Save the Net in Canada countdown: Day 5
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Only five days to go to tell the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to save net neutrality in Canada, letting it know it’s up to you, and not your ISP, to decide what you do and see online.
p2pnet’s Ottawa Gal originally opened the throttling can of worms here in Canada, land of the fee, in her story on the Bell Sympatico P2P Black List.
Now, the CRTC says its seeking more evidence regarding the effects of traffic-shaping and alternative solutions to network congestion problems’.
More than a thousand people responded the first time around, says Ottawa Gal, going on »»»
The time to act is now. Right now. Me your voice heard and be countedin this war for Net control by the few teleco giants who want decide what you can and can’t do online. Keep in mind they, and not you, profit by it.
1. About 60$/month gives you 30kB/s for about 11 hours per day. Will you say anything to the CRTC about it, or do you think this is acceptable?
2. Is Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) the only way to fix the “apparent” congestion caused by an “apparent” 5% of the Bell population? Let the CRTC know.
3. WebTV and on-line free movies are set to jump by 25+ % in the next two years (Youtube already started putting full feature lengths movie on-line for free). If Bell can’t handle an “apparent 5% of the mythical users” and needs DPI and throttling to achieve that, what will happen over the in two years when traffic from YouTube and other on-line movie/video sites massively increases? Let the CRTC know.
4. Is it OK by you to pay 60$/month to have the throttle removed? Is this the next step in the grand magnetization scheme of things? Pay double at “peak times” for what you already had? Let the CRTC know.
5. How are you going to convince the CRTC to stop the likes of Bell and Rogers from controlling your access to the Net? Or will you do nothing and nearly complain quietly in some forum? Or will you get involved and give your thoughts to the CRTC?
6. How has this unfair and unlevel playing field affected the service that you pay for? Let the CRTC know.
7. How can new start-ups in “Canadian innovation and new media” compete against the giants when they hold all the cards? Let the CRTC know.
8. The CRTC has already “decided that Bell’s throttling of competitor P2P traffic does not violate existing net neutrality rules”. Do you agree with this? If not, why not? Let the CRTC know.
9. Do you have evidence or examples of how traffic shaping (the throttle) has affected you? If so, let the CRTC know.
10. With even CNN using P2P in its stories and videos, how does this affect Canadian start-ups and Canadian media? Can they compete when Bell throttles everything in relation to P2P? Let the CRTC know.
11. Bell’s throttling means your account plummets to a paltry 30kB/s. With this in mind, how will you be able to open another webpage if you’re trying to watch a CNN video at the same time? Is this what you are pay for? Will you stand for this? Let the CRTC know.
12. Have you already left Bell to use an alternate ISP to get on the net unthrottled (maybe via MLPPP, or VPS)? Tell the CRTC Why.
13. What’s the impact on alternate media? Alternate Canadian Media? Alternate content providers? What’s been taken away by depriving the Canadian people of an innovative protocol by these teleco giants? Let the CRTC know.
Take 10 minutes to let the CRTC know.
Fight back!
Or just continue to be nickled and dimed to death while your freedoms and choices are taken away.
It’s your net and it’s up to you to save it.
Contact the CRTC and be proud knowing you stood up for something and against big business trying to take your freedoms away.
Says Art Threat »»»
This is the big one. If we lose net neutrality, we lose the intenet as an open and accessible medium for communication.
Unless the CRTC is convinced by Canadians that net neutrality should be preserved, they will let the telecommunications companies begin to shape internet use. If you are wondering what this might mean, just turn on your television: the internet will follow the path of every mass media before it. It will become a medium only accessible to the very wealthy, and citizens and community groups will be effectively shut out.
SaveOurNet.ca has a petition ready to go. It says
Dear Commissioners:
I submit that the CRTC should listen to the public and stop Internet Service Providers from discriminatory traffic-shaping practices.
We rely on the CRTC, as the federal communications regulator, to act in the public interest, which in this case means ensuring we have an open and neutral Internet. I don’t want ISPs picking winners and losers concerning Internet technologies and applications. It should be up to users, not ISPs, to decide which applications and services we use on the Internet.
If ISPs have network congestion problems, they should invest in building out the network capacity or adopt application-neutral traffic management. Allowing ISPs to selectively slow down content and services should not be an option. Don’t reward the ISPs’ failure to keep up with other OECD nations by allowing them to control the speed of Internet traffic.
As Canada moves deeper into recession, we must actively support our home-grown social, cultural and economic innovation, not punish it by allowing big telecommunications companies to strangle the open Internet. The CRTC can do its part by enacting and enforcing policies that help build an open, fast, and accessible Internet in Canada.
Click here for the CRTC ‘Notice of consultation and hearing’.
You know what to do.
February , 2009
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February 11th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Don’t forget you can add to the petition’s text! Don’t just sign it and send it, add your own 2 cents worth! I added a lovely rant, shown below.
The more people add their own views and the more fact-based the views are, the better the chance the CRTC will do their job and listen to the consumer.
As Canada moves deeper into recession, we must actively support
our home-grown social, cultural and economic innovation, not
punish it by allowing big telecommunications companies to
strangle the open Internet. The CRTC can do its part by enacting
and enforcing policies that help build an open, fast, and
accessible Internet in Canada.
There are many sides to every story and the only way for the
mass populous to understand any story is to find information
from all sides. Corporate interests will use their financial
power to their advantage to control the information. They want
power and control, which is not in the best interests of the
people! Please remember who you represent, the people!
Our MP’s have enough lobbying by corporate interests who are
focused on short term gains instead of long term strategic
planning for sustainability. The result is always the same,
short-sightedness leads to desperate lobbying because they can’t
change in time to remain viable. Do not let the cash-cow
mentality rule our information!
You deregulated the telecom market to benefit consumers, and it
has! It has forced Bell/Rogers/Telus/etc.. to become
competitive, to improve customer service and quality of service.
Now they wish to monopolize (duopolize because really you have
Rogers and Bell/Telus who own the lines). This is not part of a
fair market.
The resistance to change is clearly because they are focused on
short term gains and not long term sustainability, even when
these changes will actually be good for the company! Net
Neutrality, access to all information without filtering or
throttling, is what at true market is about! It represents our
freedom to information so we can form our own thoughts and
opinions instead of forming thoughts and opinions of those who
wish to control, for financial gain only.
Please make us proud, help Canada be truly not just Strong but
also FREE! Freedom to information is the key! It starts with
saving consumers from those who wish to control and limit access
that freedom.
It starts with you, the Canadian Radio-television
Telecommunications Commission! You have the power to maintain a
fair market which benefits all, even the reluctant to change
Telco’s!
February 11th, 2009 at 9:57 am
why do companies whine about traffic saturation when in fact, it is the obsolete, overstressed hardware they refuse to upgrade at the source of the problem. why does South Korea and Belgium lead the world in high speed internet access per capita and countries like Canada and Amerika are somewhere like 26th and 31st on that list? could it be that companies like Bell and Comcast want to milk their customers for every last dime instead of actually investing those billions of profits into upgrading the infrastructure. have they not heard that fiber optic cabling was invented?
stw
February 11th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Net Neutrality is wrong to impose on companies who didn’t get help from the govt forming a
govt monopoly.
(e.g. Bell and Rogers should have to follow some net neutrality guidelines, while
competitors who lack such previous govt support shouldn’t have to abide by them)
Inherently net neutrality is a bad idea, but given that telecommunications has been a govt
sponsor’d clusterfuck.
it isn’t a bad idea for those who grew fat off a guaranteed infrastructural monopoly.
Net Neutrality for everyone means that people cannot innovate. Net Neutrality for Bell and Rogers makes sure they give us what they owe us the people who sponsored their last-mile monopolies with our tax dollars.
Be very careful. Networks should be flexible and innovation should be possible. We can’t let the mistakes of the past (Govt support of Bell and Rogers monopolies) screw business in the future.
February 11th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
” Net Neutrality for everyone means that people cannot innovate. ”
Precisely how ?
I’d like some examples of that. Or as in Fark Lingo
-Citation Needed-
February 11th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
@Be Careful…
Net Neutrality is not about “government regulation”.
Net Neutrality is about removing “ISP regulation”.
ISPs (whether publicly built, like Bell, or not) have been, for quite some time now, enjoying a very privileged business scenario that many other types of businesses would never have gotten away with. They get to continually sell services they can’t deliver, while feeling free to not invest their profits in the infrastructures to keep pace with all the demand they’re creating themselves. They’ve been breaking all sorts of contract laws, collecting prime rates while reneging on the subscribers, and putting our personal information out for those that would have them profit from that.
Providers were originally supposed to be common carriers (”dumb pipes”), yet now get to jump into the content game. A game that needs their pipes to be played – an anti-competitive setup in itself. And, at the same time, they still seem to enjoy “common carrier” status whenever a content liability comes into play.
Customers are expected to follow rules.
Large ISPs who own the networks don’t seem to have that same expectation placed on them.
If a backbone provider doesn’t like the way things are going, it can just change the rules and FUCK everyone else. And, in Canada, it won’t have to worry about backlash… the CRTC will make it all go away.
The same CRTC that says it wants your input.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for some remarkable change to the way it’s all going.
If you want change, you have to STOP being careful with the CRTC.
Sure, tell them what they really don’t want to hear, but don’t stop there.
Tell everyone that keeps the CRTC alive the same things, and don’t pull any punches!
February 11th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Here is a copy of my 2 cents added to the petition
I would like to add that I was a customer of Bell for many years but had to leave because of traffic shaping. I live in an older apartment building that has out dated cable lines resulting poor video quality of service. I turned to P2P for some of my TV viewing even though I pay $70 a month for cable service. I went to Teksavvy as they did not traffic shape but thanks to your ruling allowing Bell to traffic shape 3rd party ISP. I now have to pay out more money every month for Usenet access. I also enjoy watching podcasts and some are available using bit torrent. I would like to use bit torrent to help off load some of the bandwidth cost of these new start up companies but I can’t. Traffic shaping is not about network management it’s about suppressing the future of media. The future of television is the internet and these monopolies don’t want this because most if not all rebroadcast TV over cable and satellite and make huge profits. This is clearly a conflict of interest and needs to stop.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I believe the feedback period has been extended to February 23rd now.