Comments on: ‘Throttling’ not about Net neutrality

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:37:08 +0000

@Devil’s Advocate

That’s why I run my tracker connections through Tor and force transfer encryption. They’re already throttling me, but if they want to know what I’m sharing, they’ll have to work for it.

By: Devil's Advocate

Devil's Advocate — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:09:33 +0000

Bell Canada may (or may not) be a private company, but the network was built with public money and government subsidies, and that infrastructure that was in place to lease resellers the access didn’t actually “belong” to Bell. Concurrent new infrastructures built for Bell’s own purposes may be considered theirs, but the CRTC tariffs installed on the point of deregulation were very clear – that last mile was not “internet” and was bought and paid for by the resellers – Bell had absolutely no business interfering with it.

As for the “packet inspection”, opening packets, either on your own network or someone else’s (Bell is doing both), and regardless of method or purpose, IS illegal.

The purpose of the DPI IS to determine the contents.
How do you think the decision to throttle is made, if they don’t know what kind of data they’re stalling? And, with all the “policing” being demanded by MAFIAA (who are already on a crusade to kill P2P and BitTorrent), do you really think it’s appropriate for a provider to be allowed to have that wealth of info logged by DPI?? Remember, a provider is supposed to be protected from any liabilities, as long as they’re NOT AWARE of WHAT they’re allowing through.

It has already been proven that there is NO BANDWIDTH SHORTAGE, so why invent this propaganda about “bandwidth-hogging file sharers”?…

It has also been proven that today’s HTTP traffic, with its streaming video, online television and music, and picture sharing, etc., is consuming the majority of the bandwidth. Funny how all these providers are getting ready to release their own versions of these online services, YET, we’re supposed to believe this BS that their networks can’t handle file sharing??! C’MON!!

Can you say, “Weapons of Mass Destruction”?!…

Just as Dubya is trying to destroy America’s Constitution and create a Police State, based on a collection of lies – so is Bell trying to ignore elements of the Canadian Constitution, current CRTC restrictions, and Fair Practice Law, while preparing itself to BE THE LAW over the Canadian Internet – DPI, throttling file sharers, eliminating competition, and continuing to sell a product it had no intentions of giving (and still collecting FULL PRICE), while kissing Entertainment Industry butt… A perfect example of a police state, for the Internet!

(Obviously, net neutrality is as far from Bell’s dream as fair competition.)

By: Johnnycanuk

Johnnycanuk — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:43:03 +0000

The only hole in your analogy with roads is that the ISPs are using other hardware. If it were simply about the last mile copper, there would be no issue, or throttling for that matter. Bell Canada is a private company (I know all the monopoly history…) and has to get a return on the capital invested within a certain time frame (quarter, year…). The proposal to build out the capacity required for the extreme growth in the internet as we know it would be simply impossible to do financially and with the workforce available.

If you really want a competitive landscape, the CRTC should regulate the physical layer ONLY. The rest should be open competition as you suggest. The crux of the current regulation is that the door is open to smaller entrants who do not have the capital to build out a large core network for themselves including all the hardware that would entail. Until the day that happens, you will see carriers limiting the wholeseller as much as their retail side already is, no more, no less.

As for privacy law, the content of the packet is not being inspected, simply the type. You could be sharing videos of your kids with friends or downloading pr0n. The carrier does not care. In my view, there is no privacy issue. I am not a legal expert though and I am sure the CRTC will bring plenty of those in as they look in to the outcry, justified or not.