Net Neutrality And Creative Freedom (Tim Wu at re:publica 2010) by Anna Lena Schiller (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/7VfazT

Net Neutrality

The CRTC New Media Hearing – What Comes Next?

With the conclusion of the CRTC New Media hearing last week, the Commission will now digest the many hours of testimony and thousands of pages of documents with the goal of reaching a decision on the future of new media exception/regulation later this year (day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). While no one knows what the CRTC will do, this posting contains my best guess.

The hearings highlighted that there are several new media broadcasting platforms and that the potential solutions differ for each. I think three in particular will garner attention – fixed Internet, wireless/mobile Internet, and Internet radio.

March 18, 2009 — 10 comments — News

Storm Clouds Ahead for Canadian Wireless World

Appeared in the Toronto Star on March 9, 2009 as Storm Clouds Ahead for Wireless World Public frustration over the state of the Canadian wireless industry has generally focused on consumer-oriented concerns including pricey data plans, misleading system access fees, and text message charge policies. Given the consumer focus, the […]

March 9, 2009 — Comments are Disabled — Columns Archive

Little New In New Media Hearings

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission new media hearings take a break over the next few days before concluding with a steady stream of appearances by Internet service providers, who are certain to argue next week against the imposition of a new ISP tax to fund the creation of Canadian new media. My technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) this week argues that the break is much needed, as the past two weeks have been huge disappointment with submissions short on specifics, long on rhetoric, and filled with inconsistencies.

While there is plenty of blame to go around, criticism must start with the CRTC, since it set the tone for the hearings with a series of conditions that make little sense. The Commission tried to limit the hearings to "new media broadcasting," explicitly excluding issues such as net neutrality and the potential regulation of user generated and non-commercial content.

Yet each of these distinctions cause the entire new media hearing edifice to crumble.

March 2, 2009 — 6 comments — Columns

Quebecor Opens Door to Canadian Three Strikes Policy

The CRTC's net neutrality hearing submissions have generated several comments that link net neutrality with copyright. As noted yesterday, CIRPA believes that content blocking of P2P sites should be considered. Quebecor, which owns Videotron, a leading Quebec ISP, goes even further. While ISPs in countries such as New Zealand are […]

February 25, 2009 — 65 comments — News

B.C. Government Voices Support for Net Neutrality

I've already discussed noteworthy submissions to the CRTC net neutrality proceeding from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (privacy and DPI), Pelmorex (wireless net neutrality) and Canadian creator groups (P2P for distribution). While the submission from the Open Internet Coalition has attracted some media interest, I think several others deserve attention. Interestingly, the B.C. Government, through Network B.C., has also jumped into the fray. According to their submission (zip file):

Net neutrality should be accepted as the bedrock upon which the Internet rests. Net neutrality also depends heavily on investment in robust and scalable network infrastructure. However, “aggressive traffic shaping” practices contributes little to network infrastructure investment and only leads to a short-term false sense of security that existing and legacy networks can be squeezed to meet future capacity requirements. Further, the use of aggressive traffic shaping practices potentially defers what should be ongoing network upgrade practices thus potentially leading to the need for massive network investments in the future.

February 25, 2009 — 5 comments — News