p2pnet - rss feed: Ottawa won’t help in Bell throttling row
p2pnet news | Politics:- Bell Canada, “wants permission from regulators to penalize heavy bandwidth users with steep charges in a bid to curtail peer-to-peer file-sharing in peak hours”.
Who says? The Hollywood Reporter, going on >>>
Bell Canada on Wednesday told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that the serial file-sharers it seeks to “throttle” greatly slow the time it takes online subscribers to legitimately transfer music, video, software and other large files.
The phone giant responded to an earlier request to the CRTC from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers to end Bell Canada’s use of ‘traffic-shaping’ technology to thwart bandwith hogs.
“We have presented a variety of arguments, not the least of which is Net Neutrality, and asked that the Commission order Bell Canada to cease and desist from their current traffic shaping practices,” said Tom Copeland, president of Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), recently, as quoted by p2pne, which went on:
“The filing provides additional insights into Bell’s action - the throttling has reduced speeds by as much as 90 percent - and marks an important milestone since the outcome will provide a clear answer on whether Canadian law currently protects net neutrality or if legislative reform is needed.”
Bell’s response to the CAIP the demand?
“Get knotted.”
Click here to read the full Bell submission.
In the meanwhile, industry minister Jim Prentice, who recently told Canadians that if they wanted to do something about Bell’s bandwidth throttling practices, they were on their own, says he has no power to act against “telecommunications giants” who “targets users who use up a lot of bandwidth to download movies and share files over the Internet,” says the Canwest News Service.
Prentice also dismissed the concerns of Charlie Angus, NDP spokesman for digital issues.
“Consumers who have paid for access are being ripped off,” says Angus. “Badly needed competition is being stifled and most of all, this government is sitting back while a few Telecom giants are given free reign monkey wrench with the flow of ideas.”
Traffic shaping and throttling
p2pnet was the first to publish stories on Bell’s traffic shaping policies when in November, last year, “In the States, users have people trying to look after their rights and interests, but there’s no one doing that in Canada,” we said, continuing:
“If you’re signed on with Bell-Sympatico and you’ve been unsuccessfully trying to coax a little more speed out of your suddenly sluggish computer; or, if you’ve been calling Bell-Sympatico support only to be told it’s not them, it’s you —- it isn’t you, says Ottawa Gal. Because here, ‘Bell-Sympatico is now following the Rogers lead,’ she states. ‘It’s traffic shaping and throttling.’
“Bell-Sympatico says it’s now taking action against ‘network abusers’ and performing ‘Traffic Management during periods of peak usage’, she says, but since Bell-Sympatico ‘didn’t or won’t’ explained in detail why, how, and exactly who is affected …”
Now Prentice has again said Stephen Harper’s government is refusing to step in and help Canadians as they try to assert their rights.
“The Internet is not publicly regulated, and at this point in time, we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and Internet Service Providers on the other,” Prentice told the House of Commons, says Canwest.
“Rogers told its customers that the increasing practice of downloading movies from the Internet and playing video games necessitated the change. Customers who exceed a specific monthly gigabyte limit will be charged $5 a gigabyte up to a maximum of $25. A typical high-definition movie is four to five gigabytes.
“Meanwhile, Bell is lifting its $30 monthly cap on over-usage charges as of June 30. The company is also cancelling its $25 unlimited usage plan in Ontario and Quebec.”
Hypothetical problems
Cisco has also jumped into the fight, calling traffic shaping “innovative’.
“Innovative technology” cited by Morgan Elliott, Cisco’s Ottawa-based executive director, global policy and government affairs, “means, principally, traffic shaping, aka ‘bandwidth throttling’ and ‘traffic management’ which, the likes of Cisco claim, is absolutely vital as more and more people go online, demand for speed slyrockets and providers struggle valiantly to answer the burgeoning needs of the surfing masses,” said p2pnet yesterday, adding >>>
Thus, ‘Imposing specific network neutrality rules now to address hypothetical problems would only compound the problem,’ says Elliott. ‘Rather, the federal government and the CRTC have taken the appropriate path by not over-regulating the internet.’
Not over regulating it means giving the corporations carte blanche, and by ‘hypothetical problems,’ Elliott presumably means legitimate consumer outrage at the way in which Canada’s three largest ISPs, Bell Canada, Rogers and Videotron, with Bell in the lead, are blatantly shackling bandwidth.
Criticising NDP spokeman Charlie Angus’ attack on Bell Canada, “Many of the internet’s benefits come from its open nature and the ability of anyone to develop new and innovative devices and services that connect to it,” says Elliott.
“Such innovation has created entirely new industries and has fostered competitive markets in internet applications and equipment,” he declared.
Angus wants the government to protect consumers and smaller companies, Canwest, quotes him as saying:
“While average Canadians are being ripped off from the telecom giants who are arbitrarily throttling information on the Internet, this is about a practice of a few large players being able to squeeze out smaller competition.”
Prentice says he’s keeping an eye on the situation.
Put another way, if and when enough pressure is brought to bear, he’ll do a rapid about-face as he did when he tried, and failed, to ram through DMCA-like copyright legislation which would have done more for the US movie and music industries than Canadians.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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