Results tagged “crtc”

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 asked the CRTC to step in and stop throttling. Geist further argues that throttling, high prices, and slow speeds, are reducing Canada’s competitiveness in the new digital economy. Today, a report released by the OECD on broadband growth and distribution, revealed that Canada’s broadband services are among the slowest and the most expensive in the developed world. In terms of price per megabyte, Canada ranks twenty-eighth overall, just ahead of Mexico and Poland. With the CRTC’s July traffic-management hearings fast approaching, net-neutrality advocates are working overtime to spread awareness of the issues and rally Canadians behind their cause.

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 hogging all the bandwidth; net neutrality advocacy groups, on the other side of the issue, believe that the ISPs should treat all internet traffic equally, with the limited exceptions of viruses and spam. Groups like SaveOurNet.ca also argue that Canadian ISPs are inflating the issue in order to gain the leverage necessary to create a lucrative tiered internet service, so that they can charge Canadians more for their access. Finally, somewhere in the middle, the CRTC has been listening to both sides of the argument.

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 Rogers and Bell continue to argue they provide nothing more than a “dumb pipe” through which web content imperceptibly flows (even though they’ve been “smart” enough to throttle BitTorrent downloads on smaller ISPs such as TekSavvy) and shouldn't therefore be expected to provide funds for the promotion of Canadian culture online.

For a year now, several of Canada's ISPs, including Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, and a few others, have been throttling BitTorrent transfers, frustrating subscribers and internet wholesalers like TekSavvy. Two weeks ago, we noted that the CRTC was investigating the throttling practices of Canada's ISPs, and while the formal hearings won’t begin until July 6, 2009, the commission's deadline for public submissions is only two days away. So far, if February is any indication, it looks like the net neutrality crowd is winning the media campaign. Last week, the major ISPs undermined their position when they released statistics to the CRTC that showed that the growth in total internet traffic volume declined in Canada between July 2005 and August 2007. These statistics raise an important question: if network traffic growth is slowing down, then why are network management policies necessary all of a sudden? More likely than not, certain ISPs are choosing to slow down access to the forms of media they either sell, or hope to sell. It's not a coincidence that Telus, who has shown little interest in online media, doesn't throttle its customers.

Last week, Google and Measurement Lab introduced a new web application called Glasnost that allows users to test the extent to which their ISP throttles or blocks their BitTorrent traffic. According to the statistics currently available on their site, Canada is one of the worst throttlers in the world—Canada ranks fourth for blocked hosts and second for blocked ISPs. All of the major Canadian ISPs admit to traffic shaping, but whether it’s necessary is difficult to determine as none of the providers are willing to publicly release their data. Glasnost’s timing couldn’t be better—in addition to providing much needed transparency, the data should also assist CRTC in its current investigation of traffic management policies.

Like it or not, big bad Rogers will be the exclusive provider of Apple's beautiful and magnificent and world-changing iPhone, and as each week goes by it's getting harder and harder to mitigate disgust for the former with adoration for the latter.

Latest transit update from the Torontoist Action News Team Live Info Centre, Your Only Source For All TTC Strike News: if you're a regular TTC rider, GO Transit doesn't want you. A spokesperson for GO has advised that that they're already operating at capacity with their regular passenger load, and don't plan to run any additional buses or trains in the event of a TTC strike.