Canada's Telco Bell Tried To Have VPNs Banned During NAFTA Negotiations (techdirt.com)

Telecom company Bell urged the Canadian government to formulate rules that would make some VPN services illegal in the country ahead of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations. The rationale behind the request? It doesn't want people in the country to use VPNs to access the US catalog of some streaming services like Netflix. TechDirt, quotes a paywalled report: "In its submission, Bell argued that Canadians accessing content from a US service with a VPN 'unjustly enriches the US service, which has not paid for the Canadian rights' but nonetheless makes that content available to Canadians. Bell's media arm reportedly spends millions on content for it streaming service, Crave TV, which allows Canadians to stream content from American networks such as HBO and Showtime."

Again though, it's not the VPN doing that. And if you want to stop users from flocking to better content catalogs elsewhere on the continent, you should focus your ire on the things causing that to happen -- like increasingly dated and absurd geo-viewing restrictions, and your own substandard content offerings that fail to adequately match up.

Comments

I said f***** to Bell long time ago

[grumpy-cowboy]

I banned Bell Canada from my life long time ago because of infinite billing
issues, really poor customer service, abusive influence on the CRTC (our FTC),
... I'll NEVER do any business with them (personal and for my small business).
And with this, asking to ban some VPN services, this is the last nail in the
coffin for them.

Re:Let's ban Bell Canada instead

[grumpy-cowboy]

Here the list of Bell's subsidiaries to ban. I didn't even know that The Source (formely Radio Shack) is Bell's property :

Bell Canada
Bell Media
Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (37.5%)
Bell Mobility
Bell Aliant
Virgin Mobile Canada
Bell Internet
Bell TV
Bell Fibe TV
Fibe
Bell MTS
Lucky Mobile
The Source (retailer)

Re:What's Bell's stake in this?

[Mashiki]

Bingo. They also got slapped by the CRTC several times in the last decade. Two cases that stand out, the first was with GAS(last mile) to DSL customers, and wanting to charge TPIA(third party companies that lease the last mile) 150% tariff rates. Bell and it's buddies(Rogers, Telus, and a couple of others) though they had this in the bag. This led to a stand-off between the CRTC and the Harper Conservatives, along with the minister of industry. With a direct threat that they'd have their mandate for regulation pulled if they sided with Bell and this anti-competitive action. Needless to say the CRTC fell in line with the government.

The second was with Bell's streaming service, where they weren't billing their DSL or cell customers for data being used while watching their own streaming service but billing people who were using netflix(despite netflix having provided caching boxes to bell) for data use, and taking it out of their monthly cap. They got slapped hard for it and got levied with an injunction for anti-competitive practices.

This is more of the same for Bell. The current shitshow is Bell trying to block TPIA's from getting access to fiber links for high speed internet, in some cases like in Oxford and Middlesex counties(Ontario), they've acted in a manner to block TPIA's from laying their own fiber - with the CRTC having to step in. This is after Bell saying they had "no interest" in laying fiber to remote communities in the heaviest populated part of Canada(Windsor to Montreal, QC corridor)

Re:Stay Away From Telus As Well

[Myrv]

Telus cellphones run on the Bell network, and most telephone and Internet traffic from Telus goes over the nation wide Bell Internet backbone

Not completely true. Telus definitely has their own backbone. Particularly west of Ontario. They do have a cell tower sharing agreement with Bell and if you use a Telus cell phone in Ontario or East you will likely be using a Bell tower. This is true of many carriers though (like Freedom outside their core calling areas). Also, I believe Bell phones use Telus towers in many areas west of Ontario.