. That's how electricity and natural gas is sold in most places.

I'm sorry, what? I've never lived anyplace where the electric or gas companies didn't maintain the delivery infrastructure and sell the electricity or gas it carried. Most places?

The closest I've seen is where the electric company will allow you to pay MORE for electricity that is provided by another company over their wires. In Oregon, we have three or four "greener" energy providers you can select, and every one of them costs more. Competition? Ha.

Now, there is a "public" utility south of here that does the electricity, but they, too, both maintain and sell. Being public would seem like they're more "customer" oriented, but there is currently a battle going on over smart electric meters. A lot of the public doesn't want them because they are skeered of the radiation but the company is still installing them.

That is, your phone calls used to require a dedicated line(s) between you and the call recipient - a line you had total and exclusive access to for the duration of the call. ... Now we're switching more to a VoIP model where voice traffic is sent as data packets over shared pipes,

The last mile always has been dedicated, if perhaps a bit shorter than a mile today compared to copper pairs from the CO. Telephone service has for a very long time been multiplexed/shared over common pipes once it got off the dedicated wire. That's still true for VoIP.

The main difference is that the switching system is not mandated by where the distant end of the dedicated line ends under VoIP. You can buy VoIP from several companies and that data will traverse the dedicated line where your copper POTS wire rant to one CO owned by your telecom provider.

Re:LOL

[silfen]

Apparently, being a buffoon is all you are capable of; rational arguments are evidently beyond your intellectual abilities.

Re:LOL

[silfen]

The wireless provider is no longer allowed to treat their own subscription offering as being different from, say, Netflix by pretending data which they're sending you is magically different than any other data

But it is different, and there is no magic about it either: their own data only flows over their own wires, they can cache that data close to the customer that wants it, and they don't have to pay peering costs for it.

Do you think people are well served when a company can undercut competition by rigging the system?

They are no more "rigging the system" than when people use any other private property. I have a right to drive my car, you don't have a right to drive my car even if you don't own a car.

Re:LOL

[silfen]

This sort of thing is more easily prevented by prohibiting the provider of the pipes from also selling what's sent through the pipes, and vice versa.

Yes, it's easily prevented, but there is a cost. Let's say I have enough money to buy a car while you don't. As a result, there are lots of business and job opportunities open to me that aren't open to you. Your solution to this "unfair" situation is to prohibit individual car ownership altogether and force everybody to use government-regulated taxi services, available to everybody under the same conditions. Sure that accomplishes what you want. It also makes most people's lives a lot more cumbersome and expensive.

Unfortunately, we're in a funny in-between state right now because phone service is moving from point-to-point to packet-based.

And one side effect of this kind of ruling is that moving to packet-based systems will be slowed down: Bell can't discriminate against IP-based services, but if they use proprietary internal protocols for VoIP, video conferencing, and TV delivery, the net neutrality rulings don't apply.

There is no distinction between pipes and the content in the pipes in this model.

It certainly makes a huge difference to Bell whether IP traffic travels between machines completely within their network and completely under their control, or whether it is piped into their system from a peer. The fact that as an end user or programmer, that difference doesn't concern you doesn't change the fact that it potentially has a huge economic impact. Yes, IP packets aren't all the same, even if to you they look that way.

Re:LOL

[silfen]

That should have been: "but if they continue to use proprietary internal protocols for voice, video conferencing, and TV delivery" ...

Re:LOL

[silfen]

How nice that you are such a wealthy and privileged person that you can afford to have a home Internet connection plus a mobile connection. However, for many people, $5/month TV streaming over their mobile means that they can seriously consider dropping their $60/month wired Internet connection altogether.

Puerto Rico first on list for statehood

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada for sure second. It could merge with Alaska to better its chances. That'd be a big state.

Re:Puerto Rico first on list for statehood

[ArcadeMan]

That's a nice offer, but we've aware that Sarah Palin lives there.

So thanks, but no thanks.

Re:Puerto Rico first on list for statehood

[tom229]

Ya I'd also like to respectfully decline that offer. We don't really want to deal with that whole Republican party thing you guys have got going on down there.

Re:Puerto Rico first on list for statehood

[BarbaraHudson]

Besides, we're quite happy you took Celine Dion and Justin Beiber. You lost fair and square ... don't try to back out of it now!

Re:Puerto Rico first on list for statehood

[ArcadeMan]

What do you mean, we "took"? Céline Dion was born in Québec, which last time I checked is part of Canada.

Re:Puerto Rico first on list for statehood

[BarbaraHudson]

What do you mean, we "took"? Céline Dion was born in Québec, which last time I checked is part of Canada.

And as a Canadian, I can assure you that those of us north of the US border are quite happy with how it worked out. Really. You can keep Celine Dion and Justin Beiber as long as you want ...

Re:Puerto Rico first on list for statehood

[msobkow]

Careful. We want them kept south of the border longer than Americans want... :P

Great for Canada

[sasparillascott]

Good for Canada, your neighbors to the south have something else to be jealous about.

Down south here, our chief regulation of the ISP's, the head of the FCC - also the former CEO of the Cable Lobbying Organization as well as former CEO of the Wireless Lobbying Org appointed by President Obama - just announced that we'd have net nuetrality down here but the companies could pay each other for faster access, but this would be okay cause they could ask the FCC to look at the prices...with big strong guys like the former head of the Cable Lobbying Organization in charge of the FCC, what's to worry?

Re:Great for Canada

[tlhIngan]

Good for Canada, your neighbors to the south have something else to be jealous about.

  Down south here, our chief regulation of the ISP's, the head of the FCC - also the former CEO of the Cable Lobbying Organization as well as former CEO of the Wireless Lobbying Org appointed by President Obama - just announced that we'd have net nuetrality down here but the companies could pay each other for faster access, but this would be okay cause they could ask the FCC to look at the prices...with big strong guys like the former head of the Cable Lobbying Organization in charge of the FCC, what's to worry?

Trust me, we're quite jealous of what the FCC does down there as well - for we're often screwed up here.

For example - take cable services - we're required to buy a set top box from the provider - provided through the provider or a reseller, and that box cannot be moved to another provider even if they use the same equipment. Effectively, we're forced to buy equipment we can only use with the provider. We can't buy used equipment (except if it was originally sold by the provider), so no going to the US to buy cheap boxes, no going to another province, etc. Your box is locked to the provider, no one else in Canada will activate it. And if your box doesn't match any serial number the provider bought, they won't activate it either.

This includes stuff like broadband modems for internet too - if you're not happy with the cable modem your provider gives you, too f'in bad - you can't buy a different one because they won't activate it.

And it's only been a few years now that we've had cellphone number portability, and only within the last year that 3 year cellphone contracts have been eliminated, providers have to provide unlock codes for SIM locked phones, and no more surprise roaming charges and other stuff.

So for this one ruling, Canada's still a place where the telecommunications firms rule. Your FCC does a lot right in comparison.

Re:Great for Canada

[ArcadeMan]

Mod +9000 informative but sad truth.

Re:Great for Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

This includes stuff like broadband modems for internet too - if you're not happy with the cable modem your provider gives you, too f'in bad - you can't buy a different one because they won't activate it.

Not sure which province you're in, but here in Ontario, I get my DSL service from Teksavvy. They recommend that you buy one of two or three approved DSL modems listed on their website, but they don't care whether you buy it from them or from somewhere else. If you don't by one of the approved ones, you can still use it, but you're on your own for setting it up. (That's fair, IMO - their tech support lines can't be expected to know the config interfaces of every modem/router out there.) However, if you're capable of getting it set up yourself, that's fine - they don't blacklist based on serial numbers. (Yes, I do have personal experience with that. I started off with a "non-approved" ADSL modem and router, which worked fine. I switched to one of theirs, though, when I upgraded to VDSL, since VDSL modems are difficult to find in retail stores, and the one they were selling was both good, and competitively priced anyways.)

I've always had DSL, never cable, so maybe things are different in cable-land? Anyways, if you're having those sorts of issues, it's not coming from the government - it's coming from your ISP.

Re:Great for Canada

[rhazz]

The CRTC makes some mistakes, but at least they are helmed by a public servant, while the FCC is currently run by telco lobbyist. Yeah "we" are really jealous.

Re:Great for Canada

[rhazz]

I also bought my cable modem from an electronics retailer when I signed up with TekSavvy. The ISP will actually give you a discount on account activation if you buy it directly from them for a similar price, which I assume is them passing on the product markup. Things could be better, but it is not so bad as the GP paints it. Definitely better than the US overall.

Re:Great for Canada

[Dixie_Flatline]

Videotron (in Quebec) will give you a discount if you bring your own modem.

Let's take this further

[minogully]

So Bell essentially offers two different services (internet, media streaming service) at a discount and is told to stop because it's not fair (full agreement here).

But how is this any less fair than Rogers (and I'm sure Bell) who is currently offering discounts for customers who sign-up for multiple services including internet, home phone, and cable?

Re:Let's take this further

[ArcadeMan]

Because one is about net neutrality and the other is about the bundling of services with rebates that are probably borderline illegal.

Re:Let's take this further

[Anonymous Coward]

Bundle plans aren't illegal in Canada. Right or wrong, they aren't even borderline illegal in Canada. What would be illegal would be to tie the condition of a sale of one product to another. For example, an internet provider (Bell) cannot force you to buy a wireless plan to also have a wired internet.

http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/Eng/forConsumers/topics/yourRights/Pages/TiedSell-Ventesli.aspx

While the above link revovles around banks, it isn't a stretch to see how this is used in other places (imagine being told at McDonalds that you must purchase a hamberger in order to buy a coffee).

The real thing to ask is if Bell was able to offer $5/mth for unlimited TV watching that does not affect your data plans on any wireless provider, would this even be a story?

Re:Let's take this further

[ArcadeMan]

If Bell/etc had to explain, with accounting proof, why two services alone each cost 50$ but the two of them bundled together cost only 60$, I'm pretty sure something illegal would be found somewhere.

Re:Let's take this further

[Anonymous Coward]

The bundle usually provides something like a five dollar discount per service. If you've never encountered "buy more, save more" promotions, you've never been to a shopping mall or a grocery store.

Precisely what AT&T did with their UVERSE IPTV

[ciscoguy01]

Which is precisely what AT&T did with their UVERSE IPTV service.
They exempted the UVERSE TV data the customer used from their data caps and overages, while charging hefty overages for any other usage, whether web browsing, Netflix or Amazon instant video traffic. Or any other kind of traffic.
The exact definition of non-Net Neutrality.

Spin

[DarthVain]

Bell will likely respond:

Sadly we offered a free service to consumers that didn't take up their data caps out of the generosity of our hearts that recently got shut down by government regulations strangling the economic lifeblood out of decent hard working Canadians... Now, because of the government market interference we'll be forced to change now against all your data caps... You can thank your local MP.

LTE Multicast

[TheSync]

I believe "Bell Mobile TV" was a unicast IP service, but we know that Verizon and AT&T are planning roll-outs of LTE Multicast in the US, which is a very different beast.

Would it still be against "net neutrality" to allow carriers to serve up specially priced content on LTE Multicast, or would they have to make LTE Multicast available to all content providers equally? And how does one actually do that (given that the Internet, in general, has failed miserably at getting "general access" multicast routing to work)?

Re:LTE Multicast

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo! Exactly what I thought about when I read this.

The idea that Net Neutrality should apply to LTE Multicast (EMBMS) seem perverse to me. Why should wireless operators be subject to rules that cable or sattelite providers are NOT. My hope is that LTE Multicast will lead to À la carte subscription of live content (NFL/MLB/College Sports) and break the bundling practices such as NFL Sunday Ticket. The AT&T / DirectTV merger gives me concern that this might not happen on AT&T's network.

Lolwut ?

[Anonymous Coward]

SO now they'll charge us for DATA while we watch our TV's on the Net....
How is this a Victory for consumers exactly ?