Being Buff: Marketing the social economy

In my last post I encouraged people to get involved in the upcoming CRTC hearings into net throttling by big Internet service providers. So, wouldn’t it be cool to have a tool that told you whether your provider is throttling you? Well, thanks to none other than Google there is now such a tool. Jesse Brown of the great CBC podcast, Search Engine, reported in a recent episode that Google had partnered with a small group of academics to, according to Google’s blog post, "advance network research and provide users with tools to test their broadband connections". The result is Measurement Lab that provides three tools that allow Internet users to do just that. One of them, called Glastnost, tests whether your Internet provider is blocking or throttling BitTorrent. People use BitTorrent to download things like movies and TV programs and is one of the programs that Bell Canada cites as part of its justification for throttling. Bell says that BitTorrent users slow things down for everyone else – a claim that is hotly disputed. (Jesse covered this on recent Search Engine episode).

So, go ahead and put your provider to the test – and tell the CRTC what you think about it.

Posted in CRTC, Net Neutrality | No Comments »

Just read a post on Slashdot that raised a scary angle to Bell’s throttling, (i.e. slowing down), of Internet speed to people using file sharing software like Bittorrent – including CBC’s distribution of its program Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister via the software. It said: “It seems rather convenient that Bell, who own a shit load of TV stations across the country, happen to be messing with CBC, their competition…”

“Goldberg’s Pants”, who wrote the post, could be on to something. Bell’s parent company, BCE, owns 15% of CTVglobemedia which owns CTV. CTV Inc. owns and operates 27 conventional TV stations across the country, with interests in 35 specialty channels, including Canada’s #1 specialty channel, TSN (Perhaps they’ll need to create a new penalty on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada just for Bell: a game misconduct for “Throttling”). CTVglobemedia also owns the CHUM Radio Division, which operates 35 radio stations throughout Canada, including CHUM FM (Mmm…I think it’s time to set up a Google Alert for “Bell + throttle + CBC radio”).

What the post doesn’t mention is that the throttling policy comes just after the recent CRTC approval of the sale of BCE to private interests….Now, it’s not clear if there’s any connection but one thing is clear: net neutrality, as Michael Geist recently wrote, may now finally become a central issue for Canadians. The folks at the Campaign for Democratic Media aren’t leaving this to chance however. They’re spearheading a campaign to get Canada to adopt legislation to stop Bell Canada from throttling – and I’m signing up.

Posted in CRTC, Mainstream media, Net Neutrality | No Comments »

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) today issued a press release asking the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to investigate “traffic shaping” by Bell Canada. NUPGE found that Bell is planning on “throttling” Internet access for people using file sharing software like Bit Torrent during peak hours. It’s not 100% clear what they mean by “throttling” except it sure as hell doesn’t mean “speed up”.

This is huge. This is exactly what the folks on the left who have been arguing for net neutrality have been saying was going to happen. I laid out my understanding of the net neutrality debate in a previous post. Here’s the meat of it:

The Left says: it’s about the big telco and cable companies wanting to make even more money by giving fast service to those who pay and slow service to those who don’t.

The Right says: it’s about companies like Google using the cloak of internet freedom to get free access to the telco and cable company networks to make loads of cash.

I guess the left wins that debate and I fully support their position which is laid out beautifully in this video from the group Savetheinternet.

The NUPGE release includes a link to their recent report The Internet: accessibility and net neutrality. I encourage everyone to read this and to input to the CRTC public hearings on net regulation which will be happening this year. Subscribe to the CRTC newsfeed to find out when.

Posted in CRTC, Net Neutrality, Regulation | No Comments »