p2pnet - rss feed: Bell Canada throttling could block free speech
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Traffic shaping is front and centre with Canada’s national New Democratic Party.
But the question isn’t merely whether or not Canada’s largest ISPs are deliberately blocking services their customers are paying for, using the activities of a tiny percentage of their client place as an excuse to do so.
According to NDP digital culture spokesman Charlie Angus, it’s also a freedom of speech issue.
Make sure consumers aren’t gouged and innovation isn’t stifled by laying lay down transparent ground rules on bandwidth throttling, Angus said in an open letter to industry minister Jim Prentice yesterday.
The day before, he paid a visit to London, Ontario, when he and London-Fanshaw MP Irene Mathyssen said so-called traffic shaping is a consumer rights issue, says London Topic.
Why hasn’t it become a major issue in Parliament?
Because most politicians just don’t get it, the story has Angus saying. “They don’t understand net neutrality. They’re about as far as you can get from the issue.”
And having said that, “politicians who are on the wrong side of this issue are in for a rude wake-up call when the election comes,” he stated, the story goes on.
“What’s really at issue here is we need clear and transparent rules for how the giant telecoms are going to allow traffic flow on the Internet,” says Angus.
“We have a situation where accusations are being made … Bell is essentially throttling certain levels of traffic and it tends to be directed at third party ISP competitors,” he said, adding the big telecoms are, “implementing or moving towards the implementation of tiered pricing,” and if they’re squeezing out the smaller competitors giving better rates, “that’s a big problem, it’s not fair competition”.
If throttling continues, “freedom of speech and information relatively easily accessed on the Internet could be disrupted” if the ISPs, “decide they don’t like the content being published,” Angus says in the London Topic post.
“Who is going to be in control of the Internet, the consumer or the giant telecoms?” - he wanted to know.
“If Bell and Rogers are going to decide what type of traffic is going to be in the fast lane and who is going to be in the slow lane, then, certainly, consumers could be held hostage - firstly in pricing and second in their ability to access.”
Stay tuned.
tiny percentage - 3rd protester joins Bell ‘anti-throttling’ club, April 17, 2008
transparent ground rules - Charlie Angus to Jim Prentice on throttling, April 17, 2008
London Topic - MP speaks out against ‘net throttling’ during London visit, April 19, 2008
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April 19th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Now this is an arguable infringement of Freedom of Speech.
April 20th, 2008 at 6:25 am
I believe this is the first time in my life i’ve actually thought (for more than a moment) about voting NDP. I’ve seen videos of Charlie Angus standing up to that Prentice prat, atleast we have one politician who doesnt have his head up his ass.
April 20th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
You know it’s the New Democratic Party, right?
April 21st, 2008 at 11:33 am
PX might just vote NDP over their stance on this throttling issue. Congrats, PX, you might end up with unregulated internet but at the expense of the country’s finances.
Yes, that’s right, the NDP would have Canada bankrupt in about 2 weeks, God help us if they ever take the reigns here.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Notice i said “thought”
We all have our moments of weakness, i left Rogers because of the throttling, and now a year later . . . .
We need to start our own party, i wonder if we would win if we got all of us downloaders together, Bell is the biggest ISP in canada, and if all of us evil bandwidth hogs make up 10% of their total customer base which is essentially everyone in canada either through Bell directly or a reseller. Then all our 10% would have to do is win over Ontario & Quebec (The only two provinces that matter) and wed be in!
First order of business would be to tell the CRTC they cant accept any more bribes from Ted Rogers!
April 21st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The ignorance of people claiming that traffic shaping is consumer friendly leaves me speechless.
I have send the following comment to the CRTC:
Dear Sir / Madam,
I have posted the following comment on the CBC website. As a former communications specialist I am appalled by the nonsensical approach of Bell Canada. Ultimately, this is not about the internet but the monopoly that both Bell Canada and Rogers Communications want to exercise in distributing contents. I further urge you to have specialists on your panel that are familiar with the rules and practices in other countries, especially countries in the EU, where traffic shaping of ANY sort is illegal and is being treated as anticompetitive and, in most countries, as an invasion of privacy, and therefore a criminal offense. Should Bell Canada be successful in maintaining traffic shaping, Canada, as far as I know would be the only country that legally allows this degrading of service. Under the threat of being re-regulated, Comcast in the US has abandoned the practice.
Canada has the third highest internet rates in the world, and measured by speed, is dead last in Broadcom services of any industrialized country……SHAMEFUL!!!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I have rarely been that steaming mad, but enough is enough.
I not only worked for Bell, but have also lived in a number of countries. Every one of these countries has a superior internet service, and traffic shaping is AGAINST the law!
Year after year, Canadians have swallowed the nonsense dished out by Bell and Rogers. Why? BECAUSE WE ONLY LOOK AT NORTH AMERICA. WAKE UP PEOPLE! You don’t have to believe me, just Google for ISP’s in Europe, Japan, and Korea etc.
Here is my suggestion: abolish the CRTC. Get on the next plane to Berlin, Germany and pick up a copy of the European rules and regulations. Implement at once.
Here is what you will get:
Complete net neutrality.
Speeds of 16mb/s (NORMAL SPEED NOW, 19.95 Euros per month)
Speeds of 40mb/s will be implemented be the end of next year.
Combined Cable TV, VoIP incl. long distance, Internet 25mb/s, unlimited downloads, for 49.95 Euros (appr.75.00) per month.
The same can be had all over Asia, although the Asians decided to go wireless, and wireless speeds (satellite excepted) are not as high.
In all the above, countries found themselves in the same position as Canada is in now with Bell and Rogers. But here is the difference: Most of the people on the government side are communication professionals, not part time, dare I say it, politicians. In Europe, you must have your credentials, or you just don’t get the job. As well, these government departments make an effort to be informed of the latest technology. No wonder Bell and Rogers are so successful with the CRTC.
Here is something else to consider: In most developed countries, the governments impose the standards as they realize that they cannot allow the county to be left behind in communications, just look how far ahead MANY countries are with their cell phone service. Heck, I can get 3G service in Thailand, and they already are working on 4G all government imposed. Despite all that, companies are profitable.
You cannot replace a copper cable in Europe with another copper cable…it must be fibre optics, as the copper cables do not meet the new standards.
Bell has no such standards imposed on it.
So take my advice, don’t believe a thing you hear from these guys, they are lying through their teeth. You can confirm all the above on the net.
And just for the record, I was a tester with Bell. In the Toronto High Park area, they had central office switches build in 1918 running as late as 1975. Of course we were sworn to complete secrecy………
April 21st, 2008 at 5:21 pm
And by the way….Want to increase speed on a fibre optic network (Bells Backbone network is fibre optics)? Take out the network card and replace it with a higher rated one. Time spend per 1000 lines: 30 Minutes
Go ahead, tell me I don’t know what I am talking about…..
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 am
Invictus,
You should write the next article about Bell!
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Ravage should use more than the Bob Rae example to judge what an NDP gov’t would do.
NDP governments have actually has balanced 48% of their budgets (0 federal and 50 provincial) while the Conservatives have balanced 41% of their budgets (112 federal and provincial) and the Liberals have balanced just 23% of their budgets (81 federal and provincial). So the NDP actually is the least likely to bankrupt the country.
They get a bad rep from the Rae gov’t of the early ’90s…but he’s a Liberal anyway!
For more detail or to verify the stats above see http://www.fin.gc.ca/toce/2005/frt_e.html.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
That charlie guy is kind of swaying my vote. I never thought about the ndp before, but this guy seems to stand up for the people.
I will have to find out who is, & check out, the ndp person in my area and see what they are like and where they stand on issues… ummm how to I find them?
Who-ever runs the show with the ndp has a good guy on their side it seems.