Canada Upholds Net Neutrality Rules In Wireless TV Case 98
An anonymous reader writes Canada's telecom regulator has issued a major new
decision with implications for net neutrality, ruling that
Bell and Videotron violated the Telecommunications Act by granting
their own wireless television services an undue preference by
exempting them from data charges. Michael Geist examines
the decision, noting that the Commission grounded the decision
in net neutrality concerns, stating the Bell and Videotron services
"may end up inhibiting the introduction and growth of other mobile
TV services accessed over the Internet, which reduces innovation and
consumer choice."
Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow. Common sense. Wow.
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Wow. Common sense. Wow.
I think it's indicative on how corrupt our government has become here in the States.
The more money you have here in the States, the larger your voice is with our government.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
The more money you have here in the States, the larger your voice is with our government.
There's a country that has a government where this isn't the case?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it was just demonstrated that Canada isn't totally in the hands of its corporations. (The oil industry notwithstanding because of the current Conservative gov't)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey now, normally the CRTC is as corrupt as they come. This is a group that has been heavily infiltrated by big media, who tried to institute 1996 level data caps, and who's outgoing president whined that the internet is their biggest obstacle to controlling what Canadians watch.
I'm actually somewhat baffled by what seems to be a series of decisions on their part which appear at face value to be in the interests of the Canadian public and not their telecom friends.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
The CRTC isn't corrupt, although they can sometimes get a skewed view of reality. They sometimes give too much weight to incumbent filings or taking on faith that the cost studies submitted by incumbents are accurate.
It's difficult to examine the cost studies, because they're filed under seal, so when Bell files a cost study that defines the tariff rates that independent ISPs have to pay, nobody can challenge the cost study.
Ironically, in one of the rare instances where Bell did expose a small part of one of their cost studies, it was found that they were costing out huge routers and then assuming a tiny usage of them. I think the specific case was Bell would include a 48 Gbps router in their cost study, and then claim that they only used 1Gbps of capacity on it. This meant 48x the cost for that part of the study, letting Bell charge more.
The CRTC did correct Bell's costs for that instance, but that is just the rare public thing we know about. How many other instances of fudging is there in cost studies that nobody ever gets the opportunity to challenge because they're filed in secret?
The independent ISPs have been asking for years to get the right to examine incumbent cost studies and other things that are filed under seal. The indies have proposed restrictions that would protect incumbent privacy, such as nominating a tiny number of people to see the data (such as a lawyer for the indie ISP), and to be under a nondisclosure agreement... the CRTC still hasn't done anything about it though. As a result, incumbent ISPs charge absurdly inflated costs for capacity to indie ISPs. I think Videotron is charging $23 per megabit for capacity on their last-mile network, and that's on top of all the other fees they charge like the cost of the DSL or cable line itself.
Re: Wow (Score:2)
Sounds pretty corrupt to me,
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How is forcing Bell to charge customers more "common sense"?
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
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I don't see what is "fair" about this. Bell built and owns the infrastructure that those packets run over, Netflix does not. Forcing Bell to do things with that infrastructure against their will is no more "fair" than forcing you by law to let my dog defecate in your yard.
Now, you may counter that Bell got their ownership of the hardware through lobbying and other unfair means, and I would agree. But you can't fix the fact that infrastructure is unfairly regulated and uncom
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Bell, Telus, Rogers, an
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They have. That's wrong. But you aren't going to fix that by stacking more arbitrary rules on top of already exiting arbitrary rules.
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Forcing Bell to do things with that infrastructure against their will is no more "fair" than forcing you by law to let my dog defecate in your yard.
How about forcing me by law to let Bell dig up my yard to run cables for their network? Because they do that all the time.
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Few issues:
1. I can only watch what channels I have subscribed to on my satelite. (fair enough)
2. I can only watch what they "let me" watch. Not everything live or anything available.(utter bs)
3. The service is absolute shit. It just doesn't work. The network can't handle it. Most useless "service" I've ever paid for. (most useless app on my phone)
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I imagine it's more likely they'll end up charging everyone less in order to make their service actually usable.
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I doubt it. Their competitive advantage is that they own the towers; their competitive disadvantage is that they know nothing about the online movie delivery business. If they can't take advantage of their strength, they are just going to get out of the business.
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charging everyone less
bwahahaha best joke all day!
What? (Score:3)
The CRTC made a sound and reasonable decision? What Universe is this?
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
It's the Time Machine Quantum Experiment!
They were playing with forces no human being should meddle with!
Reality is unravelling!
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Canada.
A slightly less thoroughly corrupt system than the one to their South.
Is there some correlation between probity and proximity to a pole?
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Still a fucking miracle with Harper and the current CRTC. The major players had a lot of victories in recent years.
Sorry but how is it a miracle? Have you not seen the commercials from the Harper government about changing the wireless industry in favour of the consumers? Did previous governments even attempt to reform the CRTC or how the wireless industry treats consumers? The answer is no so why the anti-harper rhetoric? Previous governments either did nothing to improve the industry for the benefit of consumers or made it worse by appointing industry cronies to the CRTC board. If you want to blame why it was bad, look at previous liberal governments.
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It's a miracle because those commercials are lip-service. There are a bunch of things they could legislate fairly quickly that would force competition in the space, but it's unclear that they're really interested. They're budging a bit because popular opinion is so vociferous, but they're not what I'd call a tech-savvy government. They're decidedly anti-science and they're incredibly secretive. They don't even LIKE the CRTC.
That said, I don't really have a good sense of what the other parties would do. In g
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FYI it's the current governments dislike of the CRTC and them pissing all over consumers by having "golf meetings" with members of the industry that caused the CRTC to think carefully. Especially after the threats to rip away their mandate regarding the internet.
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Besides, we have the government refusing to hold a real probe into the murder rate of Aboriginal women (28 times higher) because it would expose their "tough on crime" stance as all show, no go, and a flawed allocation of resources that could better be used in prevention. And their craptastic treatment of returning veterans with injuries, especially PTSD, which is more along the lines of the Canadian
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What's news-worthy is that, despite releasing these reports, the government refuses to actually do anything about them.
That's not true at all. The current government been undermining Statistics Canada since taking office. Soon the quality of data surrounding these issues will be so poor that they can just say the problem doesn't exist anymore.
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For now. If the current elected bunch had free reign (e.g did not have to face elections) those tea party wannabe would cosy even more to the corporate.
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Give him a little time ... I'm sure they'll come up with something moronic to give the telcos what they want and pretend they're doing something which benefits consumers.
Re:What? (Score:4)
Elections are coming up, that's what. We should have elections every six months, then politicians would always make the right decisions.
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Elections are coming up, that's what. We should have elections every six months, then politicians would always make the right decisions.
Oh man, I'd love to have a six-month election season.
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1. Remove lobbying and all forms of donations since it's bribery. All parties are allocated the same budget for advertising, the only difference is that they each decide how, where and when to spend it as long as it's advertising (movies, TV, radio, print, Web) for themselves and no one else.
2. Make it illegal to talk about the other parties. Tell me what you have done and what you are planning to do instead of shitting on someone else with half-truths.
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All parties are allocated the same budget for advertising, the only difference is that they each decide how, where and when to spend it as long as it's advertising (movies, TV, radio, print, Web) for themselves and no one else.
This would require closing the loophole already in the election funding laws where non-candidate organizations can buy ads. If all it takes to "bribe", I mean "donate" money to a candidate is to pay for ads to support him instead of him paying for them, then you've accomplished nothing except dipping into the taxpayer's pockets to pay for ads.
And if you close THAT loophole, you've essentially eviscerated the first amendment.
Tell me what you have done and what you are planning to do instead of shitting on someone else with half-truths.
So outright lies told by a candidate about himself cannot be countered by facts
Spin (Score:3)
Bell will likely respond:
Sadly we offered a free service to consumers that didn't take up their data caps out of the generosity of our hearts that recently got shut down by government regulations strangling the economic lifeblood out of decent hard working Canadians... Now, because of the government market interference we'll be forced to change now against all your data caps... You can thank your local MP.
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In Athens they had them every day. Well it was more like a vote of confidence and if it failed they would immediately elect someone else.
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Really?
To all intents and purposes, they required the companies involved to take money out of their left hip pocket, and move it to their right hip pocket in the name of net neutrality.
I mean, "we're required to charge ourselves for data usage by us" is a bit bizarre, when all is said and done....
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Bell and Videotron, for example, would like nothing better than to crush Netflix, iTunes, etc and basically force us to use their streaming services instead. This levels the playing field and may actually force them to make the monthly quotas higher if they want people to subscribe to their services.
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And saying that it costs nothing to transmit our bits to our customers but transmitting someone else's bits does cost money is more reasonable?
I guess it's because all of their competitors are still using those old style fat bits that clog up their network, while they themselves are using the new style teflon coated slimmer bits that flow much more readily through the network.
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Given that teh intarweb is made up of tubes, that makes perfect sense.
Thank you, CanadianRealist!
LOL (Score:5, Funny)
But doesn't Canada know that Net Neutrality is going to equal government censorship and all the telcos will immediately stop any infrastructure investments? Verizon, AT&T and Comcast said so and they would never lie about anything like that.
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How the fuck is that comment insightful? Verizon, AT&T and Comcast have Slashdot accounts with good karma? What the hell is this?
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Perhaps your ability to detect sarcasm needs some adjustment?
Or ... whoosh!
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I saw the sarcasm in the comment itself, but a sarcastic moderation? That doesn't help anyone.
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It may come as a surprise to you .... but well used sarcasm can be insightful.
Sorry you don't feel you were consulted, but that's been true for a VERY long time.
You don't have to like it, but you should probably get over it.
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Aspergers man says what?
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Nice hyperbole, but the effect of this decision is simple and obvious: wireless providers will continue charge all wireless video towards your data plan. Since that uses data up much too fast, you will effectively not be able to watch movies wirelessly at all. What a great victory for network neutrality. Aren't you proud of yourself.
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I agree. The public statements made by those very companies saying that are hyperbolic. It was almost as if my post was lampooning the absurdity. Naaah, that couldn't possibly have been it.
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Apparently, being a buffoon is all you are capable of; rational arguments are evidently beyond your intellectual abilities.
Re:LOL (Score:4, Informative)
Now, let's take the contrary to your position:
The wireless provider is no longer allowed to treat their own subscription offering as being different from, say, Netflix by pretending data which they're sending you is magically different than any other data -- which prevents them from undercutting other services by making those services artificially more expensive.
This basically allowed them to make competition obsolete by giving themselves an exemption, and treat their data packets as special.
This didn't help consumers, or competition ... it helped them get an unfair leg up because they own the network and could cheat.
Do you think people are well served when a company can undercut competition by rigging the system?
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So if you sold cellular data service, you wouldn't be able to also sell a video streaming service. That's how electricity and natural gas is sold in most places.
I'm sorry, what? I've never lived anyplace where the electric or gas companies didn't maintain the delivery infrastructure and sell the electricity or gas it carried. Most places?
The closest I've seen is where the electric company will allow you to pay MORE for electricity that is provided by another company over their wires. In Oregon, we have three or four "greener" energy providers you can select, and every one of them costs more. Competition? Ha.
Now, there is a "public" utility south of here that doe
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Yes, it's easily prevented, but there is a cost. Let's say I have enough money to buy a car while you don't. As a result, there are lots of business and job opportunities open to me that aren't open to you. Your solution to this "unfair" situation is to prohibit individual car ownership altogether and force everybody to use government-regulated taxi services, a
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That should have been: "but if they continue to use proprietary internal protocols for voice, video conferencing, and TV delivery" ...
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But it is different, and there is no magic about it either: their own data only flows over their own wires, they can cache that data close to the customer that wants it, and they don't have to pay peering costs for it.
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So we'll see innovation in other places.
Take Plex for example. When I'm at home, on the wifi my plex client on my android phone downloads any subscribed content from my server. Then I have it in local storage till I watch it, when it's deleted.
Way better then over the LTE anyways, fewer dropouts. Sometimes adversity breeds innovation.
Min
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How nice that you are such a wealthy and privileged person that you can afford to have a home Internet connection plus a mobile connection. However, for many people, $5/month TV streaming over their mobile means that they can seriously consider dropping their $60/month wired Internet connection altogether.
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Re: LOL (Score:2)
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That's a nice offer, but we've aware that Sarah Palin lives there.
So thanks, but no thanks.
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What do you mean, we "took"? Céline Dion was born in Québec, which last time I checked is part of Canada.
Re:Puerto Rico first on list for statehood (Score:4, Funny)
What do you mean, we "took"? Céline Dion was born in Québec, which last time I checked is part of Canada.
And as a Canadian, I can assure you that those of us north of the US border are quite happy with how it worked out. Really. You can keep Celine Dion and Justin Beiber as long as you want ...
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Careful. We want them kept south of the border longer than Americans want... :P
Great for Canada (Score:3)
Down south here, our chief regulation of the ISP's, the head of the FCC - also the former CEO of the Cable Lobbying Organization as well as former CEO of the Wireless Lobbying Org appointed by President Obama - just announced that we'd have net nuetrality down here but the companies could pay each other for faster access, but this would be okay cause they could ask the FCC to look at the prices...with big strong guys like the former head of the Cable Lobbying Organization in charge of the FCC, what's to worry?
Re:Great for Canada (Score:5, Informative)
Trust me, we're quite jealous of what the FCC does down there as well - for we're often screwed up here.
For example - take cable services - we're required to buy a set top box from the provider - provided through the provider or a reseller, and that box cannot be moved to another provider even if they use the same equipment. Effectively, we're forced to buy equipment we can only use with the provider. We can't buy used equipment (except if it was originally sold by the provider), so no going to the US to buy cheap boxes, no going to another province, etc. Your box is locked to the provider, no one else in Canada will activate it. And if your box doesn't match any serial number the provider bought, they won't activate it either.
This includes stuff like broadband modems for internet too - if you're not happy with the cable modem your provider gives you, too f'in bad - you can't buy a different one because they won't activate it.
And it's only been a few years now that we've had cellphone number portability, and only within the last year that 3 year cellphone contracts have been eliminated, providers have to provide unlock codes for SIM locked phones, and no more surprise roaming charges and other stuff.
So for this one ruling, Canada's still a place where the telecommunications firms rule. Your FCC does a lot right in comparison.
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Mod +9000 informative but sad truth.
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Videotron (in Quebec) will give you a discount if you bring your own modem.
Let's take this further (Score:1)
But how is this any less fair than Rogers (and I'm sure Bell) who is currently offering discounts for customers who sign-up for multiple services including internet, home phone, and cable?
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Because one is about net neutrality and the other is about the bundling of services with rebates that are probably borderline illegal.
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If Bell/etc had to explain, with accounting proof, why two services alone each cost 50$ but the two of them bundled together cost only 60$, I'm pretty sure something illegal would be found somewhere.
Precisely what AT&T did with their UVERSE IPTV (Score:2)
They exempted the UVERSE TV data the customer used from their data caps and overages, while charging hefty overages for any other usage, whether web browsing, Netflix or Amazon instant video traffic. Or any other kind of traffic.
The exact definition of non-Net Neutrality.
LTE Multicast (Score:3)
I believe "Bell Mobile TV" was a unicast IP service, but we know that Verizon and AT&T are planning roll-outs of LTE Multicast [lightreading.com] in the US, which is a very different beast.
Would it still be against "net neutrality" to allow carriers to serve up specially priced content on LTE Multicast, or would they have to make LTE Multicast available to all content providers equally? And how does one actually do that (given that the Internet, in general, has failed miserably at getting "general access" multicast routing to work)?