Net Neutrality: April 2008 Archives
I'm pleased to see that the subject of Net Neutrality in Canada is continuing to stimulate discussion and that the media is paying attention.
The CTV evening news had a segment on the subject this evening they called "Point, Click and Wait". The report described how Bell and Rogers have been shaping Internet traffic. A Bell spokesman indicated that left unchecked that the heavier users of the Internet would adversely affect the performance of all their customers and that they believe that would be unfair.
In my view, it has nothing at all to do with a concern for fairness. The real issue is that Service Providers have been raking in big profits for years from Internet users who were not using anywhere near the bandwidth capacity that they had been sold. The growth of bandwidth intensive applications did not happen overnight. Had the service providers been conducting proper capacity planning and reinvesting in the infrastructure there would be no concerns about congestion.
Let's hope that Canadians keep up the pressure on regulators and service providers to change their tactics. If allowed to continue its just a matter of time before service providers give preferential treatment to traffic that is in competition with their own services. If that happens, it will stifle innovation and competition (Bell's shaping of their ISP customers' traffic has already, in effect, negatively impacted competition) and will put Canadians at a disadvantage relative to other countries.
NOTE:
Net Neutrality is a term that describes the concept that all network traffic traveling over the Internet is treated equally. A lack of neutrality indicates that some traffic may be expedited or given other preferential treatment relative to other types of traffic. Another form of lack of Net Neutrality would be when a service provider does not hinder the routing of a particular traffic-type for an additional cost (Shaw has already used that tactic).
Stumble It!
The CTV evening news had a segment on the subject this evening they called "Point, Click and Wait". The report described how Bell and Rogers have been shaping Internet traffic. A Bell spokesman indicated that left unchecked that the heavier users of the Internet would adversely affect the performance of all their customers and that they believe that would be unfair.
In my view, it has nothing at all to do with a concern for fairness. The real issue is that Service Providers have been raking in big profits for years from Internet users who were not using anywhere near the bandwidth capacity that they had been sold. The growth of bandwidth intensive applications did not happen overnight. Had the service providers been conducting proper capacity planning and reinvesting in the infrastructure there would be no concerns about congestion.
Let's hope that Canadians keep up the pressure on regulators and service providers to change their tactics. If allowed to continue its just a matter of time before service providers give preferential treatment to traffic that is in competition with their own services. If that happens, it will stifle innovation and competition (Bell's shaping of their ISP customers' traffic has already, in effect, negatively impacted competition) and will put Canadians at a disadvantage relative to other countries.
NOTE:
Net Neutrality is a term that describes the concept that all network traffic traveling over the Internet is treated equally. A lack of neutrality indicates that some traffic may be expedited or given other preferential treatment relative to other types of traffic. Another form of lack of Net Neutrality would be when a service provider does not hinder the routing of a particular traffic-type for an additional cost (Shaw has already used that tactic).
Stumble It!
