Today, there is a rally on Parliament Hill in favour of net neutrality. Basically, these people are arguing that internet and telephone companies should not sift through the kind of data their customers are using: designating some for the fast stream and letting some linger or vanish.
In general, I am very supportive of the idea of net neutrality. On the one hand, this is because packet filtering has creepy privacy and surveillance issues associated with it. On the other, it recognizes that established companies will usually do whatever they can to strangle innovative competitors. Without net neutrality, its a fair bet that we would never have had Skype or the World Wide Web.
At the same time, there are legitimate issues about bandwidth. There are people out there exchanging many gigabytes a day worth of movies, music, and games. I am not too concerned with piracy and intellectual property, but that traffic is a real strain on the network and a burden to others. It pushes up costs for everyone as ordinary users subsidize excessive ones.
The best solution seems to be to allow bandwidth capping but disallow packet filtering. That way, sending a terabyte a month of illegally copied films will be restricted, but Skype-like new services will continue to emerge and there will be fewer general opportunites for telecom companies to abuse.
I cannot go to the rally myself, since I will be at work, but I would encourage those who are free and feeling a bit activist to attend.
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The staff of my internet service provider (Teksavvy) will be attending. They recommend that people have a look at this site about the rally.
The scariest example of net neutrality being violated is when Telus censored that video of its striking workers. If I were a net neutrality campaigner, I would mention that every 3rd sentence.
If you like tech policy issues, you should check out Jonathan Zittrain’s new book, which is concerned with preserving openness and “generativity” on all devices, not just the internet.
Canadians Organizing a Rally For Net Neutrality
Slashdot - 3 hours ago
taylortbb writes “Canadians are fighting back against Bell Canada’s traffic shaping (recentlly discussed by Slashdot here and here) by organizing a rally in support of network neutrality.
Internet protesters to descend on Ottawa CBC.ca
Net Neutrality Advocates Take Fight to Ottawa mediacaster
Without net neutrality, its a fair bet that we would never have had Skype or the World Wide Web.
Why is that? Is net neutrality something we already have, or something these people are agitating for?
Net neutrality is something we have had by default, due to the nature of the internet. Now, it is at risk because telecom companies are developing the will and the means to prioritize some traffic over other kinds.
As such, people are agitating to have net neutrality enforced by law. That way, companies that own the physical infrastructure of the internet won’t be able to behave monopolistically and shut out competition.
See also: Deep packet inspection
Oh, and we would never have had the World Wide Web because telcos wouldn’t have allowed upstarts like eBay and Netscape to use their networks without paying them. The usefulness of the web emerged in unexpected ways, and companies with business models that depend on the old way of doing business are threatened by that.
This is even more true of Skype. Just look how hard cell phone companies are trying to provide data access on phones, while also denying people the ability to make cheaper calls using software of that kind.
It was a decent turnout, considering the rally date was changed three times. I fear it fell on deaf ears as the news du jour is all about Bernier and his ex. Add that to Canada’s (well the Harper government’s) enthusiastic support of ACTA, details of which were recently leaked, I fear Canada will soon be an information have-not…
However until Bell releases some numbers to support their claims, I don’t buy the need to throttle. Bit caps are one thing, as long as they are reasonable as bandwidth is plentiful and cheap. There is actually alot of unlit fibre waiting to be used from the dot com days. Selling unlimited you will run into a tragedy of the commons type problem unless properly managed, but the 60GB limits Bell and Rogers enforce is pathetic. If a small 3rd party company can provide 200GB a month for a lower cost, why can’t Bell or Rogers? Pure profit gouging… Its speculation but I think BitTorrent and Skype (and other VOIP) threaten their other business offerings (TV and Phone). I guess its up to the CRTC to decide now (baring parlimentary interventon in the form of a law). They’ve asked Bell this and other important questions, so maybe the throttling will be lifted… Of course Bell can say anything and there is no way to prove or disprove what they, but their initial traffic claims of BitTorrent being the biggest bandwidth user didn’t hold up to scutiny, when it was actually http that was the biggest (thanks manly to YouTube and other streaming services)
Ideally the last mile infrastructure would be spun off into a crown corp and Bell would have to buy its bandwidth as an equal, just as 3rd parties do from Bell now… It is important to note that Bell was a crown corp until recently and much of the network was built with taxpayers money. As for Rogers, they can do what they want… it is their network, as long as they are open and honest about their policies, which of course neither of these companies were, until they were outed in the media…
Net Neutrality Bill Introduced In Canadian Parliament
By Soulskill on aboot-time
FeatherBoa points out that the New Democratic Party in Canada has introduced legislation to limit the amount of control Canadian ISPs can exert over their subscribers. The bill would amend the Telecommunications Act to “prohibit network operators from engaging in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions.” Support for net neutrality in Canada has been building for quite a while now. Quoting CBC News: “‘This bill is about fairness to consumers,’ said Charlie Angus, the NDP’s digital spokesman. It also looks to prohibit ‘network operators from preventing a user from attaching any device to their network and requires network operators to make information about the user’s access to the internet available to the user.’ The proposed bill makes exception for ISPs to manage traffic in reasonable cases, Angus said, such as providing stable speeds for applications such as gaming or video conferencing.”