CRTC defends Bell Canada throttling decision
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Canadian regulator the CRTC has reacted sharply to accusations that it’s siding with Bell Canada in the traffic shackling scandal.
After a long delay, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) yesterday denied the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) request that Bell Canada immediately stop the traffic-shaping practices it adopted for its wholesale Gateway Access Service.
“CAIP is very disappointed with the Decision. Canadians in general should be disappointed,” CAIP chairman Tom Copeland told p2pnet.
“This Decision is a license for carriers to continue to interfere with the consumer’s use of the Internet. While the Commission has now, by way of the Decision, initiated a public proceeding on ‘Net Neutrality, it will be 2010 before Canada takes an official stand on the matter.
“The telecommunication regulator of our largest trading partner of data and goods has come out in favour of Net Neutrality as has the President Elect of the USA. Canadians need political leadership on this issue sooner rather than later.
“Our standing in the broadband world is slipping deeper into obscurity each day.”
But the CRTC isn’t defending internet throttling, declared CRTC vice-chairman Leonard Katz (right), “who spent 17 years working for Rogers and 11 for Bell,” according to the CBC.
In a Q&A, “So today’s decision isn’t an endorsement of Bell’s claims that its network is congested?” – asked the CBC.
“Absolutely not,” Katz responded. “In fact, someone told me Bell put out a press release that said the commission upheld its position that network management practices are a fundamental right of theirs. That’s not what we said at all.”
Key data detailing the level of congestion on Bell’s network, “was [sic] filed privately,” the Q&A went on, asking why that was.
“If it’s filed in confidence, it’s never released,” Katz admitted.
The CRTC, “is being criticized for siding with big business and that it has definitely happened in this case,” said the CBC. “What can you say to those criticisms?”
“We look at the specifics of each case and sometimes it falls on one side and sometimes it falls on a different side,” said Katz, going on, “In this case, given the narrow scope of this complaint, we ruled the way we did but I’m not sure anyone should be looking at this as a win-lose, it’s the start of a process.”"
Said the CBC:
“U.S. regulators recently told Comcast to stop throttling its customers. What is different in Canada?
“Katz: The [U.S. Federal Communications Commission] situation is very different. Comcast was actually blocking traffic that was coming across the network. What they may have agreed to do is something totally different. We’ll look at what we think needs to be done in Canada, but Bell was not blocking at all. All they were doing was managing traffic on their network without impacting or influencing the content at all. Big difference.”
As p2pnet first reported, CAIP and its members, “have complained that they weren’t notified in October that the decision would be delayed, or that a ruling was coming on Thursday,” says the story, adding:
“Can you shed any light on why weren’t they notified in advance of either event?”
Katz: “None at all. I don’t know what the timelines are. Usually the commission makes a decision and it goes to the lawyers and writers to craft the decision. Then we’re told when it goes out and we put together the appropriate machinery to get it out the door. I have no idea who was notified, when they were notified or who was given advance notice or not. I would think we treat everybody the same. No idea at all.”
CAIP, “appears to be on the official CRTC ‘ignore’ list,” said p2pnet, going on »»»
Earlier today p2pnet reported the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) is slated to finally release its decision on whether or not to order Bell Canada to stop throttling the accounts of its users.
The ruling will be in response to a CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) request submitted more than seven months ago, and followed up by scores of interested people and organisations.
“Bell Canada Inc. will continue throttling the internet speeds of its smaller competitors for at least another few weeks as the CRTC has again delayed its decision on whether the company has broken the law by doing so,” p2pnet quoted the CBC as saying last month.
“The CRTC needs more time to consider the matter.”
But when p2pnet called CAIP chairman Tom Copeland (right) for his thoughts, “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he said.
We got in touch with Copeland again today on the same mission. And guess what?
That’s right. Once again, the media knew but Copeland hadn’t been informed.
Not by the CRTC, at any rate.
In fact, “The commission has yet to tell us that the decision wouldn’t be delivered in October,” he said. “Requests to Commission staff ten days ago asking for clarification have gone unanswered.”
Stay tuned.
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siding with Bell Canada – CRTC backs Bell Canada traffic throttling, November 20, 2008
CBC – We’re not endorsing internet throttling: CRTC, November 20, 2008
first reported – CRTC keeps CAIP in the dark, November 19, 200
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November 21st, 2008 at 12:22 pm
The CRTC, “is being criticized for siding with big business and that it has definitely happened in this case,” said the CBC. Who can even deny, defy those criticisms?
CRTC vice-chairman Leonard Katz (right), “who spent 17 years working for Rogers and 11 for Bell, is in the back pocket of Bell and not all Canadians it seems..
November 21st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
You guys are going to have to get around to accepting that the one who pays to build the netwoek will do whatsoever they please with it. That is simply a fact of life. Attempting to change this will irrevocably damage future infrastructure investment, unless you folks seriously want the government to re-nationalize all telecoms. Bell can be obligated to treat small ISPs the “fairly”, but management of traffic from individuals will be permissible. If CRTC tries to go the other way, watch BB prices soar, and speeds on cable/telco networks will drop. If you doubt it, go check out Comcast’s and Time Warner’s new “heavy user” BB pricing (in Texas for TW and Minnesota for Comcast, probably rolling out elsewhere too now.) Net neutrality has no future because it cannot fund itself, and funding matters a lot more today than it did just yesterday…
November 21st, 2008 at 3:06 pm
CBC just change their story about Katz, on their site they just remove the bit about Katz working for Rogers
Self Cencership!!!!! Shame!
November 21st, 2008 at 6:56 pm
@ An Analyst
You are wrong!
It is Canadians who paid for the network, Bell is just supposed to be the guardian.
Again, users paid for any infrastructures installed by Bell. Therefore Bell or any company has to listen to their customers/users.
In the 90’s all Telcos were given massive funds by Canadians to expand OUR infrastructure and they [Telcos] instead pocketed the cash. And you expect that we the users pay again?
If so, then you are dreaming and on the wrong planet. You can try your spin somewhere else.
Furthermore, as “An Analyst” you should very well know there’s been no congestion “what so ever” and Bell has lied. All of this is well documented all over the internet, explicitly on http://www.dslreports.com.
CRTC is made up of ex Bell and Rogers employees and is in the pockets of large corporations due to their lobbying conservative government and their backroom deals.
When you come up with ACTUAL proof to the contrary I’ll be glad to see it and test it.
And re-nationalizing all telecoms is a mighty good idea!
Senior Network Admin
November 21st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I think one of the things sorely missed throughout these discussions is the fact that Bell is a common carrier, retail ISP provider and also a content provider. It is against their interests to allow healthy competition and true Net Neutrality. I think that it is time for a decision to be made to force Bell to be a common carrier only and sell off the ISP and content provider aspects. It would then have the sole responsibility as a common carrier of providing the pipe, while allowing full open competition for independent ISPs, and content providers.
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 am
@ D. Kadikoff
Bell became a common carrier due to consolidation of many smaller telcos and became national. It added ISP services first as per being forced by common persons. Bell again added content as an afterthought and to boost their profits. With last part [content] they had no business doing so since last mile copper can’t handle it.
In actuality to put 3 services on last mile of copper leading to houses/homes is ludicrous in the first place. Therefore Bell must choose to create their own content provisioning network and not touch the phone and ISP parts as per rules of common carriers and as per these being vital services. They did it with satellite services but then that didn’t work due to intermittent atmospheric interference.
This is where the CRTC made a Big mistake and are liable. In same context the government is liable as well for supporting these telcos.
Rogers has done similar with adding ISP services to cable then adding digital or HD TV. Running more than 2 services on same line will automatically cause problems as we obviously see today.
A regular phone line can handle your phone services and high speed internet, that’s it! By high speed i mean 25Mbps downloads and 12Mbps uploads. The problem is that Bell hasn’t fixed most of the copper going to your home and to internet modem.
Yet their excuse is that they can’t fix it due to laws saying they can’t come into your home and past main distribution box. This is hogwash since they Must provide a good connection right to internet modem. Meanwhile Bell is the one who created these rules so they can play with your cash.
In actuality telcos promised in the 90’s to upgrade their networks and deliver high speed [fiber] to every home by around 2000. Obviously they lied and now want to steal more money from us and gain more control over users by mentioning bogus excuses such as network congestion, bandwidth hogs, P2P, viruses, illegal content, hacking, nukes, etc.
Anyone with half a brain that can put their history, track record and other pieces together to see right through their false [if not illegal] games. Any other spins you want debunked?
The main point to all this is that we the users DEMAND very good unlimited service for cheap prices as promised by all major Canadian Telcos. Anything else is an outrage and considered as illegal and dishonorable due to ripping off customers.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Bell didn’t pay to build the network.. it was built with taxpayer dollars. That’s what makes it so outrageous.