News

Deadline Nears to Speak Out on Net Neutrality

The CRTC's net neutrality hearings (aka "review of Internet traffic management practices by ISPs") is still months away, but a critically important deadline arrives in only a matter of days.  The hearings themselves begin on July 6th, but the deadline for public comment submissions is Monday, February 16th. UPDATE: The CRTC has just agreed to an extension for comment to Monday, February 23rd.  The CRTC has set out a series of questions in its public notice, some of which may be too technical or legal for many Canadians.  However, there are some key questions that anyone with an interest in net neutrality can address including questions about how network management could result in unjust discrimination or undue preferences as well as how network management could result in controlling content or influencing telecommunications.  Moreover, the CRTC asks about net neutrality developments in other jurisdictions and how they might apply in a Canadian context.

There will no doubt be many players on both sides of the issue who will respond, but it is very important for the broader public to make their voices heard.  Indeed, a strong response will send a signal to the CRTC about the public concern with net neutrality and serve as a warning to Canada's politicians that they will have to step up to address the issue if the CRTC is unwilling to do so. To learn more, you can read my columns on the issue (here, here, here, and here), see what the ISPs say they are doing, listen to a great podcast on the issue from CBC's Search Engine, read about the Angus net neutrality bill, or check out saveournet.ca or neutrality.ca.

How to respond?  SaveOurNet.ca has a form that people can use along with some other action items.  Alternatively, send your comment on net neutrality directly to the CRTC.  Go to the CRTC's Intervention page, scroll to the very bottom where you will find pt2008-19, the number of the net neutrality proceeding.  Click on the bottom on the left and the CRTC will give you the opportunity to file comments within your browser or as an attachment.  Either way, time is limited so make your voice heard today.

10 Comments

  1. CRTC site isn’t working. ASPX? I guess CRTC isn’t about innovation.
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    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

    Source Error:

    An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

    Stack Trace:

  2. Send this to others..
    People should comment and also forward Michael’s link on to others..

    If you do digg, help spread it that way:
    http://digg.com/tech_news/Deadline_Nears_to_Speak_Out_on_CRTCs_Net_Neutrality_Hearing

    -Brian

  3. (hm) headmine says:

    When our internet service providers
    cripple new technologies that threaten their narrow corporate goals,
    they are preventing us from experimenting
    with profound new ways of organizing and understanding our electronic culture.

    This is not a debate about network congestion
    (which is how the CRTC has framed the discussions)
    This is about the shape of our culture
    and what it means to live in a networked society.

    http://www.headmine.net/maybe/post/1327

  4. Northern_Lights says:

    Online Consultation
    Although the deadline for formal submissions is coming up soon, that isn’t the last opportunity for Canadians to speak their mind. The CRTC had also announced an online consultation that will be taking place before the hearing. My assumption is that it will be similar to the consultation that took place for the New Media hearing, where people can write their thoughts and other users can voice their opinions on the subjects raised. This will be another good place to make yourself heard. I don’t think they’ve announced a firm date yet, but I suspect it will be launched in March sometime. This consultation is referred to in the original notice in pargraph 15: http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2008/pt2008-19.htm

  5. Canuck Business says:

    its very simple
    use me as an example i have 40 server clients OUTSIDE Canada because to do so with the big monopolies costs me ten times what i pay outside of Canada.

    Look to me to target this market as i go, and watch as businesses fall to me and my foreign ISP because Canadian business is being gouged.
    Example 100 megabit web server cost to me 26 Canadian
    Best i can get even with net neutral TSI due to bell Canada back end and costs, is 250$ and its a 50 megabit server, with such strict terms a service and use that it becomes very very unusable.

    Oh and i am growing in size at a weekly growth rate of 3 to 5 clients, at a profit of 15 euro per client /month.
    instead a Canada i use Europe and you do not need ot host in Canada to be seen in Canada.

  6. I tried to be a good citizen on the CRTC’s intervention page and after grinding my way through it, ended up with an “exception”. Have they intentionally made this bureaucratic and unfriendly? We’re letting folks who can’t run a web site make these decisions?

  7. What’s the point?
    We all know the CRTC will just do what the highest bidder (usually Bell) wants anyway, so any lobbying efforts will probably be better directed towards Bell’s executive in the form of boycott threats, etc.

  8. @ Irving
    Lack of sufficiency is not an argument against the necessary.

    And you can always CC Bell Canada with your submission or vice versa.

  9. Democracy vs CENSORSHIP
    I am OUTRAGED by all this! We are going to be FURTHER banned by CRTC regulations and the result will be: All content on our computers.. filtered by our internet providers.. chock full of only Canadian Content with limited access to the “net” outside our country. What good is the “internet”.. if we are being CENSORED. Is this a Communist country? I think our forefathers spent a lot of blood sweat and tears to prevent this kind of censorship and banning (equivalent to what was going on in their countries that they smartly left.. to be free).

    I am all for supporting our Canadian Artists (the artists I support will be the good ones).. but hey!.. Lookout for the banning of what we choose to read and visit on the net. It is tantamount to book burning in my point of view. Our Canadian artists should not be afraid of competing with any artist from any country… (or should they?) And we should NOT be ‘handholding’ these people. What ends up happening here is that only Canadians will see the Canadian artists work (and no way to compare how good they are – just ram it down our throats, telling us they are good, that is the way it is, and that is final). Seems to me like that is a bit backwards. We need more openness, more competition. A big wide world to be famous in. Why CENSOR? I would hope that Canadians want to compete globally..(?).. and we would like to watch, globally. Compare globally. The cream rises to the top naturally. Let’s not be afraid of some global competition.

    I am wondering what measures we can take in this new century (hey- we are nine years into it already people) that may help fellow Canadians to be free to enjoy online viewing like other free countries around the world. Come on CRTC and Canadian Content – Step up to a new century and a new generation. The law has done it’s job and we are now a GLOBAL world. Let us enjoy our freedoms.

    What can we do about this??
    Can we get some people to lobby somewhere??? Or are we all going to get steamrolled into it just happening without someone speaking out about it!!

    I agree with the above comment that the CRTC made the way to comment bureaucratic and unfriendly. That is what happened last time the CanCon laws were visited. That is why we were steamrolled.. because it was too difficult to respond and complain and comment.

    Some comments and some HUGE interest to the point of writing.. lobbying.. calling.. would be appreciated. Let’s get on SaveOurNet.ca and voice our opinion. I hope I am not the only one here with this point of view. We need to back up our words by actions and not be complacent.

    Canada is a democracy.

  10. CTRC website did not process my comment and I tried multiple times
    My comment that I tried to post:
    The Internet should be a free domain not limited by censorship in any way shape or form. To do so by imposing censorship, whether it is bandwidth throttling for certain types of content or applications or actually limiting what a Canadian Internet user can access, is a form of oppression to the Canadian public. An analogy would be the government only allowing you to leave your house and go to a select “approved” location instead of going anywhere you wish or only allowing you to leave the house if you are planning on buying groceries but not if you plan on attending a public protest.
    It should be every Canadian’s right to visit any webpage in the world without any restrictions as to speed of downloading the content on the website/server or censorship of that website/server. This is freedom of expression and freedom to view people’s expression. To censor and limit the Internet would be putting power of information into the hands of the censors and that is something that we must not and can not allow.

    Thank you for your time.

    The server error on the CRTC site:
    Server Error in ‘/RapidsCIN’ Application.
    ——————————————————————————–

    Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

    Source Error:

    An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

    Stack Trace:

    [NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]
    CINWeb.CinWebForm.loadConfirm() in ssqld.corp.crtc.gc.cawwwroot$RapidsCINWeb2008Newdefault.aspx.vb:612
    CINWeb.CinWebForm.Button_frm6_1_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) in ssqld.corp.crtc.gc.cawwwroot$RapidsCINWeb2008Newdefault.aspx.vb:1172
    System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e) +108
    System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) +57
    System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) +18
    System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(NameValueCollection postData) +33
    System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +1292

    ——————————————————————————–
    Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2407; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2407