Capitalism

Yep, that sure sounds like freedom of speech and equity to me.

The telecoms should be nationalized now - the ones that aren't already owned by provinces.

Such services are public necessities and should be run for the good of the PUBLIC and not the few compromised shareholders who think they own them now.

Quiet

There seem to be a ton of things going on here in Canada that don't get splashed in our faces. It's sad that the people we hire to look after the public's business are too busy selling off our patrimony to take the time to tell us what they're doing, and that the major sources of "information" are too busy buying our patrimony to bother telling us about what our politicians are doing. St.-Exupéry's star counting businessman is not the anodine little caricature from my childhood: he is, rather, a stealthy and rapacious knave, and he has spawned all too many clones who sit in various legislatures and boardrooms, connected by T4 pipes and works toward the gutting of the society that has allowed him a gracious living. The Net Neutrality debate is about fairness, much like the push for more stringent copyright laws, and a lot of the problem stems from abuses by providers in both arenas. We will be victims of rapacious behaviour as long as we forsake the status of citizen for that of consumer.

Free and Fair Markets

"If the Telecom companies make the investment to increase broadband capacity, they should have the right to say who can (or cannot) use their networks - and for what price."

Why is it that those that make this argument are the first ones to shout anti-trust legislation when they can't compete. Given that argument, shouldn't Microsoft decide who gets to use their operating systems and at what price? Shouldn't they decide who they give their code to and who they don't? Hey, if you want your product to work on Microsoft's operating system, why can't they charge you for it? They made the investment into making it, not you.

Chris H

Good point. Capitalism is not immune to hypocricy. The bottom line is that there are several major telecoms at play here - each offering different bandwidth, etc. In addition, you can plug in from a phone line, etc. If we ever start seeing a monopoly in the telecom industry, we should sceam anti-trust.

That being said, if Telus chooses to give prefential treatment to people trying to access the Tyee - for a fee, they should have that right. If people do not agree with this, they can simply switch providers - or use a dial-up connection.

Companies are businesses - they offer a service or product. They are not some state sponsored welfare agency. They are there to make money, but their existence provides a better society.

If Google is so concerned - they have billions of dollars. They can start their own service provider. Of course, they don't want to. This requires far too much start-up capital (Telus is only starting to make money on these investments), plus the margins aren't nearly as high. They simply make billions on a simple web page with a very good search logarathim. They charge advertisers on a per-click rate.....

CanWest in a feeding frenzy and Canada's on the table

We're on a bus heading for the edge of the cliff, and there's nobody in the driver's seat.

Heaven forbid that we salute Mr Strong Man if he shows up promising to save the country. On the other hand, when there's a captive press ready to shoot down Mr Smart and Decent Man when he stands up for the public good ... well, we're on a runaway bus with no sense of direction, no control.

It's very, very offensive to persist in telling us that we are apathetic and that we don't care about the big issues. A free press would make the difference. Even The Tyee might remember to speak more often for the public good.

This morning's Globe and Mail has a Don't Worry Be Happy story about CanWest and their new best friend, Goldman Sachs the New York investment banker, who are teamed up pretty much planning to take over the world. [CanWest expected to step up pursuit of media holdings]

CanWest, if you ask me (and I know that you didn't) is the front man, the trojan horse. I figure CanWest will be eaten alive when its big-muscled playmate is ready for lunch. So what? So: then a powerful New York investment dealer will own most of Canada's news media.

For these high rollers, news and culture are laughed off as frills ... these guys are investors. News, culture, and yes the Internet are, to them, simply money markets. They deal in markets which can grab the most customers. Either paying customers, with Buy-this-stuff! or a clientele where the pay-off comes later, like voters in need of being trained to, well, Vote-for-Mr-Strong-Man's-promises!

In raw market-media terms, it would mean that TV cameras might get into B.C. Supreme Courtrooms for the sensationalist Pickton trial, but not for the B.C. Rail trial.

In B.C.'s CanWest newspapers, there's a permanent listing in each edition for what will be a gruesome, stomach-churning trial for the pig farmer. But rarely mentioned at all, is the B.C. Rail case which involves Canada's 3rd largest railway and top government officials, and every British Columbian.

This is bad enough. But without the free exchange of information on the Internet, things will get worse. Soon.

Capitalism is wrong . . .

...when she says "It is their investment! If these 2 million people wish to build their own network (with the help of Google - and other defenders) - nothing is stopping them." In fact that is not true. The telecoms and cable providers are monopolies, and not only do they demand non-competition within the technologies of which they have been given control, but they also kick and scream when anyone suggests providing an alternative like a public free wireless network.

But it's not just the carriers who are the source of the problem. Even with multiple competing carriers, there would still be pressure from big media firms to lock out smaller information sources and they will not hesitate to withhold their content from channels that do not help reinforce their control of the information market.

Capitalism has a natural tendency to follow the biblical injunction "Unto him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken away - even that which he hath". This is not necessarily what we want in many areas - but most especially in that of media and information control.

Capitalsim

One tiny concession here from Capitalism. At least she isn't pretending that the bottom line isn't the only thing corporations care about. Of course, anyone with half a brain has know that for more than a century.

The problem arises when the capitalists also own the media and the technology that enables that media to disseminate the news. That's why they the telecoms should be nationalized. These guys don't care about real competition and fair trade so the people with the real democratic power have to wake up and find institutions to support that will really begin to make a difference.

The past 30-odd years have been a complete disaster and change, if it doesn't start soon, isn't going to be pretty.

Capitalism

they are using it to further censor/control and increase their media strangle hold plain and simple. Watch these short films and see if your opinion changes:
http://skeletonproject.com/2007/01/03/net-neutrality/

Addiction to bandwidth

We have clearly become addicted to bandwidth and the peddlers will be taking full advantage of it in the years to come.

I would argue that people should pay for the amount of network resources they are using. Bandwidth is a limited resources certainly on the last mile segment in most surroundings. I find it most unfair to have someone in the neighborhood suck up all the network resources and affect performance on my own Net interaction which I tend to keep low bandwidth ones. We will defenitely have to wean back. Very similar issue in my opinion with water and gas at the pump.

What concerns me the most is the fact that there are only two providers on the last mile segment in most surroundings. The operators have therefore been granted a monopoly that will not benefit the public but the provider shareholders. I am also concerned that the application providers (e.g. Vonage) will get squeezed out by these two providers actig as predators. All of this has been well observed south of the border and is well documented on the broadband reports popular web site that I used to visit. Deploying alternate technologies on this segment requires deep pocket, i.e. being able to withstand the wrath of the biggies.

The canadian regulator seems just as blinded to ideologies as the FCC has been. The result to this day is that the Europeans and Asians are winning the battle for next generation broadband deployment. Canada was doing very well at some point on this. And I think we are losing ground by following the american deregulation model.

The Tyee is my

The Tyee is my homepage.
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2007/01/17/NetNeutrality/

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

We/You and I all have got to sign this very important petition as it is also a huge threat to OUR Democracy and OUR Democratic rights to KNOW!
As you know OUR local so called media is a Disgrace for real news of any kind, I quit buying CanWest BS the sun, the province also Global TV. example: The 2003 Legislature Raids nothing but there was a court hearing on Monday January 15th at 9am did anyone read or know about that? http://bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com/
All the back room deals going on with BC Libs/mafia nary a word?
CanWest where are your Investigative Reporters?
Here's a site that is very worrisome from USa.
http://www.ketupa.net/asper1.htm#canada

Will the real "Capitalism" please stand up..

There are more people involved in this issue than the article suggests. I posted about the connection between Net Neutrality and "Digital Restrictions Management" in an article after the Alternative Telecom Summit.

Article: CLUE policy coordinator at Alt-Telecom Policy Forum

Those person pretending to represent "Capitalism" in the comments has the issue entirely wrong. The telecommunications companies are already regulated monopolies with excessive market control. In Canada much of this problem was government created, and the current Industry minister Bernier is making the problem worse by pretending that de-regulating monopolists will allow Free Markets to exist.

The value that these monopolists are trying to charge for isn't their value, it is someone elses. You already have to pay more money to get a larger pipe to the Internet, so that isn't what the issue is about.

The question is: should the bits that transport content that is considered "valuable" be charged a different rate? This is about charging different rates for different valued "bits", not different speeds. This is someone elses value, not the telecommunications companies. Charging money for someone elses value could be considered a form of theft, if governments appropriately understood the issues.

The same is true of so called "Digital Rights Management" which is advertised as being about stopping copyright infringement (something it is incapable of doing), but is really about limiting peoples rights and then trying to sell peoples own rights back to them. It is dishonest, anti-capitalist (not pro-capitalist as is the urban myth), and should be illegal.

Article: Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy

Command and Control

Wrote Capitalism,

The 'investment' was made long ago...fiber optic cables surround the globe, so many that the price to use them is a pittance!

They, the telecoms, took a beating in the markets when this overcapacity became clear.

Moreover the legislated telecom monopoly is why the telecoms have the profits that they are enjoying, entirely artificial since places like Japan and parts of Indonesia have large areas of broadband wireless - FOR FREE!

It is the $$$ squeeze that will likely push some US metro area into the decision to go wireless, since at least in the US a county has the infrastucture and legal ability to do this. Somewhere like Colorado Springs or Lubbock or Tacoma doing this could be the pebble that starts a landslide in North America.

In the end only those with their own access, such as a satellite antenna or other ways to stay 'off the grid' being setup and controlled by the telecoms can consider their information 'clean' or uninterupted.

Just as the early printing press was wild and free at first, so to has been the internet. Now the new 'bishops' and 'barons' are working out how to control this tech and make it do what they want it to...

Various Responses

They aren't monopolies in the U.S. In Canada, I believe Telus and Bell are lobbying the government to allow more competition. It is the CRTC that is restricting them from offering more competitive pricing (on bundling services).

Secondly, Capitalism isn't a she - it is a he.

I am assuming their governments did this - or somebody is profiting in another way. If we as Canadians decide this is important, let's use some of our infrastructure budget to build this out...

The transportation of information is as important as the transportation of people!! I do believe however that if these companies have invested heavily in this technology, they have a right to protect and market this technology as they see fit. Nobody is forcing you to subscribe to their services.

You are right - there is demand - and when there is demand, people see dollar signs. New technology becomes old - inevitably, the Internet will be much like TV - controlled content!

However, a new virtual internet will arise...

Granted monopoly on the last mile

Substantial investments have been incurred by the cable and the telco companies on the last mile. A monopoly has however been granted and there is therefore a need for the regulator to step up and set some rules. The lobbyists need to back off. The politicians and bureaucrats need to stop hiding behind ideologies and do their job, i.e. look after the public interest. The citizens need to breadth over their neck on this important matter.

Two separate issues being mixed....

Two separate issues seem to be being merged in the comments. One is about bandwidth, and the other is about network neutrality.

Those who support Network Neutrality have no problem with people paying for the amount of bandwidth they have access to. We have problems now that ISPs over-subscribe such that they offer many customers a service they claim has a 2M (or similar) downlink when they don't have the network connection to the rest of the internet to actually offer that. If they were more honest they would be offering 56K (burstable to 2M) connections, with people who wanted access to more bandwidth paying more.

The worst offenders for this issue seem to be the Cable companies who are using a technology that over-subscribes neighbourhoods such that the fact that one neighbour is using the full capacity of the line affects the access of their neighbours.

An entirely separate issue is Network Neutrality which says that all bits should be treated (and charged) the same regardless of the source, destination, or contents. It is important for people to realize that this is a separate issue than the bandwidth issue, so congestion and other such issues (caused by over-subscription by ISPs) are also entirely separate.

Another monopoly has been brought up in this conversation and that is Microsoft for desktop operating systems and office suites. While I'm not a customer of Microsoft, Apple, or other such companies, lets pretend for the moment I am.

Say I write a book with Microsoft Office. If the book turns out to be a best seller, should Microsoft receive a cut of the royalties? Most rational people would say no, Microsoft was paid for Office when it was purchased, and it should never matter how valuable the content is that is created using this tool. This is in fact what the Telecommunications Companies are asking for -- they want a cut of the value that other people are generating simply because wires which they manage (and customers already paid for) are being used.

The suggestion keeps being made that the Telecos should have the right to charge what they want, and people can just "vote with their feet". This rhetoric is nonsense given it is not trivial to "vote with their feet", and in most jurisdictions in Canada there are maybe 2 choices, with many geographic areas only having a single choice.

In the Software world it might convince people to switch to OpenOffice.org from Microsoft Office if Microsoft demanded a "cut" of sales of material produced using MS-Word, but I still don't think this type of immoral and anti-capitalistic practise should be legal.

Russell McOrmond

Capitalism writes, Quote:if

Capitalism writes,

Why not extend the principle to telephone service? Why shouldn't Telus offer better connections to Pizza Hut than to Pizza Pizza? Call the wrong pizza provider, and you run into a "network busy" message or low call quality. Suddenly calls to friends and family degrade because they're not paying extra. Would this be a positive outcome? Actually, now that we have Internet phone service, this kind of thing is already happening.

Oh, but they were. They are private monopolies now, but they got there by being public or public-supported monopolies first. And who's talking about state support? I pay more for high-speed access. Google pays for every megabit of bandwidth used by people visiting their site.

Look, we have to decide: do we want a competitive market in bandwidth, a competitive market in online services, or both? With net neutrality, we can have both. Without it, the telecoms effectively become network regulators. They can (and do and will) use this power to break the market for services. I don't wish to put off the folks here who have legitimate concerns about markets, but network neutrality is pro-market.

More importantly, this kind of discriminatory behavior cripples non-market production that depends on the Internet, from open source software to health mailing lists, discussion forums with product reviews, artist-produced music, Wikipedia, you name it.

That won't do the trick, unless you switch providers to Google. But what if they violate net neutrality too? Are you going to subscribe to multiple ISPs just so the net will work properly? Even if you did, the Internet is a network of networks: ISPs send their traffic through other networks, and so on. Do you want an Internet like the cell phone system of a few years ago, in which you could only send SMS messages to other customers of the same provider?

uhh it's hard to get

uhh it's hard to get traction in the mainstream media (msm) about this as the companies that own the msm are for this restriction - I swear canada has gone from being in danger of a being a prototypical fascist country to actually becoming a nascent/adolescent fascist state.

i wish it was hyperbole.

another sorry example....
http://www.vancourier.com/issues07/012207/opinion/012207op1.html

Mayor's secret stash a puzzle

By Allen Garr

Sam Sullivan has a secret slush fund to mount his re-election campaign.

They do!

Pizza Hut has to determine how many phone lines it needs, etc. If it only has one phone line, it can only accept 1 call at a time. If it can route 10 phone calls at a time (a function which costs money), then they can accept 10 phone calls.

You get my point. Increased call volume requires increased capacity. Increased capacity, requires extra phone lines or call features....

So - they do in a way....

Quote:That won't do the

Well then you get a consumer group to set up a co-op with the mandate to be non-profit oriented and disallowing net neutrality.....simply.

It isn't up to Telus to ensure this. Telus provides a service, which it has the right to control. You as the consumer, have the right not to subscribe to this service.

just wondering

Could this explain what I've been complaining about: Slow response "waiting for thetyee" on both Explorer and Firefox? Shaw is the provider here and I assume they are moving along with any industry trend.

I try not to send big files (videos or music) to everyone on my mailing list but I still get way too much incoming tripe. Though some are enjoyable could the individual user not influence the system overload if they restricted their blanket forwards to text only with links to whatever they want to convey?

Paying for bandwidth is not a neutrality violation

You get my point. Increased call volume requires increased capacity. Increased capacity, requires extra phone lines or call features....

Exactly. I think you misunderstand what net neutrality is about, because what you describe here is not in conflict with it. Every web site and online service provider pays for the bandwidth they use. I have a web site; if I get more traffic, I'll have to pay more. That's fine and necessary for the providers to stay in business. No-one is proposing otherwise.

Network neutrality, as Russell explains is, not about the amount of bandwidth (in this case the number of phone lines) - it's about the nature or source of the content (e.g. pizza orders). It's about the network operators discriminating for or against data based not on the amount (or the cost, to them, of delivering it) but on the nature or source of the data.

You must understand, when you visit a site on the Internet your connection routes through numerous intermediate networks. Those intermediate networks want to start charging sites with whom they currently have no business relationship. It's as if the post office opened your mail and charged extra for orders from amazon (but not from chapters).

Take our pizza example. Say Pizza Pizza pays for 10 phone lines from Telus. But I try to place my order with a Fido cell phone. Fido's preferred pizza vendor is Pizza Hut; they don't even have an arrangement with Pizza Pizza. When I call for my Pizza, the connection is full of static and the line is dropped half-way through the order.

Can you imagine trying to start a pizza shop if you not only had to subscribe to phone service, you also had to cut a deal with every phone network between you and your potential customers? Well, the telecoms would dearly love to create a situation just like that.

Look before you leap

Cap, you posted your response to this article before you thought it through.

Just to please me, just state you realize that, as russellmcormond so eloquently points out, there are two separate issues at play here. Net Neutrality and bandwidth costs.

Few are questioning Telus and Shaw's right to charge for the size of the pipe they provide to your home. The key issue is whether they can decide what goes through that pipe and whether they can charge additional fees for no reason than they like or dislike someone else's content.

I could care less if my neighbour wants to pay for Telus Enhanced to download his videos of MySpace girls. But I do care that Telus can arbitrarily block access to a site created by a union. Just as I would be equally displeased if an NDP government decided to block access to American websites.

As for the Pizza Hut example, no one is saying Pizza Hut shouldn't be able to add more phone lines, the problem is Telus should not be able to block access to some pizza delivery outfits and not others. The contents of the pipe are not theirs to control. That is the key issue.

Low hanging fruit

The telcos/cablecos are notarious for picking "low hanging fruit" (i.e. the most lucrative with least effort). This practice does go against Net Neutrality.
They will do everything to steamroll through this and stealth through: that means buying their way into the regulator. The regulator will have to deal with this and "transparency" will come up. The key stakeholders are afterall operating a granted monopoly and this should *never* be forgotten!

Public or Private?

Hi Frank. What is the Telcos responsibility as a utility? Was there no public contributuion to help pay for the telegraph wires so many years ago? Tax breaks, handouts, incentives all accounted for? Just as the railway, the highways etc. I'd say we may have another example of what Ed refers to as theft from the public. If BB gets their hands on it, forget any chance of getting objective information. The MSM will have closed the door, nay slammed, the door in your face.

The telcos are opposed to

The telcos are opposed to net neutrality because it interferes with their ability to "create shareholder value", to make more profit. Or so they say. The underlying agenda however is to control who gets what information, to manage perceptions.

At the moment the most effective medium for managing perceptions is the newspapers, and in Canada this is exactly why Conrad Black started the National Post, profitable or not. But this will change as the internet gets bigger and access easier and the elite know it. The internet is the biggest threat to elite rule and as surely as the sun rises they will control it or if they can't they will simply remove it.

Proof is evident in the participation of Goldman Sachs in the Canwest-Alliance merger. Goldman Sachs, like all elite banks, puts paid to any notion of a "free" market as it manipulates the stock market in whatever direction it chooses, prints money (or not) for whoever it chooses, launders untold billions in drug money, and issues esoteric financial derivatives that few understand valued in the trillions. It's no wonder they finance telco consolidation.

Neutrality.ca -- Official Comment

Today, Neutrality.ca has seen an excellent response, over 50 tyee readers have signed the petition.

The comments on this story are however disturbing. One of the things I tried to get placed in this article was some of the technical detail. It however, did not make the cut, but can fortunately be found on the neutrality.ca site.

It is very simple to say 'net neutrality' and demonstrate it's affects, but technical understanding is critical for informed debate.

What Capitalism and some of the other posters do not understand is that there is insufficient competition to allow for a free-market. In my city, Edmonton, there are two viable choices for broadband. Both are neutrality violators.

This is not a free market and I cannot build, or buy from a neutral provider.

For practical reasons, we may not go out into the street and start digging up our sidewalk to run fiber down the road. If it were a free market, we could do this. We could grow organic networks, link them up and the city would end up looking a mess.

Instead, we have decided to offer monopolies to cable and telephone providers that allow them to appropriate public lands and properties. For this right to utilize our resources and dig beneath our streets, we ask that the Canadian principles of fairness and justice be observed; principles that would not otherwise apply to private entities.

It's for this reason, that we demand net neutrality, to offer equal fairness to everyone whose lands, and tax dollars, have been used to build this Canadian internet. It is not private, it is not 'theirs' and it deserves to be regulated for the sole benefit of the people.

This regulation is the rent they pay for using our properties. Until they own the land under which their copper lies, true deregulation simply cannot occur and market forces cannot take over.

Thank you for your support on this issue,

Kevin McArthur
Neutrality.ca

Petition mixes issues

Kevin:

I signed the petition but must point out that Net neutrality is mixed up with quality of service matters. These are two different issues as clarified earlier.

Your petition would benefit from not mixing them up. I do agree that the regulator must however control the charge that providers can add to the basic service when they compete with the VOIP service as well.I don't have a problem with the provider charging for using extra network resources but I do have a problem with the regulator not capping this charge.

My bandwidth has been

My bandwidth has been throttled. I used to get high-speed cable, but now it's only medium speed.

They introduced an Extreme high-speed version, which I will have to pay more for.

They also introduced a Lite version, which I can pay less for, and get less features too.

I also used to get 9 channels of HD television on the same cable, and now I only get six. They want me to pay extra for the remaining 3 channels plus some extra ones they added.

They also want me to use their VOIP phone.

Soon, "they" will no longer be connected to my house.

Maybe I should steal satelite signals from the free world, you know, the ones not allowed in Canada.

Just like during the war, I would have to hide the antenna under a plastic rock in my yard.

And so it goes

I love this shit! I can remember quite some time ago doing booth duty at a mall for the TWU when the first talk of deregulation reared it's ugly head. I was called every name under the sun for trying to make people aware of the dangers. So now we have deregulation, equal access for any carrier who wants to be a telco and the list goes on. A famous ultra-conservative politician once stated that one of the the biggest mistakes made in the US was the break-up of AT&T. For the so called free enterprisers out there, save the key strokes about the advancement of technology. That would have occurred with or without a monopoly. What we have is a shift away from what the telcos used to be ie service providers with a commitment to service as opposed to upselling. Now it doesn't matter whether a service works well, it's all about EBIDTA, share value, churn rate and all the other buzz words of the week. Right now we have Telus, with it's roll out of their TV service over DSL in the large centres. Lots of problems getting it running but what the hell, cross subsidies are great when they suit you. They will have all of the techno geeks in BC and AB thinking this is the next wave of the future. Only thing is, in lowly SK it's been working well there for years. And a Crown Corporation to boot.

QoS and Net Neutrality

Gaulois, just as a quick response, there is a difference between the quality of service of your internet connection, and the quality of service of a given protocol operating on that connection.

Net Neutrality is not about bandwidth or throughput.

The QoS technology, which I discuss, is however, very much a part of the Net Neutrality issue. It is not the bandwidth or the amount of data you can transfer, but whether or not certain types of traffic receive a higher Quality of Service than others.

For example Shaw's QoS service that Vonage describes as a 'thinly veiled VoIP tax' and that they filed a complaint with the CRTC over.

To be clear, we support the sale of broadband based on speed (256k, 512k, 1mbit) or transfer(10mb, 1gb, 100gb), or a combination of both. People should pay for what they use and this fee should be regulated in relation to what it costs to deliver.

We do not support any ISP selling 1mbit service to their in-house Digital TV or VoIP offerings, while Vonage and YouTube get 256k service. This is where Net Neutrality needs to step in.

Additionally QoS technologies are not ‘additional’ or 'enhanced' services; they are digital line jumping services, which actively degrade the service of others as a result of their operation. It is not the positive effect that we take exception to, but the negative effect on those who don’t pay for protection.

With the VoIP protocol, the negative effects of QoS mean that when your neighbor, who pays for the QoS service, makes a phone call over VoIP, your in-progress call may be dropped or lose audio quality be your neighbor has first priority to the same bandwidth.

This is actively occurring on providers’ networks today and is harming our VoIP sector. Without anyone on QoS, there would simply be no need for it; however as more people use the QoS services, those who don't will be forced to pay up or their previously working service will become unreliable and unusable. This grants a competitive edge to the carrier which is anti-competitive, unfair and economically damaging.

I hope that clears up the relation between QoS and Net Neutrality.

Capitalism must be a she

otherwise she wouldn't protest so much.

hunter is absolutely right - once again, as with fibre optics, Sasktel is leading the way. Biggest mistake Barrett ever made was not nationalizing BC Tel when the NDP was in power in the 70s.

the drift...

It comes under the drift towards corporate fascism currently underway throughout capitalism-, but nowhere more than within the U$ and those countries nearest to it... especially bordering upon it, and with a long Empire bootlicking tradition already well established.

Telus

True and false. It is about earnings and share value. However, service is quite important. While there isn't a tonne of competition (due to high barriers to entry), these companies must provide excellent service in order to attract and maintain customers.

Telus has good customer service. It may not be as great as SaskTel, however it is adequate. They offer far superior products though. They have the best mobile reception in the country and very competitive rates.

I know what you people want. You want a welfare society - where businesses operate with the objective of giving back to society and their employees. This is very good in theory, but it just doesn't work in real life.

You people are cowards. You are afraid to make your own decisions, and very few socialists ever accept responsibility. It is all Gordo's fault, your bosses fault, the rich guys fault.u

Regulation is necessary. It is necessary to protect investors, consumers and public interests. However, in many instances competition is the best form of regulation. Many of you people are so far left wing - it really isn't funny!

Take a bow

It was a simple issue. Not left versus right, simply Freedom versus Control. You chose Control.

Not only are you at odds with Lefties, you're at odds with many Righties, especially those of the Libertarian bent. Simply because you either didn't understand the issue or because you're further to the Right than Ghengis Khan.

Hi club

I agree with you clubofrome, telco shareholders are making profits based partly on past public investments (verying by province).

silly argument

The telcos say Google shouldn't get a "free ride" on their network. If they're offering free rides, tell me where to sign up for one. The free ride is a fairy tale.

Everyone already pays. There is no free bandwidth that they need to reduce. There is profit to be increased though. The real question is not how to make sure that the people who use the bandwidth have to pay for it, that's already answered. The real question is how to take the bandwidth that is already paid for and make more money from it.

There is no "unlimited" bandwidth. Never was, and without wireless mesh networks becoming the norm there never will be.
http://bcwireless.net/

Take a look at Telus:
http://www.mytelus.com/internet/highspeed/prices.do
Maximum bandwidth allowed on their most expensive consumer plan: 60 GB/month. If you go over you pay. That's perfectly normal, perfectly reasonable, and nobody is screaming about the unfairness of it. Same thing for any corporation: they will rent space at a server farm that includes a maximum speed and a maximum amount of bandwidth, and if they go over the included bandwidth they pay. Same thing for the networks: there are interconnection points, the traffic is monitored, and who owes who is negotiated. Everyone is getting paid.

Poor cappy: dial-up doesn't get you out of the mess at all. Your dial up connection goes to a bank of modems which are attached to the same network as your dsl connection, which is run by the same companies doing the same premium fast lane scam. Murdock, same thing, your satellite connection doesn't connect to some other internet, it's all the same thing. It's not just your provider putting you into the slow lane, it's all the networks in between you and the content you're looking for who can put their own made up rules on what kind of data they want to get to you reliably, and what data has to take it's chances.

Interesting take on it over at The Register:
http://www.theregister.com/2007/01/10/whitacre_wins_big/
Maybe it was all just a diversion to take attention away from mergers and all the consolidation going on?

All infrastructure should be nationalized, or at least ?provincialized?. There can't be real competition in providing infrastructure. If they sell the Coquihalla highway, do you really think someone else is going to come along and build another highway alongside of it to get a piece of the market? The wires and telephone poles are already there, mostly paid for in the first place by the people and then donated to corporations. Do you really think Google could build up a whole new network of wires of their very own, even if they wanted to? The best we can ever hope for with privatized basic infrastructure is highly regulated monopolies, with guaranteed stable profits, and that seems silly to me. Why not nationalize? I'm not entirely a communist, there is plenty of room for competition in services that take advantage of the infrastructure, and that usually does lead to reasonable prices and innovation. But where there is no hope of a true competitive marketplace, why even pretend to try to create one?

Regulation is necessary caveat

Capitalism stated "Regulation is necessary" but adds "However, in many instances competition is the best form of regulation." Does Capitalism believe that there is in fact real competition on broadband delivery??? Can he spell duopoly???

I knew it

Cap- Your comment that service levels must be excellent is bogus. The parameters that the telcos are allowed to manipulate with the CRTC's tacet approval is legion. If you want to get the info it's on the StatsCan site. All this garbage re bandwidth and how the poor telcos are hamstrung by regulation, which leads to higher prices, which makes it so the latest tacky bell and whistle isn't available right now!!! Spare us. The wireless and IP side of the operation is the unregulated portion. All of the crap that you are being nickel and dimed to death on on your land line was available to you the day those switches were turned up back in the early 80's. Why wasn't it all available at the time? You should be asking why. The features were slowly rolled out to get us all hooked on them, and those same switches that are 80"s vintage are still current? Hmmm. We've become gadget junkies with this crap. Just think how Gates and Microsoft would be doing if they weren't able to constantly "develop" new and improved stuff that keeps us all going to the nearest retailer to drop more cash so we've got it.

Capitalist nursery rhymes

This is just plain nonsense. Their service is terrible and I don't even use them for basic phone any more. They call be about once a month and beg me to come back - pardon me, some promo firm calls me.

Of course it does, you just won't admit it.

Sounds like name calling to me - exactly what you eventually fall back on every time. Incapable of making an impossible case you revert to slurs Capitalism/maybellbc

If that's the case, how come every application by a new player for an expansion into Telus/BC Tel's traditional areas of operation was fought tooth and nail? BCTel should have been nationalized a generation ago.

errata

should be call 'me' not call 'be' above

Cappy's viewpoint is based

Cappy's viewpoint is based on froth, the froth that is spewed daily from the corporate dailies. He's a coward, refusing to look below the froth at the truth. He can't take the truth and must resort to name-calling in an effort to prop up his little fantasy. How boring.

It's valuable though. However ignorant and stupid, his comments contribute somewhat to an expansion of the discussion. Too bad they are accompanied by such lowbrow epithets.

freedom

We decry attempts by China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and others to control what we have access to, via television, newspapers and the Internet. Yet we accept it in Canada.
We are deprived from participating in modern American culture by the CRTC.
It's like the Wheat Board, it's going, it's gone. We are finally free of running around town trying to rent old seasons of DVD's of programmes we were not allowed to see, because of an outdated Canadian Wheat Board type of thing that makes us like Cuba.
We should all demand freedom from the tyranny of these censoring groups.
I demand liberty and freedom. I demand the right to pursue happiness. I demand you Can Com Lib's screw off and allow me to have the freedoms that Americans have with all their satellite, Internet, radio, television resources.
It's cumin baby.

IAMC

What's that an advertisement for Ron?

Sounds to me like you aren't a Canadian anymore. I think I'll tell Stockboy you're a danger to our independence and sick CSIS on you dude. Wallow in it!

Fox News

You have to go back to an old discussion G to understand this. Ron is still upset he can't get Fox News on basic cable.

He's pretty much the only guy I've ever known who thinks he's not getting enough American culture through the media. Okay, the guys with no life who actually get up in arms because Cdn stations replace US commericals with their own excepted.

He's the Canadian version of a hockey fan in Galveston Texas complaining he can't see Don Cherry and Ron Maclean on ESPN.

Thanks Frank

That makes my day. I have this incredibly awful head cold - the idea of Ron picketing for Fox News actually made me forget about it for a minute.

Hmmm

Gee you are anti-freedom Mr. West. Why don't you wake up?
Tech has passed you by. Eventually it will all come out. WE are deprived of pertinent information by a Old Govt. agency that is still useful as far as giving out endless licences, to whoever can raise the infratucture that enables them to set up an antenna, or website, or American HBO ( Dead Like ME ) Deadwood, Sopranos, The Wire , Nik Tup, The Office ( British ) are not usually available to US. I am sick of it.
But the Americans may have already trumped us.
Not that they don't want the business. They have already cut us off from all the good stuff like The Wire, Deadwood, Dead Like ME, Sopranos ( you really have to work at enjoying this series in REAL TIME in Kanada, so let us all call for the right of freedom, finally in Canada.K

No Ron I'm not anti-freedom

That's the way to do it right. The sycophants are the ones who say oil is the only way.

I'm pro Canadian. Too bad you're not. I watch all that stuff on Bell Expressvu now.

Whatsa matta, you no understand satellite technology? It's even available in Victoria. If you'd like some help aiming your dish you can call me up.

It also lets me time shift so I see everything 3 hours before you do. Maybe that's why you're so far outta the picture Ron. I’m also pro freedom – you have my permission to leave anytime – since you don’t care or like the country of your birth I’d suggest you leave ASAP IAMC.

The control of information

The control of information has always been the biggest weapon, used by ruling classes, to conquer, misinform and enslave humanity on their way to "wealth creation" otherwise known as common theft.

The Net is the first time in history when people could exchange information free of censorship and control. The MAI was the first, and only, internationally negotiated treaty, ready to be signed by quisling and pimp governmesnt of the OECD, but knocked over by people power, thanks to the Net.

Therefore, the Net must go..........

And people will just sit there, moaning a bit, but doing nothing.

Of course, the text of the MAI is now in all, now being negotiated, so called "free trade agreements".

Ed Deak.

Quote:Sounds to me like you

LOL. Good one, West.

Which is the nub of this guy, gal, transvestite, whatever. He is not a Canadian. He is a corporatist. He/she, in my read of the critter, owes no real loyalty anywhere, except to his/her own wealth interests and what out there in his loved capitalist marketplace will the better line its own pocket. That is his love/loyalty interest, over all other broader community or collective interest whatsoever. He/she is, or sees itself, as the self-made man alone on an island against the world with its notions of community, equity, fairness and sharing, which he sees as like the tv commercial ever with its hand in his pocket.

But even in his overweening, fawning fidelity to Corporate Greater Amerika, if one pays but scant attention to US media these days, it weeps out over all attempts to staunch it, especially right now this right wing populist Lou Dobbs on CNN, it is clear that a growing body of ordinary working-class US citizens (whom they call middle-class) are turning not only against the US Empire and its wars in the Middle East, but against the very

vision of this so-called corporatist North Amerikan Union itself.

So even there, in the heartland of the Empire itself, he/she is or would be finding "itself" increasingly isolated and alone.

So one should certainly be surprised, nor clearly are most of us here, at Capitalism/IAMC's/ Mabelles support for corporate monopoly control of the media in general, or its control over what has become a pesky, troublesome and irreverent (to capitalism) internet political life. The internet has in fact been the last remaining bastion of ideas freedom left in this drifting towards corporate fascism society. Of course the corporatist view of the world is anxious to bring this ferment and potential influence on its agenda under control.

And to do that, their chosen method is to squeeze it, choke it down, use whatever pretext folks will swallow, like porn and people's natural and easily provoked fear for their children's safety in the flourishing sex trade markets of the capitalist world, to bring in measures to enhance corporate control over content generally and various forms of thinly disguised censorship. (And this porn and sex trade market right now is definitely a growth market for the system of capitalism as well, within its seedy criminal underbelly, Capitalism dude or dudess. Everything, absolutely everything that has the potential to produce a buck and play to a "market", how e're seedy or soiled no less, gets reduced to a commodity, including women and children, and finds a place somewhere in the capitalist marketplace, in the hands of unscrupulous "free market entrepreneurs".)

Capitalism and his/her like is a persistent manifestation amongst us of this reality, all of it, built into the system, and the desire to control and monopolize all aspects of the marketplace, including the exchange of ideas and access to ideas, into the hands of a few "self-censoring" global corps-, as is the tendency within his opted for system of capitalism, and as it has been working toward and evolving relentlessly since the first Industrial Evolution.

If the Neoconazi mentality, the many Capitalisms who apologize for the system have their way, what has been the liberating spontaneity of the internet will be strangled out of it, it will be carved up and bought up in the seedy capitalist marketplace, and will end up looking like but one more aspect of the big starch collared, dumbed down and sycophantic CanWest media monopoly. (Already we have observed that early drift even here on Tyee.)

Which is why we have to build community and organization here as quickly as possible-, because it is already changing and being brought under control. This too will not last against the relentless corporatist ambition to reduce everything to a commodity, such as can be bought, sold and monopolized in the capitalist marketplace.

Right now we are merely living through what is likely a temporary fools paradise period. They were slow seeing its potential and twigging onto it, and for only such reason have we enjoyed this period of relative freedom. Now, however, they are onto it and fearful of its potential if it is not brought under corporatist "market" control.

Well put Coyote

And yet they (you know of whom I write) have the effrontery to call this perversion they bow down before FREEDOM.

As always, like that old song from Kris Kristopherson 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose'.

Quote:Moreover the

Murdock - there is no free, just because you can't see who's footing the bill doesn't make it so.......

What about SPAM?

I'm amazed the subject of SPAM hasn't been brought up.

I run a tiny ISP, paying through the nose for 64 IPs upon which I host websites for a fee. Needless to say, I'll never be able to pay extra for priority packet handling, and my webhosting customers will leave their local Canadian provider for someplace in Florida or California or China or India.

But what really burns me is that I'm currently buying about 10 times the bandwidth I really need, because 90% of my traffic currently is SPAM and its ilk!

And I'm not just talking email -- although sometimes my pipe is so saturated with bogus SMTP traffic so that legit email bounces. I'm talking about the 90% of web traffic in my logs that is from robots and spiders -- much of it probing for Microsoft-only vulnerabilities (I'm running UNIX).

If a two-tier system is allowed, won't spammers simply sign up for the higher level of service, until essentially everything that arrives is unwanted? (One can basically define "unwanted email" as "email from people who want to get money from me" and thus "people who can afford to access me.")

I'm unsympathetic to the "free market" types who keep arguing that the telcos own the service, so they can sell it any way they like. Monopolies are not free markets! If I had any other choice but Telus, I might agree, but I've tried to fire them before, and there just ain't nobody else at my location.

(BTW: I've had a trouble ticket in to Telus for a week now. This is their third strike -- they were supposed to be here between 8AM and noon today, having failed to keep two other appointments. In a "free market," I'd be off to someone else who provided better service, but I can't do that!)

Telus Service -Not

Oh, Yeah, byesmiths. and you're not the only one. Yet cappy can claim that Telus has good service chops up above here.

I hope a lot more folks sign on with their horror stories too.

NLN "nothing free" is about

NLN "nothing free" is about the first sense you made. Let's hope you may wake up yet.

Of course, there's nothing "free".. There's no wealth creation, no free lunch, no free enterprise and no free trade.

The purpose of economic theories has always been the distribution of the real costs on a wider base and to filter the benefits into the pockets of aristocracies.

So, what else is new ?

Ed Deak

free stuff...

Interesting piece, Bytesmiths. And bang on.

And of course Fait. Always gives me a chuckle with the beautiful simplicity of most of his true observations.

So, what else is new ?

It's that old depth of a saucer of water syndrome that so afflicts the neoconazis.

Language confusion.

It is interesting how someone can label themselves "Capitalism", and people mistakenly believe that this person is in support of capitalism. What this person is advocating is neither a "Free Market" nor a pro-Capitalist approach.

I also think that the left-vs-right discussion is out of place, given that there are many of us right-of-center folks (fiscal conservatives) who are pro-Capitalist and pro-business which are on the side of the communications/transportation neutrality required to have a healthy economy. Trampling on the rest of the economy to service the special interests of a few monopolists isn't consistent with the views of a right-wing person, it is the view of a wing-nut.

Our past Industrial economy was largely built on top of what could be called "Road Neutrality". The road networks, largely owned and managed by various levels of government, charged taxes to pay for them but didn't charge based on the "value" of what people were transporting. I believe most rational people would realize that our capitalist economy could not exist without this common transportation infrastructure working that way.

I'm not suggesting we need to nationalize the entire of the communications infrastructure and manage them the same way we currently manage roads. I do, however, believe that this infrastructure needs to be regulated to offer a similar effect, while still allowing for competing private sector offerings relating to different technologies (Wired, Wireless, Fiber, etc). If regulation is not sufficient to protect the necessary neutrality, then nationalizing the communications infrastructure would be warranted.

The argument that the telecommunications companies "own" the wires and should be allowed to break with the Neutrality required to have a capitalist economy is entirely without merit. The physical system that these wires are placed in are largely "owned" by the public sector (or created by governments stepping in and creating right-of-way exceptions to privately owned real-property). On top of this, this communications infrastructure has always been highly government subsidized in the form of direct grants and tax incentives.

Government offer these right-of-ways to put wires under *our* cities , provinces or countries under specific conditions. I believe that Neutrality should be one of the basic conditions. If the providers don't like those terms, and that is their choice, then they should no longer be allowed to put wires under our country, or use the spectrum managed by our governments on our behalf.

Sounds fair to me. If private sector companies aren't willing to be part of the infrastructure in a fair and honest way, then the public sector will simply need to manage the communications infrastructure as the transportation infrastructure has been.

BTW: If you believe in Network Neutrality, you may also believe in protecting your rights as owners of communications technology. Please sign our Petition to protect IT property rights.

Then again, the person mis-naming themselves as "Capitalism" will likely suggest that protecting property rights is somehow only a left-wing issue as well ;-) I wonder if he believes that the Canadian Conservative party which has protecting property rights as part of their platform is a left-wing party.

That's the great irony

Dear russellmcormond; I think you've hit the nail on the head. This whole group of people claiming to be 'right wing' or Capitalist are all the while making arguments for centralized control by emancipated, charter-free corporations, (they call themselves multi-national) that are essentially Soviet in nature. I can't see any important differences between a corporate CEO in the modern sense of the term, and a Soviet Commisar from Moscow in the thirties.

And Bush's so-called Republicans are spearheading the creation of the necessary gulags and torture camps to perfect the picture.

And the ones they are mocking, calling them Left-wing or even socialist, are simply advocating such basic Conservative values as civic duty, responsibility to society, the necessity of regulation, the abolition of monopoly, protection of freedoms of speech, the press, assembly and even fairness of trade.

These people are as far from conservatives as anyone could be, running up huge debts, continuing to be caught in frauds and corruptions, which they survive entirely through their stranglehold on the mainstream media, which they spin and scrub nearly free of their crimes.

And their enemies, whom they decry as socialists and pretend are impractical fools, are the very ones howling for an end to theft of public money and a return to civic morality, without which Democracy, even freedom itself is impossible.

maybe I spoke too soon about Google...

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html

My letter to the CRTC

My letter to the CRTC today:

I've emailed all Members of

I've emailed all Members of Parliament about the net as I hope many of you will also do!

Thanks

Thanks for the education russellmcormond. Good comments all. You too Cappy. You play the ignorant buffoon to a T! Now I can explain to my immigrant mother-in-law why she switched phone providers for "better service and lower prices" but nothing changed. She reads the same rags that you do.

Bwahahahahaaaaaaaa!

If it weren't for the

If it weren't for the Freedom of the Net the Gordo clan would have gotten away with all these criminal deeds against the people of BC, no thanks to CanWest.
Go RCMP Go I'm with you all the way!
Great update and truth site about BC 2003 Legislature Raids
http://houseofinfamy.blogspot.com/
And of course BC Mary's
http://bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com/

QoS

I work for a company currently selling a solution that enables "subscriber-based QoS" to network operators around the world.

Our software has the capability - through technology called "deep packet inspection" (DPI) - to perform layer 4-7 packet inspection identifying headers, footers, protocol, etc.

We use this information to apply a policy on the session that performs the following:
1) blocking of a session (potentially);
2) capping allowable BW available to a subscriber based on their tariff/rate/monthly plan; and
3) guaranteeing a given QoS/BW to the subscriber based on the above information

Net Neutrality is only an issue in the USA as I've seen it. In Germany, a carrier/operator blocked their subscribers from using Skype on their mobile smartphone as their long-distance voice traffic dropped precipitously once they introduced unlimited data plans. Later, Skype approached them for a revenue-sharing deal and now the German operator has a Skype-branded VoIP client available for its mobile phones.

In Asia - most of the operators I speak to (and I've spoken to many of them) want our technology precisely so they can block free P2P technologies like Skype so they don't see their revenues drop. In Europe and Asia, they don't really care about net neutrality. It's only in the USA where Net Neutrality has become a cause.

Despite the fact that I peddle arms for the perceived enemy and will likely be taken to task by some of the folks on this thread, when we sell our solution, our value proposition is that we allow the providers to offer higher-quality service, or better QoS, for a premium. There are lots of customers who would pay more for better service - in fact, we could enable that "bursty" feature someone way up the thread wrote about.

I agree that in principle that carriers/operators should not have the power to block access to sites they don't want their subscribers to visit, eg. Telus with that union site. That's just plain wrong - and we need regulation to ensure that crap like that does not happen. But what if you as a subscriber wanted to control access to a "black list" of websites that you wanted blocked from your 12-year old son/daughter. You should be able to control this, no? Or at the very least, be able to choose to do so, or not.

Net Neutrality is a good thing and a right discussion to have but as we debate, let's ensure that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and go overboard with overly-oppressive measures. . . though based on the apathy and general tech ignorance of Canadians, I don't see that as a threat 8)

I personally believe that main reason why telecoms in Canada are so screwed-up is the complete lack of competition - driven in part by regulation, but mainly by the sheer expense of building-out a robust network of competitive CLECs, ISPs, mobile operators, etc. that can compete. Let's face it, with our geographic distribution and low population density, it's hard to get ROI for a greenfield provider - and harder to achieve scale. Hopefully, however, next-generation technologies like WiMAX - which will drop the price of building, provisioning and servicing very fast wireless broadband service tremendously - will get implemented by some next-generation providers here in Canada and achieve a price-point where they can give the incumbents a run for their money. Such new technologies make for a potent out-of-the-box quadruple play(Voice, data, video and mobile) all on one IP-based network. . .anyone interested in investing?

Adding to the National Debate...

What a great discussion on The Tyee, as always.

A fellow librarian and I are organizing a panel discussion on Net Neutrality to be held in Ottawa on Feb. 6. We'll be making a video of the event available online - not sure where yet but you're welcome to e-mail me (sabina *at* alumni(dot)uwo(dot)ca) if you're interested in watching what transpires. I would gladly send you the link once it's up.

Net Neutrality: A Public Discussion on the Future of the Internet in Canada
February 6, 2007, 7 pm
Admission: Free
Ottawa Public Library Auditorium
120 Metcalfe St.

Moderated by Pippa Lawson, Executive Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa

Panelists:
* Michael Geist: Professor of Law, Research Chair of Internet and E-Commerce Law, University of Ottawa
* Ren Bucholz: Electronic Frontier Foundation Policy Coordinator, Americas
* Andrew Clement: Professor, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto; Principal Investigator, Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking

* Bill St-Arnaud from CANARIE will also be speaking about the proposed construction of a fiber optic network in Ottawa.

Sponsors to date: Ottawa Public Library, Ontario Library Association, Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

I hope some of you can come - I know there are Tyee readers in Ottawa...