While Bell and Rogers have attracted much of the Canadian net neutrality attention in recent weeks, a study conducted Vuze, an online video site that uses the BitTorrent protocol, has placed another Canadian provider – Cogeco – in the spotlight. To better track ISP network management techniques, Vuze created a […]
Telecom by yum9me (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/53jSy4
Telecom
“Three Strikes and You’re Out” Policy Strikes Out
The new baseball season is in full swing, yet in recent months the phrase "three strikes and you’re out" has taken on an entirely different meaning on the Internet. My new technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) reports on how, prodded by content lobby groups, a handful of governments have moved toward requiring Internet service providers to terminate subscribers if they engage in file sharing activities on three occasions. The policy – occasionally referred to as "graduated response" – received support last fall from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who pressured the private sector to negotiate an agreement to implement the three strikes system. The policy soon attracted global attention as the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia all announced that they were contemplating a similar approach.
In recent weeks, however, it would appear that governments are beginning to have sober second thoughts. After a Swedish judge recommended adopting the three strikes policy, that country's Ministers of Justice and Culture wrote a public opinion piece setting out their forthcoming policy that explicitly excluded the three strikes model.
Earlier this month, the European Parliament delivered an even stronger rejection.
“Three Strikes and You’re Out” Policy Strikes Out
Appeared in the Toronto Star on April 21, 2008 as A Swing and A Miss for 'Three Strikes' Policy The new baseball season is in full swing, yet in recent months the phrase "three strikes and you’re out" has taken on an entirely different meaning on the Internet. Prodded by […]
Next Net Neutrality Steps at the CRTC
Bell did not waste any time in responding to the Primus net neutrality submission as it has called on the CRTC to reject it. The next steps are fairly clear – CAIP has been given until Monday to respond to the Bell submission. With those submissions in hand, the CRTC […]
Does Bell Really Have a P2P Bandwidth Problem?
Bell filed its response to the CAIP submission to the CRTC on its throttling practices yesterday, unsurprisingly arguing that its actions are justified and that there is no need to deal with the issue on an emergency basis. Several points stand out from the submission including its non-response to the privacy concerns with deep-packet inspection (it merely says that it does not retain or use the data, but does not deny collecting what could easily be interpreted as personally identifiable information) and its inference that P2P usage could be deemed using a connection as a "server" and therefore outside the boundaries of "fair and proportionate use" under typical ISP terms of use.
Most importantly, however, Bell provides data on its network usage that significantly undermines its claim that P2P usage is causing such havoc with its network that throttling measures that impact 100 percent of its (and some of its competitions') users are needed. Bell again reiterates that the "problem" lies with 5 percent of its users that are heavy P2P users. Yet that 5 percent apparently uses 33 percent of available bandwidth during peak periods. That is a disproportionate use to be sure, yet it struck me as far lower than might have been expected.
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