Industry Minister Tony Clement has confirmed that the government intends to overturn the CRTC’s usage based billing decision.  In a twitter exchange with CBC reporter Rosemary Barton, Clement was asked “is it true you will overturn internet decision if CRTC does not back down?”.  Clement responded “True. CRTC must go […]

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Yesterday was a remarkable day for those following the usage based billing and bandwidth cap issue. In the span of 24 hours, an unlikely political consensus emerged that left little doubt that – at a minimum – the CRTC’s UBB decision will be reconsidered.  Prime Minister Harper expressed his concern with the decision, Industry Minister Tony Clement hinted at overturning the decision, and both the Liberals and NDP expressed strong support for overturning the decision. Groups like the Canadian Network Operators Consortium, which represent dozens of independent ISPs, wrote to Clement to call for cabinet to reconsider all the CRTC’s UBB decisions and even the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses wrote to express its concern about the impact on Canadian small businesses.  An Industry Committee hearing on UBB will apparently begin on Thursday.

With Clement indicating that a decision will be forthcoming by March 1st, there is just one month for cabinet to address the issue.  So what comes next?

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