A CRTC decision that allows Bell Canada to continue “throttling” Internet traffic suggests the commission “might be a bit too cozy with the big telecom companies,” a media activist says.
Steve Anderson, coordinator of SaveOurNet.ca, expressed disappointment at the CRTC’s decision, which allows Bell to continue shaping, or “throttling” Internet traffic.
But he was pleased that the CRTC has announced hearings into the issue starting next July.
“In that sense it’s kind of a victory that they’re actually going to deal with this issue and the public will be heard eventually,” Anderson told The Tyee.
The throttling issue arose this spring, when it was discovered that Bell was cutting the speed of the service it provided to members of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers. The association is a group of small independent ISPs who buy "wholesale" broadband from big ISPs and resell it to individual customers.
In March, the group discovered that some of its customers were experiencing extremely slow Internet service because of Bell Canada’s throttling.
Bell argued that some practices used to handle large amounts of data, such as BitTorrent, slow down its networks. Throttling is necessary to keep traffic moving for everyone, Bell argued.
In today’s decision, CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein ruled that Bell’s throttling was not discriminatory because the company slowed the traffic of its own retail customers as well as the wholesale ISPs.
Anderson, however, was unimpressed with the reasoning:
“The other ISPs would be better able to serve Canadians and better able to compete if they could offer an open Internet,” he said. “So it’s a really faulty logic that they’re relying on for that.”
Tom Barrett is a contributing editor at The Tyee.
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seth
3 years ago
Bypass them
Seems Canada's CRTC has become infected with Neocon ideologues in a way the FCC never was even under the Bushies. Enamored with BIG Telcom lobbyists, when do suppose the last time it was that these creatures actually paid for their own lunch.
1) Perhaps its time use provincial Hydro utilities' new proposed automatic meter reading fibre networks to give us all 1 gigabit/sec speeds at almost no extra cost and bypass the Telcos altogether.
2) Alternatively we could ask our municipal politicians to unwire our cities at 20 times Big Telecom's average speed. Meraki's $10k or open-mesh at $2K per sq mile would work out to less than a dollar down and a dollar a month.
3) The independents ISP's should get together, form a Co-op and run their own fibre from each central office into the main transit exchange. They would then only be beholden to Bell for the tariff rate on the customers cable pair.
Without 1), 2) or 3)above, there is no real hope for better than snails pace broadband networks until Harper and his gang are sent packing.
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mcdull
3 years ago
Crtc stifles
As far as I can see the rulings of the CRTC are to stifle competition. The big four Shaw, Telus Rodgers and Bell have it their own way too often in cable and internet provisions. More competition.
Dan the socialist
3 years ago
With this CRTC ruling today
With this CRTC ruling today on throttling Bell should have their assets seized by the feds and nationalised as a non profit for the benefit of Canadians. These big Telco's need to be sent a message and if you seize one company it will send a message to other Telco's to think twice about this as I am sure the others like Rogers, telus and Shaw plan on following bells lead in throttling.
Wilfred Laurier
3 years ago
Well Dan....
Well, Dan, me thinks it would be pretty hard for a government to seize the assets of a private business because you are pissed about Bell throttling big downloaders. As a private business, Bell is entitled to set the policies for the use of its service.
Other ISPs such as Shaw and Telus are not doing this. I would suggest changing to them.