Net neutrality in Canada

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Net neutrality in Canada is a hotly debated issue. In Canada, Internet service providers (ISPs) generally provide Internet service in a neutral manner, some notable exceptions being Bell Canada's, Eastlink's, Shaw, and Rogers Hi-Speed Internet's throttling of certain protocols and Telus' censorship of a specific website critical of the company.

History of net neutrality in Canada

In 2005, when Telus blocked access to labour union blogs during an employee strike, the question of net neutrality became more prominent.^[1]

In March 2006, the federal government updated the Telecommunications Policy Objectives and Regulation with new objectives to focus on three broad goals:

• promoting affordable access to advanced telecommunications services in all regions of Canada, including urban, rural and remote areas
• enhancing the efficiency of Canadian telecommunications markets and the productivity of the Canadian economy
• enhancing the social well-being of Canadians and the inclusiveness of Canadian society by meeting the needs of the disabled, enhancing public safety and security, protecting personal privacy and limiting public nuisance through telecommunications networks.^[2]

In November 2008, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) scheduled a review of the Internet traffic management of ISPs and is still in the review process. The CRTC took comments from the public until Monday, February 23, 2009.^[3]

Types of net control

Bandwidth throttling

Typically an ISP will allocate a certain portion of bandwidth to a neighbourhood, which is then sold to residents within the neighbourhood. It is common practice for ISP companies to oversell the amount of bandwidth as typically most customers will only use a fraction of what they're allotted.^[4] By overselling, ISP companies can lower the price of service to their customers per gigabit allotted. On some ISPs, however, when one or a few customers use a larger amount than expected, the ISP company will purposely reduce the speed of that customer's service for certain protocols,^[5] thus throttling their bandwidth. This is done through a method called Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), which allows an ISP to detect the type of traffic being sent and throttle it if it is not high priority and using a large fraction of the bandwidth.^[6] Bandwidth throttling of certain types of traffic (i.e. peer-to-peer file sharing) can be scheduled during specific times of the day to avoid congestion at peak usage hours. As a result, customers should all have equal Internet speeds.^[7]

Encrypted data may be throttled or filtered causing major problems for businesses that use Virtual Private Networks (VPN)s and other applications that send and receive encrypted data.^[8]

IP blocking

IP blocking by an ISP company is purposely preventing its Internet service customers access to a specific website or IP address. In Canada, certain ISP companies have been found to block certain websites. While some blocking (e.g., of child pornography sites) is considered acceptable or required^[9] and is even stated in an ISP company's acceptable Internet use policy,^[10] ISP companies have absolute control over the content transmitted over their wires, without adequately informing service subscribers,^[11]

Cases of Net neutrality

Telus vs. Telecommunications Workers Union

In July 2005, while its union workers were striking, Telus blocked its subscribers access to 'Voices for Change'—a community website run by and for Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) members.^[12] Telus claimed that the site suggested striking workers to jam Telus phone lines, and posted pictures of employees crossing the union picket lines. A Telus spokesperson said advocating jamming lines hurts the company (and its customers), and access to those kinds of pictures threatened the privacy and safety of employees.

Telus said in news release that it would unblock access to the website only when all postings, including photographs, posted with the intent of intimidating or threatening Telus employees had been removed as ordered in an Alberta court injunction.^[13]

Bell Canada traffic shaping

On April 3, 2008, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) requested that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) require Bell Canada to immediately cease its traffic shaping and Internet traffic throttling.^[14][15] On November 20, 2008, the CRTC ruled that Bell's traffic shaping was not discriminatory, as they were applied to both wholesale and retail customers. The CRTC also called for public to ensure that network management practices are administered fairly in the future.^[16]

Current legal status

On May 28, 2008, the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) introduced a private member's bill, C-552,^[17] to the House of Commons that would entrench the principle of "net neutrality" and enact rules to keep the Internet free from interference by service providers.^[18] This bill died on the order paper at 1st reading on September 7, 2008, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked the Governor-General for the dissolution of the 39th Session of Parliament.

On June 8, 2008, a private member's bill, C-555,^[19] entitled "The Telecommunications Clarity and Fairness Act" was introduced by Liberal MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South) that sought to undertake, among other things, "an assessment of network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any packet transmitted over a broadband network based on source, ownership or destination". Like the NDP bill, this proposed legislation fell after the 39th Parliament was dissolved by the Governor General.

A new decision on January 25, 2011, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled that usage-based billing could now be introduced.^[20] Prime Minister Harper signaled that the government may be looking into such a ruling: "We're very concerned about CRTC's decision on usage-based billing and its impact on consumers. I've asked for a review of the decision".^[21] Some have suggested that this adversely affects net neutrality, since it discriminates against media that is larger in size, such as audio and video.^[22] The new ruling significantly throttles the availability of access by small business owners as they would have to pay for services.

Arguments for and against

Proponents

Wholesale Internet Service Providers TekSavvy Solutions Inc., Velcom, Acanac Inc. argue that throttling by Bell Canada at the ISP level makes it difficult to differentiate their services against Bell Canada, concerning issues about Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and security, and the quality of service.^[23] According to TekSavvy Solutions Inc., Bell Canada’s congestion report to the CRTC shows that the “data suggests no congestion problems for at least 95 percent of the network in Ontario and Quebec.”^[24] Wholesale ISPs do not throttle bandwidth,^[25] but since wholesalers do not have a full network infrastructure, they rely on Bell Canada’s network for the last stretch of cabling to customers. When Bell Canada receives packets on the network, it may be throttled, slowing down the connection between the wholesale ISP and the customer.

TekSavvy Solutions Inc. and Velcom support MLPPP which circumvents Bell Canada's throttling.^[26]

Content providers Yahoo! and Microsoft argue that net neutrality law is necessary because without such a law ISPs will destroy the free and open nature of the Internet and also create a tiered, dollar-driven net that favours the wealthiest corporations over everyone else.^[27]

Michael Geist has been writing about net neutrality in The Toronto Star. When he had an interview with CARTT.CA, he said that "from a policy and law perspective, we ought to be thinking about what kind of rules the government might consider to help facilitate some of that."^[28]

Opponents

A spokeswoman for Bell Canada, Jacqueline Michelis said "Our position on network diversity/neutrality is that it should be determined by market forces, not regulation"^[29] in an e-mail to The Canadian Press.

Political parties

The federal NDP has been a vocal advocate of the principles behind net neutrality, with MP Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay) whose role of digital spokesperson^[30] for his party has drawn attention to this and other related issues, such as copyright reform. Mr. Angus has raised this issue many times in the House of Commons and in committee.

On June 18, 2009, federal Liberal Party MP Marc Garneau (Westmount—Ville-Marie), the Official Opposition critic for Industry, Science and Technology,^[31] declared Liberal support for Network Neutrality during Question Period by asking the Conservative Government to do the same.^[32] Until this point, the Liberals had been mostly silent on the issue.^[33]

As of June 18, 2009, the ruling federal Conservative Party under Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest) remains non-committal, contending that free market competition is more favourable than regulation.^[34]

While the current position of the Bloc Québecois remains unclear, former Bloc MP Paul Crête (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup) has come out in support of net neutrality.^[35]

The Green Party of Canada states its support for net neutrality in its policy statement.^[36]

References

External links

• Open Source Documentary on Net Neutrality
• Net Neutrality
• Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
• Tomato/MLPPP