At the end of December, Bell Canada—Canada’s largest Internet service provider—quietly announced that it would be doing away with its current, long-criticized, peer-to-peer traffic shaping practices as of March 2012. Most of us, whether we know it or not, are well-acquainted with P2P network communication–basically, any exchange that enables data sharing between hardware and software [...]

When CKLN 88.1 FM, Ryerson University’s campus-community radio station, lost its frequency on April 15 after a protracted dispute with the CRTC, it seemed possible that the broadcaster’s 28-year run had come to an end. Now, rather than fold, the station is transitioning to a new phase in its history—but not before shedding a little [...]

It was an evil January night when I got the news that internet prices were about to go way, way up. Many years ago the Big Telecom providers like Bell and Rogers had imposed brutal, expensive usage rate caps into their internet service plans. Now the CRTC had passed a ruling allowing them to impose these usage-based billing (UBB) caps onto independent ISPs across the country.

A 2007 art installation by Iain Baxter&; photo by Mr Kevino from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Whatever the exact opposite of being on a roll is, the CRTC has spent the last month doing just that. Proposing to lower the standards which prohibit false or misleading news didn’t get as much attention as their plan [...]

CKLN’s website, as of this evening. Ryerson-based (but not Ryerson-run) campus-community radio station CKLN, 88.1 FM, has been granted a stay on the CRTC’s recent decision to revoke its broadcasting license, meaning the station will remain on the air until a federal judge can determine whether or not CKLN has grounds to appeal the CRTC’s [...]

Photo by marc falardeau from the Torontoist Flickr pool. Pat yourselves on the back, Canadians. Enjoy the victory—a great one, for sure—but don’t get complacent. This isn’t over yet. That was the message OpenMedia.ca was trying to get across this morning. The victory, for anyone currently living under a rock, is in the fight against [...]

A screen capture of CKLN’s website as of 3 p.m. today. Today the CRTC revoked the broadcasting license of radio station CKLN—an independent community-run radio station located in Ryerson University’s campus (and largely funded by its student union) but not officially affiliated with that institution—citing the station’s failure to comply with federal broadcasting regulations for [...]

Is there a television station less bland than MuchMusic nowadays? Once upon a time, MuchMusic was fresh, low-tech, and spunky. (Yes, we can call the old MuchMusic “spunky” with a straight face. This was a different era, when spunky was actually good.) Okay, we admit that Torontoist has written about MuchMusic sucking previously, so this [...]

Photo by sssteve.o from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. For almost a year and a half now, some of Canada’s major ISPs, including Bell and Rogers, have defended their throttling practices by arguing that excessive BitTorrent traffic is crippling their networks. Open-internet proponents, like Michael Geist, SaveOurNet.ca, and even Google, have questioned the telecoms’ motives and [...]

Photo by –richelle– from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. For more than a year now, Canadian ISPs, net neutrality advocacy groups, and the CRTC have been battling over the issue of internet traffic management. ISPs, like Bell Canada and Rogers, argue that they need to manage their network traffic in order to stop BitTorrent users from [...]

Photo by ~EvidenceE~ from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Listening to the debate between the CRTC and Canada’s major internet service providers (news here, here, and here) during recent public hearings is a bit like overhearing a pair of Luddites discuss how the tiny people in computers make the World Wide Web work. ISPs such as [...]