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

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Common sense. Wow.

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

[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]

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

[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.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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

[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

[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

[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: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.

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: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]

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 ...

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)?