Michael Geist

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The Government’s Review of Usage Based Billing: What Should Come Next

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?

February 2, 2011 — 34 comments — News

Angus Calls for Hearings on CRTC Broadcasting False News Change

NDP MP Charlie Angus has put forward a motion at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage calling for hearings on the CRTC’s proposed change to the broadcasting false news prohibition.

February 2, 2011 — 13 comments — News

Canadian Federation of Students Releases C-32 Position Paper

The Canadian Federation of Students has issued a comprehensive position paper on Bill C-32. It calls for the adoption of a flexible fair dealing provision and raises questions about the inclusion of the digital lock rules. At a minimum, it calls for a link between circumvention and an infringing purpose […]

February 2, 2011 — Comments are Disabled — News

Independent ISPs Speak out on UBB

The Canadian Network Operators Consortium, which represents dozens of independent ISPs, have written to Industry Minister Tony Clement to ask the government to refer the CRTC’s UBB decision back to the Commission for review. The letter notes: Under section 12 of the Telecommunications Act, the Governor in Council can within […]

February 1, 2011 — 3 comments — News

Unpacking The Policy Issues Behind Bandwidth Caps & Usage Based Billing

Over the past few weeks, public interest and concern with Internet bandwidth caps has hit a fever pitch as new ISP policies (Shaw and Primus announcing caps) and the CRTC decision on usage based billing has taken the issue to the mainstream – CBC’s the National covered it, George Stroumboulopoulos discussed it, CBC’s Spark talked to several players on the issue, the Globe has highlighted business concerns with bandwidth caps, and there have been numerous op-eds and media articles on the issue.

The Stop the Meter Internet petition now has over 200,000 signatories and is growing fast, which may help explain why UBB has emerged as a political hot potato. The NDP was the first to raise it as a political issue, followed yesterday by a response from Industry Minister Tony Clement (who promised to study the decision carefully “to ensure that competition, innovation, and consumers were all fairly considered”) and the Liberals, who called on the government to reverse the CRTC decision.

Yet despite the obvious anger over the issue, there remains a considerable amount of misinformation about what has happened and uncertainty about just what to do about it. This post attempts to unpack the issue, by discussing two related but not identical concerns – the recent CRTC UBB decision and the broader use of bandwidth caps by virtually all large Canadian ISPs.

February 1, 2011 — 98 comments — News